Your Daily Ralph!- It's all in the cover 9/12/13

Covers mean so much on a book. They can either pull in a  wary reader or turn them off. When designing a cover an artist or writer has to bear in mind  that the cover is going to represent their product and that (to me at least) the cover has to have an explosive 'Grab me" factor thrown in there. I'm going to post a few different covers here today , some will be my books some will be others.

This is the cover from one of the books I'm currently reading. The cover of the edition I have looks slightly different than this in that hit has a black border and black in the wording. In short the cover I have looks spectacular. Not that this one is bad, it's not . I think this is an amazing cover in general. It's clean, and it grabs me just looking at it. It's a phenomenal cover. It tells you everything you need to know about the character. He's a man of action who's overlooking his city and protecting it from evil doers. Even if you have never heard of the Avenger, this cover should tell you all you need to know as far as what the book contains.  There are even dirigibles overhead, which should tell you what era the stories take place in. Fantastic piece of artwork.

Next up is another book I am currently reading called Cryptozoica. This is a story that is about a recently re-discovered island in the south pacific that has dinosaurs living on it. I'm not going to review any of these titles here yet, but I will when I'm done reading them. The only thing I will say about this book is that Mark Ellis must have done one hell of a huge amount of research to tell this story. Kudo's to you Mark, I can tell that unless you're a paleontologist, this book took a long time to research and get right.  I'm enjoying both these books very much, BTW.

This is a very nice cover also, and as I said I'm really enjoying this book a lot.  But the cover , while  very nicely drawn, just seems a little too busy for my taste, I see all kinds of mayhem going on here, and that is probably what the artist was trying to convey. Again, beautifully drawn and eye catching. It again tells the story of what is going on here. Man Vs. Dinosaur in a walled in area (Note the wall behind the T Rex) Maybe chaos is what they were going for with this cover, because that's what I get out of it. Again, not a bad thing. If I saw this in a book store I'd definitely pick it up and buy it. All in all though I just feel it's a little bit too busy. Still an amazing cover and absolutely eye catching though, and that's what counts. Like I said, the story is great too.

Here's another recent cover that I like a lot It's from a recent book called 'Gravedigger' This cover caught my eye the minute I saw it. the colors were perfect, and the woman pictured looked fantastic. This cover has a combination of both the real world and metaphysical to it.

I love this cover. I haven't read the book yet , but I'll get to it. that being said though, this is a fantastic cover that really grabbed me the instant I saw it, bloody sword and all pointing at the reader. This is just eye catching!

Next up is a book I reviewed last week, but I loved the cover on it so it's back for this discussion,  'The Spider: Extreme Prejudice' has another eye catching and explosive cover that just draws you in to all the action contained within its pages. . If that cover doesn't convey the message of explosive action I don't know what does! 

Next is the cover to my first novel, ' Redemption of the Sorcerer' the artist I use did a fantastic job here, conveying exactly what I had in mind. The mighty sorcerer battling the evil barbarian astride his dragon, with the barbarian warrior actually having the upper hand, while they're both fighting beneath a rolling thunderous sky. Just fantastic stuff!

Next up we have my  'Torahg the Warrior, Sword of Vengeance' novel, which is set in the dim prehistoric past with a barbarian warrior prince fighting his evil brother and his pet sorcerer. This is more Sword and Sorcery than anything else, harkening back to the works of Robert E. Howard and many of his classic creations. This cover may be a little too busy also, but that's my own fault for asking for so much in there,  but it also gets its message across. Swords, Muscled Warriors, wizards, monsters and of course vengeance!

The last one here is my Sci-Fi novel ' The Cagliostro Chronicles' again its a nice clean cover, showing the modern spaceship cleaving through the dark of space, and silhouetted in the background are the five principle characters. Looking at this over you again know exactly what you are in for. Its a sci-fi novel about five adventurers flying off into the unknown. Again, my artist did a fantastic job of it.

 

To catch up with any one of these great books click on the links below. you can't go wrong with any of them. all great stuff!

 

The Avenger is available here    http://tinyurl.com/avengertrhotc

Cryptozoica here :                      http://tinyurl.com/cryptozoicabook

Gravedigger here:                       http://tinyurl.com/gravediggerkindle

The Spider Extreme Prejudice:  http://tinyurl.com/thespiderextremeprejudice

Redemption of the Sorcerer :     http://tinyurl.com/crystalonkindle

Torahg the Warrior:                   http://tinyurl.com/torahg

The Cagliostro Chronicles:        http://tinyurl.com/cagchron