Book Cover Illustrations

3 Free eBooks - lavishly illustrated by illustrator / artist Duncan Long

I just happened to discover that the three Edgar Allan Poe “free ebooks” I created a few years back (as Christmas and Halloween presents for friends and clients) have made their way to the Internet in some unexpected places — with one site classifying them as “science fiction” books.

Science fiction?

Well, maybe Poe has some soon-to-be-discovered “lost stories.” Or perhaps there’s some alternate universe where Poe wrote science fiction and Jules Verne, horror stories (surely you’ve heard of Jules Verne, Vampire Killer). In Poe’s lost stories, I’m most certain the author waxed eloquent about earth satellites, laser guns, and nuclear weapons.

And while he was at it, Poe most likely he went ahead and invented the Internet (which ran on steam back when).

Anyway… As I dug into the site advertising the three Poe science fiction tales, I discovered the numbers of downloads each of these three ebooks had enjoyed.

All three eBooks combined have garnered over 20 thousand downloads!

The twist here is that the total reads/downloads from Scribd.com (where I uploaded the original copies of the eBooks) are under three thousand for all three titles. Go figure. Perhaps the “science fiction” classification sells eBooks.

Equally intriguing, these numbers not all that long ago would have comprised a very successful mid-list book with a major publishing house. Of course back then a press would have charged money while these are being given away for free, so it is an apples and hedgehog comparison (and free is a price that’s hard to beat).

Yet the numbers do translate into a lot of free publicity for me (especially ideal since they display my skills as a book designer/graphic artist/illustrator), and hopefully the three titles also give a lot of reading enjoyment with added eye candy for many readers.

Interesting times.

In the meantime, you can visit the page and download your own copies of these “science fiction” tomes at:: Three Free Edgar Allan Poe eBooks.

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Artist / illustrator Duncan Long has created book illustrations for large presses, indie publishers, many self-publishing authors — and Edgar Allan Poe.

20 Amazing Fantasy Book Illustrations

In keeping with my previous post, I’ve gone through hundreds of illustrations I’ve created for various fantasy book projects to select what I feel is are the best 20 illustrations in the fantasy category. Since WordPress is a limited in allowing for the proper layout of artwork, I’ve put them on their own page here: 20 Mind-Boggling Fantasy Book Illustrations.

Some of these fantasy illustrations have never found a home on any book or magazine cover; others have. A couple of illustrations appeared in the free editions of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and poems (several small publications which I created a few years back); one served as movie concept art. Regardless of their use or lack of thereof, as a book illustrator / graphic artist, I think these present if not my best illustration artwork in this genre, then the illustrations that I most enjoyed creating.

Of course an illustrator can be somewhat blind when it comes to judging the merits of his own artwork; sometimes what I think is great seems to be an opinion held only by the artist. However generally it seems my sense of what’s good and what’s marginal agrees with the eye of most beholders.

And I can always turn to the flying monkeys in the studio for a second opinion.

(If you missed my previous post of sci-fi book illustrations, you can find them here: 20 Breathtaking Science Fiction Book Illustrations.)

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Book Illustrator Duncan Long has worked as an graphic artist — and author/illustrator — for several decades in the publishing industry. These days he spends most of his time creating artwork for small presses, indie publishers, and self-publishing authors. No flying monkeys were harmed in the writing of this post.

One of the 20 hand-picked selections of science fiction artwork and illustrations.

I recently went through the hundreds of science fiction illustrations I’ve created as book and magazine artwork for publishers (big and small) including HarperCollins, ILEX and others, along with artwork that I’ve not yet found a “home” for, and hand-picked my own “Top 20” favorites in the science fiction genre.

Rather than scrunch all the illustrations down into the WordPress format, I laid them out in their own page so they could breathe a little.

You can find them here: 20 Breathtaking Science Fiction Book Illustrations

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Illustrator Duncan Long has worked as an illustrator / graphic artist — and sometimes author — for several decades in the publishing industry.

Mandy Huston ''Rising of the Cursed'' book illustration by Duncan Long

We recently completed the cover for Mandy Huston’s horror story Rising of the Cursed. And as is often the case, we took a somewhere circular route getting to the final version of the book cover illustration.

The original idea was to have a moon with a prowling wolf silhouetted in front of it, with the main character in the foreground. The blond werewolf — in human form — was to be an attractive young women wearing a leather jacket to fit the story. I love creating beautiful gals for covers.

