Help me come up with a new fantasy series aesthetic, please

CathleenT

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This may take some time. Many thanks in advance to anyone who reads this.

I thought I'd start with the image I currently have. I'd also like you to take a peek at my signature if you'd be so kind. Hopefully, that will give you some kind of idea of the branding I'm attempting to accomplish. I write noblebright fantasy, usually with a fairy tale or folklore base. Generally set at least partially in our world, although I do write a little secondary world stuff. Sometimes there's a historical component, although I was planning to set this one in our contemporary world or close.

2019-0029-cathleen-townsend-a-simple-bet-ver-2-1.jpg


So, this is the cover. And I like it, but I'm discovering that the more books I publish, the harder it can be to dial in the aesthetic. I want my books to look like they all belong to the same genre, but I don't want them so similar that it looks like I've settled on only one visual idea. Currently, that seems like no problem, right?

But now I need you to follow a link, since these books aren't published yet: https://absolutewrite.com/forums/sh...-Civil-War-cover-feedback-on-complete-duology.

To my eye, this Simple Bet cover is too similar to the Snow White covers. I kinda feel bad about sending this one back to the drawing board, but I did tell them that the last attempt looked too much like Snow White, too. I would've thought they'd have tried something a little more different.

But it does, I think, nail the fairy tale aesthetic, which can be a surprisingly difficult thing to do for an adult audience. So how can I fix it without breaking it? I'd like to use the crow, and maybe the circular frame and background image, if I can. I might even keep the purple, since it seems like the most common way to differentiate between fantasy series books is to change colors somehow, and purple seems to be harder to do well than orange/brown, green, or blue.

Concerning my story, it's the unlikely friendship that develops between a corbie (crow shifter) and a selkie. Basically, they make a bet to see who can get the attractive barmaid at the local dive to go out to dinner with them first. There are complications of course, and at the end, the gal laughs, shifts into a coyote, and runs away while the guys' jaws drop. The underlying serious theme is defining yourself apart from your family, but with an eye to fitting back in again later. But my protag (the selkie) wants things to be different when he tries the family thing again. He's not sure in what way he wants to change things at this point, or how to do it, but this is his emotional quest which underlies all the other plot stuff.

I'm attempting to have this volume be an intro novelette/novella, and then to write a trilogy after this. So this cover has to be something I can use for a series, unlike the covers for Dragon Hoard or Bellerophon. The trilogy will be a more serious, do-or-die proposition than this book, but it'll build on the friendship and characters of my selkie and corbie protags in Simple Bet.

So, how to adapt this cover? Or does it need adapting at all? Am I being too sensitive about imagery? My gut says no, but hey, it's been wrong before.

Assuming that I can adapt this imagery, what should I adapt it to? DDD is going to want concrete suggestions for improvement. It's maddening to be handed something, and the only feedback is that the prior attempt isn't good enough.

I found some series covers on DDD's site that I like.


ddd-covers-1.jpg


I chose to look through covers that DDD had already done because really, anything like that should be doable. This is a consideration because I can't get covers like Seanan McGuires' October Daye series, for instance. They hired painters for those things, and I don't work tight enough for cover art with humans. (Lesson learned from two failed covers for Bellerophon. My style of painting figures ends up looking MG.)

So, my preliminary thought is to use Ms. Wu's cover as a rough template. My author name always goes along the bottom, so that means there would be room at the top for something like the circled crow image posted above. Hopefully, if the arched framing element is strong enough, that would mitigate some of the resemblance to my Snow White covers, enough to make it look like a different series. And I'd ask them to use a similar frame as Ms. Wu's, but not too close. (This is one of those moments that I'm really glad some other person with greater Photoshop skills will be tackling this.)

Since DDD has unlimited access to Shutterstock and they take care of the commercial licensing and all that, I took a peek at what else was available, crow-wise, on the site. (The selkie and seal offerings are dismal cover fodder.) And it turns out there are enough different watercolor crows to have a distinct one on the cover of all four books. The cover colors would vary, probably in the background, but the frames would stay the same, and the crows would be similar, hopefully a unifying factor.

Or is this whole idea irreparably flawed because it's too Hunger Games? My avian is more realistic than the mockingjay--is that a big enough difference? Aargh, aargh, aargh... I can obsess over this stuff for hours, and in the end, it's like staring a word too long, and you realize you have no idea how to spell the silly thing anymore.

If anyone is feeling heroically helpful, DDD has some fantasy covers on display here, in case you want to check out more options: http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/epic-and-high-fantasy-book-covers.html.

Any feedback on any part of this would be greatly appreciated. : )
 
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Margrave86

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I do think the big giant circle makes them look too similar.

If your main series is a trilogy, why not aim for a three-part panorama that spreads across all three covers? The first book could be the ocean (selkie), the second part could be a rocky shoreline (unknown), and the last part could be a cliffside forest (crow). Put a nice gilded frame around each environment and you're golden.
 

CathleenT

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Now that's a thought--eliminating the circle entirely, rather than trying to downplay its effect. : )
 
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Ari Meermans

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Gah! You're gonna hate me, Cathleen.

I, too, think it's too much of a good thing. But it's more than that, I think. The Snow White Covers' thematically matched the stories as you described them. The story "A Simple Bet" as you first described it in the workshop doesn't seem to be dark in theme, yet the cover imagery and colors are quite dark.

