Starguards-cover-concepts

Cover Concept Vote 1

As the book was finished, I sent off my cover concept by Kelly to CreateSpace and they sent back their design concepts. Working as a concierge at the time, I got my residents to vote on the cover concepts they liked.

Saturday 14th - Tuesday 17th April, 2012. Instructions were: Vote 'blue' for the top design or 'black' for the bottom one. Take your time and I'll announce the winning design on Tuesday.

Concept Cover 1 (blue cover) won the vote by 41 votes to 6. The residents liked the 'distressed' title font on the black cover, but thought the that cover looked like a text book.

There was then a run-off vote between elements from Cover Concept 1 and Cover Concept 2.

2011: My home-made cover template upon which the cover concepts were based.

As the book ranges over space, time, and different dimensions involving many characters, I chose not to have a specific character or spaceship on the cover.

I wanted a more ethereal look and came up with a planet (it didn't necessarily have to be Earth) and a swirling galaxy on the back. I did want to keep the original hand-drawn Starguard 'font' and the Starguard emblem on the back, but this wasn't to be. Hopefully in a future edition, this can be included in part of the trilogy, or maybe even the film!

Cover Concept vote 2

Saturday 21st - Tuesday 24th April, 2012

So CreateSpace then mixed and matched fonts and colours. Again my residents voted on the outcome. Instructions: There are two blue cover designs with different title and name fonts. Pick one -Top or Bottom (you may have to rotate the image) and vote for:

Top image (also called 1 or A) / Bottom image (also called 2 or B)

I'll let you know on Tuesday. Thanks for all your help...

But by 2014, I knew that if I wanted to publish with someone else, I would need to own my cover.

In October 2014, I tried an Elance artist, Julius Carmenzid. I loved the alien world and that he could incorporate the starguard font, but while that cover was good, it didn't work out and in March 2015, I decided on another course. . .

Original front cover designed by artist kelly O'Gorman Nov/Dec 2011. Incorporated the title font I wanted.

This became the first cover used for the online author community Authonomy (sadly closing down) and for Nielsen Bookdata.

In the end tenants chose the 'distressed' title with a normal font for my name. This became the CreateSpace cover design for the Oct 2013 publication, but owned by CreateSpace.

In June 2015, I then tried fellow author and cover designer Blondie's Custom Book Covers by KJ Waters and photographer Jody Smyers. We went over the elements and even had a google chat about it, Jody changing the designs 'live' for me. And that worked, becoming the new cover for the Lightning Source edition.

I wanted the 'Book 1' on the spine and I also got the original title font on the back. The front cover swirl was almost a last minute decision as it was a normal galaxy view, but then I decided to make it a vortex -the very vortex Alphatronius used for the Starguards to escape to a new universe. Lovely cover.