Weirdly enough, the blurb is pretty comprehensible? A bit of a niche genre, but like it was written by an actual human, knows English and was likely sober at the time.
Captivated with the sleeping monk, Floki convinces his elder brother, Harald, to let him take Brother Aiden back to Norway as his thrall. Brother Aiden no choice but to go.
Not really entranced with that second sentence there!
Oh shoot! I’m the author and I completely missed that error in the kindle edition’s summary. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve fixed that!
Athelstan King
3 years ago
Hi!
I’m the author and I wanted to thank you for featuring my cover. I’m new to the self publishing world so it’s kind of thrilling to just be featured anywhere. I tried my best, but I’m afraid I’m not very good at graphic design. (My graphic design abilities are very much “graphic design is my passion” lol.) I will admit that I had fun making the cover despite all of its many flaws. Again, I’m not good at graphic design so your critiques have given me a lot to think about for future covers. (Including the filters, which I used to disguise the stock model’s face.)
May I ask why you disguised the stock model’s face? I mean, that’s what they’re typically used for (stock images, I mean); for ads, book covers and the like. ???
Sure! The website I used for free stock photos had a disclaimer saying that any identifiable people couldn’t appear in a bad light. I didn’t want to risk the models becoming upset if they didn’t like their faces being used on the cover of a romance novel. So to be careful I just blurred the faces. Also the models aren’t exactly how I picture the characters looking so blurring it gives the general idea of what they look like. (But mostly I did it out of respect for the models.)
That’s not what the disclaimer means. “Bad light” means using them for covers or other materials like saying “be on the lookout for child molesters” or the like. Not simply being on a ROMANCE cover.
The blurring is simply horrible. It makes it look like either bad 1960’s TV effects, showing that someone is time-travelling, or some nonsense like that, or that you were drunk on your ass when you did the cover. If you would AT LEAST lose the blur, it would make the cover more palatable.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter if they look like what YOU have in mind. What you have in mind is, frankly, irrelevant. You should have done an adequate job, with your writing, to convey the character’s essence and appearance to your readers.
Your cover is click-bait. Period. That’s its entire job. The only job it has is to get someone to look and say “Hey, that book might be for me” and to click through to your sales page. Once that’s occurred, the cover has no other function. It’s done and over. So, your thoughts about how your protagonist is really only 6’4″ and not 6’2″ and lighter in build, or his hair is more this or that–moot. Nobody but you will care or remember. Once the person goes to the sales page, then the description takes over; from there, the look-inside.
So…stop overthinking the similarity of the cover models to your characters and for the love of heaven, your version of Shaky-Cam Must Die.
Weirdly enough, the blurb is pretty comprehensible? A bit of a niche genre, but like it was written by an actual human, knows English and was likely sober at the time.
I dunno, tuula:
Not really entranced with that second sentence there!
Oh shoot! I’m the author and I completely missed that error in the kindle edition’s summary. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve fixed that!
Hi!
I’m the author and I wanted to thank you for featuring my cover. I’m new to the self publishing world so it’s kind of thrilling to just be featured anywhere. I tried my best, but I’m afraid I’m not very good at graphic design. (My graphic design abilities are very much “graphic design is my passion” lol.) I will admit that I had fun making the cover despite all of its many flaws. Again, I’m not good at graphic design so your critiques have given me a lot to think about for future covers. (Including the filters, which I used to disguise the stock model’s face.)
Thank you again and keep up the good work!
May I ask why you disguised the stock model’s face? I mean, that’s what they’re typically used for (stock images, I mean); for ads, book covers and the like. ???
Sure! The website I used for free stock photos had a disclaimer saying that any identifiable people couldn’t appear in a bad light. I didn’t want to risk the models becoming upset if they didn’t like their faces being used on the cover of a romance novel. So to be careful I just blurred the faces. Also the models aren’t exactly how I picture the characters looking so blurring it gives the general idea of what they look like. (But mostly I did it out of respect for the models.)
That’s not what the disclaimer means. “Bad light” means using them for covers or other materials like saying “be on the lookout for child molesters” or the like. Not simply being on a ROMANCE cover.
The blurring is simply horrible. It makes it look like either bad 1960’s TV effects, showing that someone is time-travelling, or some nonsense like that, or that you were drunk on your ass when you did the cover. If you would AT LEAST lose the blur, it would make the cover more palatable.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter if they look like what YOU have in mind. What you have in mind is, frankly, irrelevant. You should have done an adequate job, with your writing, to convey the character’s essence and appearance to your readers.
Your cover is click-bait. Period. That’s its entire job. The only job it has is to get someone to look and say “Hey, that book might be for me” and to click through to your sales page. Once that’s occurred, the cover has no other function. It’s done and over. So, your thoughts about how your protagonist is really only 6’4″ and not 6’2″ and lighter in build, or his hair is more this or that–moot. Nobody but you will care or remember. Once the person goes to the sales page, then the description takes over; from there, the look-inside.
So…stop overthinking the similarity of the cover models to your characters and for the love of heaven, your version of Shaky-Cam Must Die.