Book Cover Illustrations

This week we finished the cover for best-selling author John Phillip Backus’ The Sisterhood: After the Fall, Book Three. The novel is a post-apocalyptic science fiction series. For our starting point with this book cover illustration, John selected one of the digital paintings in my online gallery “Virtual Friends.” . As the project progressed, much […]

I recently completed the cover artwork for Anthony DeCosmo’s action-adventure/techno-thriller The God Particle which is the first in his “Opposing Force” series. The key requirement for the cover was that the environment look like a new lab with a biological containment door. After doing a little research on what a bio-containment door should look like […]

Last week we completed the cover illustration for Ralph Joseph-Mirani’s science fiction epic Stranded Angels. This book cover turned out well with a nice flowing line from the sun rising at the rim of the earth with an orbiting spaceship — both pointing first to the dancing girl, then to the hero of the story, […]

Author Holly LaMora has informed me that Finding Badger is now appearing in display ads at bus stops in Atlanta, GA. Here are a couple of shots she sent along: Billed as a “Metaphorical Journey of Transformation,” Finding Badger is available in paperback and Kindle format at: Amazon.com. (For a behind-the-scenes look at the creation […]

Here’s the cover illustration I created for James Diffin’s new science fiction/fantasy/action-adventure novel The Silent Call. The author wanted to picture a pivotal scene in the novel where the hero (John Ryder, a young American chess grand master) discovers there may be a modern-day Merlin in his life, with the magician taking the hero to […]

Sometimes I discover a variety of tidbits that aren’t quite enough for a blog entry, but which I suspect will be of interest to those connected to the publishing industry. So… Authors can now autograph their Kindlel ebooks for fans — via KindleGraph. Authors may sign onto the service via Twitter accounts or set up […]

The last few days have been busy for the flying monkeys at the Duncan Long Studio, with six (count ’em, six) new illustrations looking for a book or magazine story to illustrate. Three in the fantasy category, two horror, and one that is… well, just pretty. Fans from way back may recognize that “Artifacts” and […]

I’m often asked how I create my book cover artwork and magazine illustrations. So I decided to write a little about that in this post (and also to create a reference page for folks asking this question in the future). First off, while I try to achieve a traditional, painterly look with much of my […]

As noted in a previous post, the average book printed by a large publisher averages about 40 percent returns from book stores and other sellers in the USA. In other words, for every 100 books printed by a big press, on an average only 60 are sold. What happens to the other 40 percent? Oddly […]

I recently had a request from a friend to post one of my illustrations that I did for a children’s book Witches and Fish: A Parable of Dreams. The book was basically written for the child in me, with no real plans to ever market it in a serious way, in large part because while […]