Here’s the truth about book covers — they are really, REALLY important. A great cover (such as Lying Season’s) will entice the reader to pick it up (maybe explains why Lying Season’s sales last week were through the roof…well, for the EIT series anyway), while a bad or uninteresting cover may cause people to hesitate or even refuse to read a book.
I was eternally unsatisfied with the cover of Red Fox. Though the artist at the time did comply with what I asked for, I thought the end result was muddled and NOT AT ALL representative of this fun and fast-paced story. It is well-drawn, detailed, moody and makes for nice art but just isn’t book cover material. But when you’ve commissioned a piece and you have a publication date to hit, you sometimes have no choice but to make do.
I also noticed that a lot of readers were skipping RED FOX which I thought was a real shame since an informal poll has placed Red Fox as the best written/most enjoyed Experiment in Terror novel (though that may change with Lying Season now out). I could only attribute the glossing over of this awesome book because of the dull and uninteresting cover. It just didn’t capture the magic or the eye.
And so, me and my (new) artist have been hard at work creating a new cover that’s a little more eye-pleasing.
Starting Tuesday, this cover will be re-issued on all E-versions of the book on Smashwords, Kindle, Nook, etc (which is also getting some extra internal re-formatting for glitchy issues) and hopefully by the end of week, the paperback re-issues will be done as well. I’ll announce when they are available. I’ll be having a giveaway too, so be sure to check back then!