Another New Cover For We Journey No More

(And, no, this ain’t it. LOL)

This poor book has had so many covers on it,  I’m sure it’s suffering from a split personality disorder.  What the hell am I?   

 Part of the problem is that the publisher I was with when this story was first released, gave it a terrific cover, but look at it.  See above.  It depicts the time travel part of the story, but where is the dystopian portion?  It did not fit the genre. 

So, when I left them and started Norns Triad Publications with my friend, I wanted it to represent my story better.  So, I came up with the lame idea of hiring an illustrator and we came up with the below cover.

This was meant to represent one of the characters, Dal, and his pet, Neema, from the story.  Instead,  I was told, by too many people, that it looked like He-man.  Once again, I missed the mark.  Sigh.  So, I searched through the top ebooks in the time travel/dystopian genre and came up with some ideas.  I got together with my friend, and we came up with the below cover.

We were quite pleased with the concept. It depicts the romance, time travel, and a dystopian landscape.  I even had compliments on it.  I was set.  I thought. 

Several months later, I went to enter my book in a Bookfunnel promo to garner more subscribers for my newsletter.  I got a rejection back from the promoter stating my cover wasn’t professional.  WTH? 

Defeated, I posted the cover in the Facebook group Indie Cover Project.  If you ever need straight-forward feedback on your cover or a blurb, they are the place to go.  They told me the cover was too busy, too many elements that clashed, the font sucked. yada, yada. 

Oh my!  I didn’t think my cover was that bad. 

I consulted with my friend/designer.  We both came to the understanding that she still hadn’t mastered some of the graphic skills yet, so off I went to look for a professional graphic designer.  Something I’ve been putting off.  Partly because of the cost, and partly I didn’t know where to start.  Who could I trust with my books?

It’s tough being an indie writer.  (Want a little cheese with that whine?) 

Anyway, I had previously joined a Facebook group called Book Cover Design Marketplace, which is a place where designers show off their premade or custom designed book covers.  Talk about drooling over covers.  There is some amazing talent in that group. 

I posted what I was looking for in a cover and my budget.  I soon realized there are a lot of hungry designers out there.  I had several offers, but went with Saad Ali from Covers by Creatives.  He has been wonderful to work with and understood exactly the concept I wanted for my cover.  Here is his baby:

My new cover has a lot of the same elements as the previous one, just arranged better and a more genre specific title font.  Once again, I went back to the Indie Cover Project, and they loved it.

Finally, I had a winner I could be proud of.  I was so happy. 

This also prompted me to change the cover for It Lives in the Basement, which came out phenomenal.  Now, Saad is working on branded covers for my Excalibur series.  I can’t wait to see them. 

Now, off to join some Bookfunnel promos.