How could I miss?

Here was the “first draft” of the cover:

Book cover artwork by illustrator Duncan Long

But never underestimate the abilities of the flying monkeys in the studio; the leather jacket was a bit too good — alas, the woman looked too much “like a biker chick” in the author’s words.

But the wolf and moon, grass and trees… All worked. So the next request: “How about making the wolf howling and keep the other elements while losing the gal?”

After a bit of work, this led to:

Second concept painting by illustrator Duncan Long.

Now the idea was working — but the majority felt the view was too much of a closeup on the wolf.

So I moved the critter back into the background and added a whole bunch more grass (which everyone wanted — and seems to have become somewhat of a trademark, at least on a lot of my illustrations), and painted in more trees, sky, and hill. After adjusting the size of the Moon and adding some glow to it, this led to the final version of the book cover illustration:

Illustrator Duncan Long: final book artwork for ''Rising of the Cursed''

Finding the right typeface proved the next hurdle. There were lots of weird, distressed fonts available, yet none seemed quite right. Finally we settled on the typeface Yellow Magician created by Érico Lebedenco.

And there you have it. The final book cover illustration.

And, just in case anyone is wondering, yes, I did finish the biker gal version of the picture — and it’s now available for sale to anyone needing a book cover with the proverbial “lone wolf” and a beautiful blond biker chick.

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When not painting women in leather, Duncan Long works as a book illustrator for a variety of large presses, indie and small publishers, and self-publishing authors. More of Long’s book artwork can be enjoyed at his Online Book Artwork Portfolio
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Sometimes if you look at the numbers, the prospects for making money in any given business may seem bleak.

And yet…

Even in the poorest of industries, there are often people making money hand-over-fist while everyone is claiming such things are impossible.

Certainly this is the case today with the publishing industry. When you look at the figures, things look bleak. Bowker (which sells ISBN numbers to publishers) claims that over one million titles were published in 2009 — just in the US. That number is three times the number of different titles that went into print in 2005. And from all vantage points, it appears the numbers of books being fielded are even higher now — and going up all around the world.

Did a little deeper into the numbers and you’ll find fewer books are being sold and that many titles sell only a handful of books.

And yet some people are making great money in the industry. Some writers (including some of my clients) are seeing sales that would have made mid-list writers back in the 1990s kill for. And there are a few folks claiming a million or more sales — with self-published ebooks. Some presses are going under, yet a few are thriving.

What makes the difference?

One thing many successful publishers are doing is niche marketing. They find groups of people interested in some subject that isn’t being well served by publishers, write titles aimed at this small market, and then reach potential buyers with advertising and reviews of their books. Today with the Internet, reaching this or that niche has never been easier or cheaper. Many successful book sellers are making fantastic money with a small niche market — and are often “under the radar” of others in the publishing industry who are aiming at a more general market of buyers.

For authors, an important key to selling books is promotion both of the author as well as the titles that writer has written. That may sound flippant with a high “oh, duh” factor. Yet I find many writers fail miserably at this. They write their book, toss it out the door, and start on their next manuscript. And then they’re miffed because none of their books rack up any serious sales.

Remember: If you’re an author, writing your book is only half (or even a fourth) of the work these days. Promotion of your title is key to making it a success.

It’s also a mistake to see your title as competing in sales against millions of other titles. In fact you’re only competing against books that are similar to yours.

And even then, not so much. Often readers will buy many books on any one given subject; in truth your “competitors” may actually be helping you sell your book by wetting the interest of potential buyers in the subject matter your book is about.

In the end, the trick for authors is not so much somehow beating competitors out of their sales, but rather to present your book to those who have interest in the subject you’ve written is about. The key to sales is not about worrying about other similar books, and especially about the many books flooding the marketplace, but rather targeting potential readers and buyers of your books, and bringing their attention to your title.

Advertising, interviews, blogs, etc., are all tools you can use for that purpose.

So write your book, get it published, then roll up your sleeves and set about gaining the notice you need to sell yourself and your title.

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Best-selling author Duncan Long is a writer/illustrator who’s been in the publishing business for decades; over one hundred of his titles have gone into print with HarperCollins, Avon, Paladin Press, and other publishers. Today most of his work involves creating book illustrations for other authors. You can see his book and magazine artwork in his portfolio of book illustrations.

