I weight your vote several times more heavily than anybody else's! The general tide is very strongly against my painting style, though. :/ Someday I will get it together and either become a master artist or succeed at hiring a talented one.
... I am not sure which of these is more unlikely. I mean, I'd ASSUME hiring one is easier and would take approximately 1/10,000th the time. And YET. -_-
My concern is that the similarity in styles will trick people into thinking this is a new series set in the same setting, or that it's the same series, just a different set of books in it. Hopefully the strong contrast in colors will make it obvious it's not, but then when you get to The Sun Etherium... well, we're back to warm colors again.
I can appreciate everyone saying they like the silhouette covers, but they are (helpfully) approaching this book as if it's your only one. I'm looking at your entire work for sale as a whole and saying 'How do we help people figure out which book belongs with which series, and which book to buy next?'
I want you to avoid making the mistakes I did with branding. You have two (now three) books to sell, so it's still early enough that you can keep these things from getting out of hand. If you do what I did and wait until you have 20+ books out, fixing the branding issues so readers can figure out what belongs with what... that becomes horrible and I want to spare you that. -_-
I'm gonna try adding some subtle shading to The Moon Etherium cover, so it's not quite as flat/papercut-style as A Rational Arrangement. For The Sun Etherium, I'd use sky-blue instead of purple for the background, with a white sun (that will not be the dominant feature like the moon is for TME). That'll hopefully keep it away from the cream and browns of ARA while still looking like a day-lit scene.
Assuming I don't have someone else re-do TME and do TSE's cover, like a sensible author. -_-
Hmm... The challenge is that The Moon Etherium is a fantasy novel with a strong romance plot line. If I looked at the painted cover with the tagline and didn't know anything about the book, I would have guessed it was a romance about two lovers throwing everything to the wind for feelings, which it's totally not, and skipped a novel I would have thoroughly enjoyed. On the other hand, the poses on the the silhouette cover make it read weakly as a romance cover and not as a fantasy cover at all. I think Miro's pose could be adjusted to make the silhouette cover read as a fantasy cover, but it depends on how you're planning on marketing the book. If you're planning on targeting romance readers, I'd scrap the tagline for one that better fits the romantic plot line. If you're hoping to pull in fantasy readers who like romance in their fantasy novels, I think that neither of the covers are currently suitable.
Maybe something with the phoenix rose in it? Not necessarily dominating, but looking dangerous. Then you could have the couple looking at it instead of each other but obviously still being a couple. But with their attention on the plot, it'd be more obvious that most of the story isn't about them falling in love.
...this may just be me indulging in my love of bright contrasting colors though.
I could put a blazing angry fire-bird above them! It would have nothing to do with actual events of the book but it would kinda-sorta be evocative of them?
... I am so torn between "I should make sure this is as good an advertisement as I can manage" and "I am so sick of this I just want to work on the next book already."
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... I am not sure which of these is more unlikely. I mean, I'd ASSUME hiring one is easier and would take approximately 1/10,000th the time. And YET. -_-
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I can appreciate everyone saying they like the silhouette covers, but they are (helpfully) approaching this book as if it's your only one. I'm looking at your entire work for sale as a whole and saying 'How do we help people figure out which book belongs with which series, and which book to buy next?'
I want you to avoid making the mistakes I did with branding. You have two (now three) books to sell, so it's still early enough that you can keep these things from getting out of hand. If you do what I did and wait until you have 20+ books out, fixing the branding issues so readers can figure out what belongs with what... that becomes horrible and I want to spare you that. -_-
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I'm gonna try adding some subtle shading to The Moon Etherium cover, so it's not quite as flat/papercut-style as A Rational Arrangement. For The Sun Etherium, I'd use sky-blue instead of purple for the background, with a white sun (that will not be the dominant feature like the moon is for TME). That'll hopefully keep it away from the cream and browns of ARA while still looking like a day-lit scene.
Assuming I don't have someone else re-do TME and do TSE's cover, like a sensible author. -_-
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On the other hand, the poses on the the silhouette cover make it read weakly as a romance cover and not as a fantasy cover at all. I think Miro's pose could be adjusted to make the silhouette cover read as a fantasy cover, but it depends on how you're planning on marketing the book.
If you're planning on targeting romance readers, I'd scrap the tagline for one that better fits the romantic plot line. If you're hoping to pull in fantasy readers who like romance in their fantasy novels, I think that neither of the covers are currently suitable.
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So, what would you suggest for that purpose? :)
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...this may just be me indulging in my love of bright contrasting colors though.
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... I am so torn between "I should make sure this is as good an advertisement as I can manage" and "I am so sick of this I just want to work on the next book already."
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the split contrast on the title of 1 is not good
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