Behind The Scenes On A Cover Redesign

Last year I did a new cover for Alan Baxter’s Shadow Bites: A Horror Sampler, a free bundle of stories and novel excerpts for folks who’d like to get a taste of Alan’s work. It’s a project from a longer conversation Al and I were having about title development, the stuff we’ve both been doing in the indie publishing space, and the difference between the titles where development has been nigh perfect (The Roo) and the stuff that could do with a little spruce.

Here’s the original and the refresh side-by-side for context. Original is on the left, my revamp is on the right. 

I won’t comment too much on the original, as it’s not my work and wasn’t specifically design with Al’s book in mind, but I will break down some of the reasons I pushed Alan to consider making a change. Mostly, these reasons have nothing to do with the cover design, and everything to do with a mismatch between the books goals and the design.

For me, the starting point for covers isn’t “is this a good/pretty cover?” but “does this cover fit the title development for the title?”, which is a slightly knottier question that benefits from a little thought. Title development starts with an emotion—you figure out what you want the reader to feel about the book, then work your way back through elements such as cover design, price, title, subtitle, trim size/format, production value, interior design, and synopsis to make sure that everything is working in sync.

Some of those decisions were already made by the time Alan and I were talking: Shadow Bites is Al’s loss leader, an invitation for new readers who’d like to check out his work for free and decided if they’d like to buy more. It’s ebook only, a mixed-bag of stories and excerpts that range from otherworldly horror to action-horror or urban fantasy horror, and the titles and subtitle were set in place.

But here’s what I was advocating for from a title development stand-point:

It may be free, but it needs to look expensive! This one was a big one, because Al’s back catalogue has a lot of really nicely designed books in it, and the original cover stood out in all the wrong ways when you stacked it beside the rest. Beyond that, we come back to the emotion—something like the sampler should have the thrill of new discovery mixed into its DNA. The cover should be as evocative and enticing as the fiction inside, because it’s where you first make that promise of something cool.

Alan’s name needed to be big and legible at thumbnail size. One of the un-spoken assumptions about book cover design these days is that every book cover is an ad. Not just at the point of purchase, but every time a reader picks up their e-reader and thumbs through the list of unread titles. Even if they don’t actually pick Shadow Bites as their next book, that subtle reminder of Alan’s name every time they scroll through helps remind them he’s an author they wanted to keep an eye on.

Al’s name was the element that disappeared entirely in the original cover—subsumed into the chaos of the design. Rather than being pulled towards the name or the title, my eyes naturally pulled towards the large, dark area on the cheek of the screaming face. We debated whether the cover would work better if the name became a block colour, but I was already thinking of other ways the cover could change for the better. The two issues above were the big picture changes, but there were a half dozen smaller considerations that went into new design. I’m going to post a larger version of the redesign here, ’cause I’m going to talk about really small-scale stuff, and it might be useful to get in and see more detail.

And a quick list of small-scale design decisions I’m really proud of, mostly emerging out of the process. 

The Zombie Dog cover image is a neat little tactical choice I’m pleased to have been able to make. Originally, I went searching for monster maw images on stock art sites, hoping to find something that could look like it was devouring the title. Then I stumbled across the zombie dog from TPXYA Illustration and knew it was the winner. The image does three things for the cover that are really useful.

1) a neat horror image that won’t look out-of-place among other horror novels. It’s also an overtly supernatural horror monster, which is a little cleaner than the fractured face of the original cover (which could beread as psychological horror)

2) It’s a subtle link to some action-horror franchises which feature undead dogs, such as the Resident Evil films. Even if you aren’t familiar with those films, the notion of an undead dog conveys a different type of motion and threat compared to human zombies, and that dynamic works for the book. 

 3) The dog links link back to Alan’s social media persona, where his love of his dog features heavily in a lot of the posts. It’s the most lightly subliminal thing going on on this cover, but the goal here is to get people to invest in Alan and his work, and that continuity may help as they go from book to Facebook/Instagram. 

And yes, points 2 and 3 are really small things that folks won’t consciously notice, but I’m all about reinforcing brand where I can on something like this.

Moving on, then. The Big Chunky Title Font is a step away from some of the horror conventions in books, but it’s done with a reason. Do a tour of the big magazines that publish horror short stories every month, and you’ll often find big, chunky mastheads at the top of the page. Since the free stuff in the sampler is all short fiction and novellas – and the sampler itself is occupying a similar, temporary space that magazines used to occupy – the title font is making a subtle allusion that helps set the tone for a new reader.

The Orange and Teal Shading, which is so faint that you probably haven’t noticed it yet. Look on the left side of the cover image and there’s a subtle light blue shading over the background, while the right side of the image has an orange-red shade. This pulls double duty as a design element—it gives the cover depth and pulls your eyes towards the centre, and it evokes any number of action-horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films where Orange and Teal is the dominant colour scheme.

The Use of an Unaltered Font on A Horror Sampler and the pitch. While I distressed the larger fonts and added textures to give them a worn feel, the font in the square box advising readers this is a sampler (and what’s contained within) is left untouched and in a pristine white. That makes it the biggest point of contrast on the front cover, and the place where the eyes tend to rest naturally in the same way the dark cheek on the original cover pulled the eyes towards it. 

The goal here is to make that resting point information rich, reminding people about what the book is (a sampler) what they’re getting free (three stories and a novella) and what call to actions will probably follow (buy some longer works). Separating them out into the list makes it easy to process, but also reinforces that Alan is a guy whose work has breadth, with a deep backlist to go devour if you enjoy the sampler. In a crowded marketplace, that’s a not inconsiderable advantage.

There are probably other things that came up along the way that I didn’t make note of, but this is already slightly longer than intended. And we don’t yet know if the new cover is going to make a big difference to the downloads of the sampler—title development and cover design is often a series of best-guesses based on experience and core principles, and it’s ultimately the marketplace that tells you whether you got things right or wrong.

I think it’s edging up on something that is better aligned with Al’s goals for the book, though, and I’m quietly confident it’ll work based on the feedback Alan got from early previews on his social channels.

If not… well, the nice thing about the current publishing landscape is that it’s easy to try again. And we all get an insight into the way my brain works when I’m sitting down to design covers these days, and the tiny decisions that frequently crop up that were invisible to me three or four years ago when my default was “image, same font, done.”

If you’d like to sample Alan’s work, you can download a copy of Shadow Bites for free at most major ebook stores.

And if you need a cover, I’m available for hire as a freelance cover designer if you’d like me to take a crack at one of your books, and have some pre-made covers that might fit if you’re working to a budget.