Will the trilogy be dark in theme and content?

Does DDD have shifter covers with elements you like? Have you looked at other shifter covers elsewhere that you like and could show DDD as examples of your tastes for this series?



Still, it's a gorgeous cover as usual.
 
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CathleenT

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Of course I don't hate you, Ari. : )

Okay, less dark. I could have DDD expand the frame to that arched squared oval (really tricky to describe that shape that Ms. Wu's cover frame has), eliminating the circle. Then I ask them to put a seascape behind the crow, font superimposed on boring sky in the middle, waves at the bottom. Author name near the bottom, below or above the frame, depending on if it's got a margin or not. Perhaps that would result in an overall lightening of the cover.

Does that work for anyone? Or does it even make sense?

ETA: Ari, I checked some on Amazon, and the crow shifter stuff seems thin on the ground. The only thing relevant seems to be covers with figures in the foreground and crows as part of the background. But that could easily just be for atmosphere. Werewolf stuff seems to greatly dominate whenever I enter anything with shifter in it, although I know dragon shifters are a thing, too.

ETA2: I don't know how to answer the dark question. The stakes of the trilogy will be high, life and death survival of part or all of the selkie and corbie colonies. They have to figure out who's aligned with the big bad and form shifting alliances as their world comes crumbling apart.

But I pretty much write noblebright fantasy. Do you consider Tolkien dark? I'd say more serious. A lot of different meanings seem to go with dark. There's certainly no horror, other than the emotional response to near-death situations for the protags, and I'm going to have to off at least a few characters along the way as well.
 
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Ari Meermans

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Okay, there will be a big bad and life & death stakes in the trilogy. So . . . darker than the novelette/novella, yes?

The seascape idea is excellent—it incorporates the second protag (even better if you can represent him somehow). The arched squared oval frame idea is very good, too.

Would the following in any way meet or complement your vision? Save the crow image that's there now for the most appropriate book in the series since it's kind of warlike, but use a different in-flight image of a crow over the waves for this volume. Also, possibly incorporate the merest hint of a storm on the horizon . . . maybe at the corner of the frame?
 

CathleenT

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What a cool thought, Ari. There is a soaring crow available--that could be excellent. And I love the idea of intensifying the imagery as the series builds since that's what the writing is supposed to do, too.

Actually the stakes are somewhat life-and-death in the prequel as well as the trilogy, but with a significant difference. I'm rewriting the thing so that an incident that was in the backstory--the corbie saving the selkie from some of his fellow corbies--is now part of the main story, near the climax.

So, the protag/selkie's life is threatened. But it's just his one individual life--there are no others. And I don't think anyone will actually die, although stuff changes in revision, sometimes. It's quite a small story--one real friendship is forged. It's what the selkies and corbies are like when things are relatively good, before the big bad rises to power.
 
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Margrave86

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Why not have a split cover? The crow on one side, the seal on the other. Either facing towards or away from each other, to symbolize hostility and/or likemindedness. You might be able to work the circle motif into the space between their faces in profile. Each half is backed by their natural habitat--the sea for the seal and the forest for the crow. And then, for the trilogy, spread the two halves out onto their own covers, bridged by some common element for the middle cover.
 

sandree

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I like the crow and the contrast with the gold behind it - it really pops - but I don’t like the circle. Maybe expand the circle so that it bleeds off the edges. That way it wouldn’t resemble the other covers so much. I don’t like the font for the title at all. Honestly, not sure I like the title. Is there an alternate title that would look better in type? The shortness of BET is difficult...
 

CathleenT

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Margrave, I can take another look at available images to see if I can find a harbor seal I can use. It would be nice to work the selkie in visually. So far all the images say Nature Channel and not selkie to me, though. And I'm trying to get away from the circle motif since that's so strong in my Snow White covers. If people get confused about which books go in which series, it's a branding fail.

I'm not in love with the font, either, Sandree, but I figured that was the least of my problems. I was going to ask them to try something a little more traditional and then compare the two fonts side by side, once the imagery is dialed in. But I did want a font to separate this series from my other books. The A being tiny bugs me more than bet. One good thing about this font, though, is that the title is distinct when the thumbnail is super small.

Also, I'm totally willing to entertain alternate title suggestions. I thought this title contained some irony--the repercussions from the bet are going to be huge--and it was short, which after dealing with all the font in Snow White was a definite plus.

And also, this story has a novelette/novella sized problem, and the title seemed to suggest that to me. Of course, I wrote the book, so I'm going into this with way more knowledge than anyone else. It's always hard to say how someone will view a title who knows nothing about your book.

Completely irrelevant aside: I'm starting to wish I could write only long novelettes/short novellas. Right now that length really speaks to me. Four chapters, approximately 5k each: 1st act, two chapters for act 2, third act. It's like the three act structure is baked in. Novels are...messier, even though I pay a great deal of attention to the structure when I write and edit.

This is my attempt to be somewhat commercially successful. Write a novella for the freebie, which I do actually know how to market. Then write a series because you'd have to be seriously oblivious to miss the memo that you should write a series if you ever want a snowball's chance in hell of making any actual money.

I guess the series should really be longer, but that's all the story I seem to have. And I'm not even sure the series will be novels, although I'm really going to try to get the word counts above 50k.
 
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