Book Cover Illustrations

Here’s my illustration for David Kempf’s new novel (with lettering by Kib Prestridge). Creating this picture took me down a different route than I commonly use in creating my artwork. This picture is a “composite” of two faces, a computer circuit board, and the air grill on a computer. The various elements were layered, and […]

I recently completed the cover layout and illustrations for Stephen Quayle’s Empire Beneath the Ice. Steve’s book deals in part with the German Nazis who worked on “flying saucer” aircraft as well as those Germans who explored Antarctica before and during World War II. So to bring both elements together on the book cover, I […]

Another of the new cover illustrations for John Bowers’ science fiction “Starport” series of novels. As the title shows, this is for Prisoners of Eroak. This cover presented a problem that is often encountered in creating book covers: A title that takes up two lines, thereby dictating that the illustration have more “real estate” at its […]

The cover (above) of Martin Wilsey’s new science fiction novel Still Falling. This cover layout is a beautiful example of how cropping can make a dramatic change in the impact of an illustration. While I created the artwork for this cover, I didn’t do the layout — and am quite jealous of the work (ha). Here’s […]

For self publishers or those starting a small press, the process of creating a print cover PDF can seem pretty daunting the first go around. Fortunately after a time or two it becomes pretty much “old hat” and can be taken in stride (though this isn’t to say that new and varied hiccups don’t occur […]

What typeface is best for laying out the text in a book? Like spices, the ideal typeface for text adds a little flavor but not so much as to overwhelm. Some of the best picks are older types that have stood the test of time: Baskerville, some flavor of Garamond, or a modern version of […]

Yes, another biased look at some of my book cover designs. And, again, I’ve laid them out on their own page so they can appear at larger sizes on the page without a need to click through to each one. You can explore them here: book cover layouts and designs. Each cover design works (I […]

Creating a good book cover is — as the saying goes — an art. A very delicate art at that. Just a little too much here or there can destroy the balance of a cover and transform it from a thing of beauty to an eyesore. Simple designs can often be key to a good […]

Author Mary Maddox recently wrote of her experience in choosing an effective cover for her novel Talion. Originally she’d selected a very attractive, abstract photo for the cover — yet it failed to sell the book. At a book signing, one blunt person who told her, “I’m not buying your book because I don’t like […]

Ebooks did well in 2011, and I suspect with all the ebook readers that were handed out by Santa Claus this Christmas, they’ll be in very solid footing in 2012. Many in the publishing industry are expecting that in the not too distant future, ebooks will be outselling print in most markets with the exception […]