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 cover. With such designs the cover will be laid out (consciously or unconsciously) in a geometric pattern. If you have a cover illustration whose rough layout can be viewed as a circle, pyramid, or other geometric shape, the artwork is probably going to look good. If it doesn’t fall into some geometric shape, it’s likely in trouble.

Simple also applies to the number of elements in an illustration. Often the most effective cover illustration will be of a single figure or object. In addition to looking good full size in print, these covers can be shrunk to ebook, web, or catalog size and still look great. On the flip side, a book cover with a cast-of-thousands illustration often becomes a horrible spaghetti of visual confusion when reduced in size — or viewed from a short distance by a potential buyer in a book store.

Complex typefaces can also be a mistake when plastered onto a cover. Often a simple sans serif is more effective than some squiggly wiggly font that’s too clever by half for the cover of a book. A typeface should add flavor and otherwise be invisible. If the first thing a viewer notices is the design of the type rather than what it says, it is not suitable for a book cover. (The possible exception to this rule comes with fantasy and horror titles which tend to allow more ornate or — in the case of horror, gungy — typefaces.)

Remember: In book cover design, less is more (more or less).

Thought should be given to how a cover illustration matches the subject matter of the book. Even the best of illustrations may fail as a book cover if the artwork misrepresents the genre or type of book it is being used with. For example, a horror novel with a pretty girl and sans type might look like a Romance rather than a horror story. As such, it would serve the book poorly even though the work itself might be outstandingly good.

Put a spooky cover with some twisted lettering on the cover of the same book, and it might suddenly become a great seller.

The overall color of a cover may be important, too. A pink cover for a horror book isn’t likely to work well (greens or browns — yes!). Likewise drab colors on a Romance or joke book are likely to make the book less than attractive to a target audience.

A lot of thought needs to be given with any cover design to be sure the right message is being sent to potential readers. And when in doubt, simpler is almost always better.

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Duncan Long works as a book illustrator and designer. He’s created cover illustrations and layout for large and small presses as well as many self-publishing authors and indie presses. See more of his artwork at: Duncan Long’s Portfolio.

Final book cover for Voice of the Chosen (illustration by Duncan Long)

We just rounded up the cover for Lawrence P. White’s science fiction novel Voice of the Chosen, the third book in White’s science fiction series. I’ve enjoyed doing each of these covers, and believe this my be the most attractive of the three — though it’s perhaps a tossup with the second in the series (Knights of the Chosen).

Although we pretty much established the elements of the cover from the git-go with this project, there were some strange twists and turns — and all my fault. The author told me he wanted a domed building with a 30-40 year old attractive woman in a cloak appearing above it.

Yes, that sounds simple enough. But I still managed to throw a monkey wrench (albeit a flying monkey wrench) into things.

Since the building in the story was the senate building on a far-flung planet, my imagination twisted the idea into something that had an Earthly counterpart. My logic: Since state and federal capital buildings here on Earth have a dome on top of them, and are often referred to as “domed buildings” that this was what the author meant when he told me the building was domed.

Thus, the first rendition of the domed building was of a somewhat Venician style, multi-stories and, yes, a dome on top.

Science fiction novel concept art gone wrong - so right, yet so wrong.

Buzzzzz…. Wrong solution.

The building was to be a dome, period. Not a tall building with a dome on top. Oh, and no city in the background. And, a much different age of woman. And the woman was supposed to have a hooded cloak, not an evening dress.

Other than that, as the old saying goes, it was perfect.

Fortunately, the fix was a bit easier than one might imagine. I took one of my original digital paintings (sans windows in the dome), hacked the dome from it, and plopped it into a landscape. Then I added some walls, stairs, and pedestrians. At that point I was pretty much on the right page (although we finally cut down the width of the stairs to make the whole building appear on the cover).

The cloak and dusty nebula of the sky were pretty much right from the first (with the star field, dust, and colors perhaps throwbacks to those beautiful paintings on the classic paperback science fiction novels I grew up with as a kid).

But the gal’s face. The robot in the studio went clanging about croaking, “Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson.”

I kept painting her way too young; the character was supposed to be older but very attractive. Perhaps my agism was showing here. At any rate, after three or four stabs, everyone was desperate. I asked a question I should have asked earlier. “If you were casting a movie of the novel, what star would you choose to play the role of the queen?”

