Recently I shared advice for designing covers for books (and not just paranormal romances.) But if you get my newsletter, you’ve helped me make design decisions for my upcoming book cover.
You steered me right! I went with one of the roughs you saw the other week, with tweaks in the title treatment, color, and cropping.
I think this final version of the book cover for my upcoming novel, The Phoenix Codex, is just the best. It’s a paranormal romance that’s the first in a series about an international secret society that’s been around for centuries and that fights all kinds of supernatural evil. Check it out!
The Phoenix Codex is a romance but heavy on action. I am a big fan of otherworldly action movies (think The Avengers, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Rogue One). I really hoped this cover would look like the kind of movie poster catches my eye… and it does!
Damonza designed the cover. I knew exactly what I wanted — color palette, images, type size, and more — and they did such a great job.
Although I’ve published two novels traditionally and have self-published a nonfiction book, this will be the first time I’ve self-published a novel. I wanted to have complete control over it because it’s going to be a series and because it’s a project close to my heart.
The Phoenix Codex will be out this fall, and I’m so excited about it! If you have any questions or comments about the story, about working with a book cover designer, or about self-publishing in general, please share in the comments. Thanks for taking a look!
The cover is fabulous – bright, professional, eye-catching. How did you decide on Damonza? Did you use them for the formatting of your book also? I self-published my two books of romantic suspense (and am so glad I did so, instead of a Big 8 publisher despite a good agent), but I should have used a professional book cover designer. Am considering re-doing the covers for those two books, and will definitely use a professional for my next book of fiction. But these prices seem rather…pricey.
Hi, Pamela! Thank you so much!
Yeah, Damonza is on the upper end for cover designers. I went with them because they had a lot of gorgeous examples in their portfolio for fantasy and paranormal in particular. I felt like they had a good handle on getting that epic and supernatural feel! In my opinion, there are some good designers in the $125 range. In a different genre, I might have gone with a different designer. For instance, I think Angela Waters does terrific work, and I think she charges $100 or $125. She did the great cover for the boxed set my novella was in. http://angelawatersart.com
Also, I worked with Streetlight Graphics on Master Lists for Writers, and I think they do extremely professional fiction covers as well. I had a great experience with them and I’ll work with them again. They are not cheap, but a little cheaper than Damonza. http://www.streetlightgraphics.com/project/covers/
And yep, Damonza is going to do the formatting, also. I want that 12-pointed star motif at the beginning of each chapter.
Wow – thank you for the great answer and examples of cover designers. I must admit, Damonza’s cover is perfect for your book, and their book covers are quite impressive. I’m saving this on my ‘favorites’ list so I can keep researching. THANK YOU for taking the time to educate me here – but you do that so well on all of your blog posts. xo
Awesome Brynn! Looking forward to the first in the series. Also, I’m big on symbology; the mark on his back has a place in the story? This very cool and I have a feeling about this, a good one too ? Peace
Hi, Lee! Yes, it’s a symbol of the secret society he’s in! It goes back for centuries, and for a long while, they had 12 outposts around the world, so they used this 12-pointed star. They have a lot more cells now, but the symbol kind of stuck. It’s not really on his back in the story — it’s just superimposed there for the cover, if that makes sense. (I’d originally asked for it lower on the cover, but it really didn’t work with the layout.)
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Love the cover, Bryn! I’ve done some cover artwork in the past for Cobblestone Press as well as some freelance work and there’s not a thing I’d change on this. It’s truly gorgeous. I’ve been wavering on whether to do my own cover art (if I ever finished writing this book. Ugh.). Damonza’s work puts a point in the “hire out” column.
As, thank you, PJ! It was an easy call for me, of course, since I have no design skills. For someone like you, that’s a tough call. If you’ve done work for Cobblestone Press, my guess is that you’d knock it out of the park when it’s your own project! It probably just depends on if you want to do it or not!
Congrats! I hope to feel that same excitement someday 🙂
Oh, I know you will. Thank you, Jennifer!
Beautiful cover. Sounds and looks like my kind of book….Congrats…
Aw yay, sounds like we are in sync, Tabitha 😀 Thanks for the kind words!
Stunning cover, Bryn!!! Can’t wait for the book to come out!!!
Thank you so much, Artemis! Hey, I just found you on Twitter… I can’t believe I wasn’t following you before!! Glad I got that corrected!
You’re getting me excited for the book! And those wounds/marks look brutal, is it too spoiler-y to ask what they are?
Thank you for saying that, Kiete! 🙂 Yeah, the wounds are pretty brutal…
I want to tell you, but I can’t get the spoiler text thing I just installed to work.
Nobody scroll down unless you want a mild spoiler!
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When the heroine, Cassie, gets very angry at someone, a wild animal attacks that person. In the beginning of the story, she gets really mad at Jonathan, for a very good reason. A bear then attacks Jonathan, and that’s now his back gets slashed!
Great cover! Will this be an ebook or print? If both, are you using the same cover dimensions for both? I’ve always used 1567px x 2500px for Kindle and 6″ x 9″ for print. It’s only a slightly different aspect ration, but different enough to mean a bit extra work.
Hi, Ryan! It will be both! I think I went with 5.5″ x 8.5″ for the trim size, though I don’t have the order in front of me. They’ll do a different file for the print version, with the back cover design and blurb 🙂
Wow that looks awesome, Bryn. I know when I am looking for a new book to read the cover art has to grab my attention before I pick the book up, and I would certainly go for this.?
Yay! That’s awesome to hear, Shirley. Thanks for the vote of confidence! 🙂
It looks great! A job well done! 🙂
Aw thanks so much, Jennifer!