Sunday, April 29, 2012

The importance of book covers

Book covers. I guess they can sometimes be taken for granted, but when it's the first thing a prospective reader sees, their importance cannot be underestimated. A good cover should entice the reader to pick the book up, or in the case of eBooks to progress to the second stage, which is reading the blurb to see what the story is about. That's why I've never been happy with the covers I used for The Kult. It's been through a few incarnations, but none of the recent ones have felt or looked right. I mean for one thing, when you look at a cover, you should instantly know what genre the book is. The problem with The Kult was compounded because it was part of a series with Killers, but put the books side by side and you never would have guessed it.

I had been struggling to design something myself, and I'd seen a couple of covers by Karri Klawiter that I liked, so I hired her to design a new cover, and over a couple of days and a few emails we came up with something I'm more than happy with. I think both covers now give a hint of the story but they also create a sense of foreboding. I hope people agree:


The books can be purchased from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

And you can check out more of Karri's work on her website: http://artbykarri.com/tag/karri-klawiter/

Monday, April 16, 2012

Dark Seduction

Forced into accepting a bet by a group of mysterious card players, Zen Barker soon discovers that there is a world beyond ours. A place of nightmare where the monsters are real: The Shadowland.

The rules of the wager? Kill or be killed. The target? A woman named Melantha who wields a sinister power called the Glamour that allows her to bewitch anyone she meets. She intends using it to take vengeance against the descendents of those who have persecuted her gypsy clan through the ages. But in doing so she risks creating a disturbance in the infrastructure, and if that happens, then the monsters that reside in the Shadowland will be released.

Now the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a disgruntled anarchist. God help us.



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007UILHAW

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007UILHAW