Once I got the answer, I had an imagine in mind to work toward. Of course I couldn’t slavishly copy a star’s face. But some of the feel of that face went into the painting (can you guess which star it was?). Now we had her face right:

The final face for Voice of Chosen

I dropped the face into the hood of the cloak, repainted the folds around the face, and that completed the illustration for White’s science fiction novel:

Final artwork for the Voice of the Chosen science fiction novel.

My next task was extending the edges of the painting so it would fit on the front of the cover while still allowing plenty of space for the title and author’s name as well as the trim “bleed” around the edges of the cover. Since the typeface was to be the same from the first two books in the series, there wasn’t much room for error there (though still I managed, initially making the lettering a bit too small and thus having to resize it and shrink the center elements of the painting a bit, and then painting in an even larger border to take up the slack — at that point the stairs on the senate building were also truncated on the left and right).

From there, I generated the cover artwork for the Kindle and Amazon.com book catalog (with the Kindle version generally working with most other ebook formats).

After that, I plugged in the spine measurements with other information to create the layout and lettering for the spine and back cover of the book for the print edition of the novel.

Final layout for the science fiction novel Voice of the Chosen.

The final layout went pretty quickly since I had the icon I’d created along with the designs from the previous two books in this science fiction trilogy. So after tinkering and adjusting everything so the layout was polished, I had the print version of the book’s cover ready to go.

Nothing to it — provided you have a patient client, which I fortunately did; he courteously shepherded me in the right direction each time I strayed until we finally had .

All three of White’s science fiction novels are available in Kindle format at Amazon.com including this latest of the three Voice of the Chosen. If you enjoy a face-paced science fiction novel, you’ll find this book to your liking.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to treat yourself to the other books in the series as well.
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Illustrator Duncan Long creates cover artwork for science fiction novels as well as other genres and non-fiction books. His artwork has appeared on titles from HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Mermaid Publishing, ILEX, and Enslow Publishers, and well as many indie presses. You can see more of his book artwork at Duncan Long’s Book Illustration Portfolio
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Got some fantastic news about Dora Machado’s Stonewiser III book (which I created the cover illustration for in 2010, the creation process being described in a previous blog).

Here’s the note from Bryan T. Marshall (the head honcho at Mermaid Publishing, LLC):

I just wanted you both to know that the 3rd book in the Stonewiser series, Stonewiser: The Lament of the Stone has been awarded the Silver
medal for SFF in the 2012 IPPY Awards as well as is currently a finalist for SFF in ForeWord’s Book of the Year Awards.

That gives us three books that were all Book of the Year Award finalists as well as three books that have won National Awards – I don’t think that I know of any series where every book in the series has garnered such praise on a national level and much of that praise is directly related to your efforts!!! Thank you for the hard work you put in to make this series what it is.

Nice.

Of course the cover illustration I created for the book isn’t the only reason the book did so well. But I like to think it helped it on its path toward success. Here’s the artwork I submitted:

Also a great plus for the book was the beautiful layout and cover design created by Mayapriya Long at Bookwrights.

For those wanting to purchase a copy of this award-winning book, you can find it at Mermaid Press. Machado’s first two book (which I also had the pleasure of creating book cover illustrations for) are also available there as well for those wanting to read the entire trilogy.

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Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator who has created cover artwork for HarperCollins, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, and many small presses and self-publishing authors. Find more of his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html

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Much of my weekend was spent updating my various book cover artwork galleries and book illustration portfolio. Such work tends to be both a challenge of sorting (as well as a personal challenge to a book illustrator to continue producing good work — with the hope of actually surpassing some past accomplishments). Looking over a huge collection of artwork also proves to be a humbling experience as I realize that if things had gone a different direction here or there in my life, I likely would never have had so many opportunities to realize my dreams within the publishing industry as a book illustrator.

Being able to work as an artist over the last couple of decades is nothing if not a privilege; as a child I loved books and being able to create book illustrations that draw readers to new books is a dream come true. Additionally, it’s an amazing time to be working in the publishing industry as it undergoes massive changes: adapting to a worldwide marketplace, the Internet, cheap publishing in China and India, and the growing popularity of ebooks.

That preamble out of the way, I’d like to invite folks to my various galleries that now have some new pictures as well as favorite older artwork.

