Advice for next time....

hmmm... IMO, the background texture makes the body typeface somewhat difficult to read.

I think the background texture blends too much with the book covers colours and therefore drowns them out. It needs a darkish background colour to make them stand out more. Plus 'Book one' and 'book two' are unreadable.

fireluxlou said:

I think the background texture blends too much with the book covers colours and therefore drowns them out. It needs a darkish background colour to make them stand out more.

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That too.

Sometimes, I feel like bg textures are unnecessary. More often than not, a solid color will suffice.

thebloodfiend said:

That too.

Sometimes, I feel like bg textures are unnecessary. More often than not, a solid color will suffice.

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I think the texture is nice it gives atmosphere to it, what I meant really is if it was a plain block of colour it wouldn't be as attractive for an advertisement. Keep the texture just change the colour really to like a deep blue maybe and maybe adjust the transparency... I'm assuming it was done in Photoshop.

There's nothing about this that screams amateur to me. There are a few aesthetic choices I would have done differently such as the way the quoted text is staggered, and the color temperature contrasts, but that means very little overall.

I think it looks very nice. I hope it brings you a lot of new readers, Emily!

Agree with the previous about the texture, etc. "Also Book One:" and "Book two" text are lost--I don't think the repeating of the titles helps much... since they should be apparent on the actual books.

Also because it's a relatively a small bit of text--the text on the right could be adjusted to not have long rivers in it. (From the end of Xeras's straight down to the top of Dragons. And from "away" to straight down to the end. As well as the huge river from the end of acerbic straight down to the before and after lips.) It would take some fussing, but for a small thing like this, I think it's worth it.

Despite that, the devil is in the details and it is a good job overall.

I think the titles are too big and the symbols accompanying them are too. That takes away from your description text which is small and could be blended in better to be more readable.

Do like the colors and fonts chosen.

While I agree about some of the tweaks that need to be made, I actually do really like this and it made me stop to try and go hunt down info on your books. The only thing that really bothers me is what fireluxlou said about 'Book One' and 'Book Two' being unreadable.

I agree the "Book One" and "Book Two" are nearly invisible. I had to go to the link and really look to see them. And it's probably just my own preferences, but I would have the book covers themselves a little more full-on; still at an angle, but not so much as now.

The dominant elements on the page are your name and the fancy curly thing. The title of your series and the covers themselves appear secondary. If you're trying to promote your author brand, that's good; if trying to promote specific books, I'd definitely swap some things around. Since it's a series, especially, promote the first two books before you pitch the third; with this design, the reader's eye is drawn first to the title of the upcoming book before he has a chance to check out the others, so move that down. And shadowwalker is right about the cover image angles.

Also, from a content perspective, you may want to provide some more identifying information for Mrs Giggles (to clarify that she is a blogger and not a friend's cat). Fantasy fans you're trying to reach may not know who she is.

I think it's pretty good.

That said, I sharply distinguish print from screen.

Were I you, I'd go to a local Kinkos/printer and ask for a single color print on 20# paper (or better). I'd take the highest resolution image you have, preferably the .psd file, and I'd talk to the print person and tell him/her you're wanting a proof for a magazine ad.

That will tell you much more.

Print and screen are truly entirely different things.