An unruly Valkyrie on a flying tiger, a stern angel in love with the rules, and evil pounding at the gate… What could go wrong?
Riddled with survivor’s guilt after Ragnarök, Valka wanders the universe as a bounty hunter. But when hired by angels to recruit warriors for the final battle against evil, she welcomes a chance at redemption.
General Konrad Lagarde, First Mate of the angel ship Blue Phantom, strongly rejects Valka’s methods. A stickler for discipline, he also considers this fascinating woman hazardous to his sanity, as she could make him forget all the rules.
Evil from another universe has infiltrated a secret society of former dictators hungry for power. Having massacred all the angels in his former world, the evil one wants to do the same here. The angels of this universe face their greatest challenge yet… destroy the evil one and avenge their fallen brethren… or the bringer of darkness will enslave us all.
Picking the elements of this cover was easy as the sci-fi background was the same for the entire series, and I only had to choose a big cat fitting that story. But my current project CHI WARRIOR presents bigger challenges.
We authors have images in our heads when we write, and the book cover should reflect these images. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to make suggestions to my publisher’s (BWL Publishing) art department, as I’m the only one who knows the world I created. I fancy myself as an artist, but I’m not a professional cover designer. I understand my suggestions might be rejected if they do not fit the current trends or the marketing needs.
Sometimes, the cover artist will take inspiration from the image I suggested and find something similar but better suited to the project.
What are the colors of the created world? What is the mood? How does it make you feel? The challenge is to create an image to make the reader feel, “I want to discover this world, these characters, I want to spend time in this atmosphere, I want to read this story.”
But it also has to reflect the actual setting, story, and characters. You cannot manufacture a tantalizing cover image and not deliver the same flavor inside the pages.
As an added challenge, except for specific historical period novels with costumes, the BWL Publishing covers no longer portray the main characters. Actually, this is a good thing. It’s almost impossible for a writer to find the perfect picture of their hero or heroine in stock photos. And if by miracle you find it, you might soon find another book out there with the exact same picture on the cover. It happened to me once, and I found it frustrating. It also must be confusing for the readers who saw your cover once in passing and are looking for your book.
Looking for these images can also be time consuming, even with the fancy search words and filters. I spent many hours looking at thousands of images… and I am still not happy with what I found.
But I was reminded of deadlines. The art department needs my suggestions now, so I sent what caught my attention so far. I also suggested bright red Asian letters for the main title. I hope the talented Michelle Lee who supervises the cover art, will make something wonderful with it... she always does.
The book, CHI WARRIOR, Protectors series Book One, is scheduled to be released November 1st. Now, back to the finishing, editing, and rewrites… if my kitty cat lets me see the pages.
Happy Reading.
Vijaya Schartz, award-winning author
Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats
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