My Book Illustration Portfolio contains the best gems of my book cover artwork that I’ve created over the last decade as I continue my work as a book illustrator.

For those interested in locating a book cover illustration for a mystery novel, murder mystery, or a hard-boiled detective tale, I’ve updated my Mystery Book Illustration and Artwork Gallery.

I now have also updated Gallery of Horror Book Artwork and Illustrations that should send a few shivers down the spine if not inspire a few startle responses. And it has become packed with horror illustrations, too. Nearly a hundred from ghosts to zombies to scientific experiments gone awry — and all points in between. If you need book cover art for a mystery, please check out this collection of pictures.

Need a book illustration for a fantasy story? Got you covered there, too. And I’ve updated my Fantasy Book Illustration Gallery with some new artwork as well as older “classic” illustrations I’ve created over the year for fantasy tales. If you enjoy artwork featuring knights and castle intrigue, good (and bad) fairies, pirates, or all of the above, you’ll probably find something to like in this gallery (and maybe something perfect for the cover or your fantasy story).

"Deep Space Thoughts" by science fiction illustrator Duncan Long

My Science Fiction Book Artwork Gallery is also teeming with a variety of illustrations, many looking for a science fiction book cover to grace (also included is artwork that has already appeared on books and magazines including covers created for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

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When not battling flying monkeys, illustrator Duncan Long paints artwork for book and magazine covers in a variety of genres including Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime and Mystery, and Horror. Explore all his online art galleries at: Duncan’s Book and Magazine Illustrations
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Final cover illustration for Stuart Jaffe's mystery novel

This week marked the completion of the book cover illustration for Stuart Jaffe’s Southern Bound. The mystery features the classic 1940’s style, hard-boiled detective — with a supernatural twist to the character (and I’ll not say more as I don’t want to create a spoiler). Basically the author wanted a mystery cover illustration with a film noire-ish look with lighting that gave the character a supernatural or ghostly look.

"Old Gumshoe" -- first stab at the cover illustration for Southern Bound

The first stab at the cover had a frontal view of a tired detective. It got us into the detective/supernatural/art noir neighborhood, but the dingbat artist had forgotten that the lettering for the book was to run down the right side of the cover rather than the traditional top/bottom positioning. (I can only blame the distraction of the flying monkeys here in the studio for this error).

So next came another painting, this time in profile, of a detective on the left side of the cover space.

Second stab at the cover illustration for the mystery novel

Now we had the proper layout and a suitable detective for the mystery cover — but lacked the supernatural elements needed. I tried several tactics, including a glowing face (below left) and a glow outlining the face (right) — and as is painfully evident, neither were effective.

Two failed attempts at a glowing face...

This is the point where an illustrator ignores the panicked Muse frantically skipping around the studio screaming, “You’re not able to pull this off!” and instead concentrates on what other options might be waiting in his bag of tricks.

I realized I had three: One was to make the figure become transparent as the lower edge of the picture was approached — but that wouldn’t work with this illustration because it would appear to be shadowing with the black background.

The other two options held more promise: Make him materialize from a cloud of smoke, or give him glowing eyes.

The latter option was likely more in keeping with the story. But it also has become somewhat of a cliché with Hollywood movies, TV, and comic books employing it on a pretty regular basis. Worse, if red eyes are used, one is reminded of the Terminator robots and/or demonic activity, neither of which would fit the story.

However that still leaves a spectrum of other colors.

What about blue?

Let me say that both the author and I had doubts as to whether glowing eyes would work, but I had already shifted the color of the detective toward a ghostly blue during my face-glow experiments, so “No harm in experimenting a little,” I thought. I used that color scheme and quickly painted some glowing blue eyes over it.

And it worked!

Final cover illustration for Stuart Jaffe's mystery novel

Thus, the cover illustration which now is becoming part of the layout for Stuart Jaffe’s mystery novel Southern Bound.

While you’re waiting for Jaffe’s mystery to appear in a bookstore near you, you can learn more about the author and his books at Stuart Jaffe’s website.

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When not stumbling into the artistic solutions for a mystery novel cover illustration, Duncan Long illustrates a wide variety of book genres. His artwork graces the covers of novels from self-publishing authors, small presses, and large publishing houses. Discover many more of Duncan’s mystery and other genre illustrations at: Duncan’s Illustration Portfolio
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