Official Cover Reveal-pre://d.o.mai.n!

Welcome to the official cover reveal for my new novel pre://d.o.mai.n! (Click on it to make it bigger or right-click and open it in a new tab.)

I contemplated waiting to unveil this. I thought about hanging onto it until I was closer to the official release of the novel, but I decided that at that point I'd really rather have you be focused on the story, and not the kick ass cover I've spent the past few days putting together. I didn't want to do the typical "find some science-fictiony abstract background and lay words over it" bit that a lot of authors and publishers do nowadays.

That's not to put down that approach (I like it alot more than the 'Burroughs' style painted covers or the photoshopped model stock image approach. Again, those styles are still the best for Fantasy and Young Adult Supernatural, respectively, but I wanted to do something different. I wanted a book cover that is almost like a movie trailer, giving snippets of the world inside.

That's not to put down that approach (I like it alot more than the 'Burroughs' style painted covers or the photoshopped model stock image approach. Again, those styles are still the best for Fantasy and Young Adult Supernatural, respectively, but I wanted to do something different. I wanted a book cover that is almost like a movie trailer, giving snippets of the world inside. I didn't want to give faces to any of the characters, though. I didn't want to rob the reader of the opportunity to create that for themselves. What I settled on, since pre://d.o.mai.n is first and foremost a science fiction tale, is showing some of the technology in the book. I'd created alot of the art for the still in production book trailer, and I decided to use it here to get a little more mileage out of it, and because I thought it fit with what I was going for. pre://d.o.mai.n is the first in a series of five or six books, and I wanted to create a visual language that would translate across multiple books. The honeycomb cells containing bits from the book is something that I can continue to reuse with the later novels, changing the content but continuing the style. The font, rendered out in Blender as a 3D image, can be color shifted or recreated with any title. The metallic, background lattice, can be changed for any other "abstract science fictiony image" that fits with the rest of the package.

I'm explaining this all, not to make it sound like I know a whole lot more about cover design than anyone else. I'm sharing this to see some of the things that I thought of, and what my thought process was, in designing this cover. I hope some others in the writing community will be willing to share their thoughts below, because there is certainly no right or wrong way to design a cover. I've loved everything from minimalist covers, to original painted covers, to abstract stuff. The point is to represent the story inside with the best cover you can. 

People may say that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but in skimming through amazon.com, or iBooks, etc, one of the two or three biggest draws for people is the book cover. If you take nothing away from this post (other than the fact that my book is coming out soon, and everyone inclined to enjoy science fiction should give it a shot ;-), is to take the time to craft a book cover that is the best you can, or hire someone to do it if you are missing either the time, talent, or inclination to make it yourself. 

Book covers are important. The incredibly compelling writing inside your book can't sweep people away if they never take the time to open it. Until they do that, the cover is the only part they see, so give yourself every opportunity, and put your best foot forward.

If anyone has any questions/comments on the book cover, or regarding the story in general that you thought of after seeing the cover, I would love to get your feedback in the comments section below.