book cover

The New Covers for The Inventor’s Son… Revealed!

I may have mentioned that I’ve been working on new covers for my books. I think today would be a great time to do the new covers reveal. They’ll be in the stores probably next week.

 

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The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning is my prequel book. I felt it needed to appear different than Book 1.

thenewISTBcover

And now, compare the cover I’d had for The Inventor’s Son since last year to the new one…

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I’ve always wanted to make it clearer that these books were not only about Steampunk science fiction but also emphasize the paranormal aspects of the story.

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And now, the transformation of Book 2…

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This was the cover I had so much trouble with last year. One of the original concept designs had a vial, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work and look well with the covers the way I was doing them.

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Needless to say, this is a big departure from the original covers! I’m really happy with them. What say you? Should I have kept that “old textbook” feel of the other covers, or do you think that the more contemporary treatment makes them more attractive?

 

Posted by SB James in The SB James Author and Artist Blog, 0 comments

The Explorer’s Son Will Be On Pre-Order!

The new design for the covers!

The new design for the covers!

I’ve decided to put The Explorer’s Son on pre-order at Amazon. I will get the pre-orders set up on the other retailers tomorrow. The actual release date will be December 8, 2015!

In the coming couple of weeks, the makeover of all the covers, my mailing list, reformatted versions of the previous books, will be set up. If anyone has downloaded my books from Amazon, you will most likely get an email if you do not have your Kindle account set up for automatic updates. This is not a bullet I’ve fired before, but I think it’s really important that everyone have a chance to experience the refreshed versions of my books. From what I understand, readers who have my books downloaded from other book sellers get the changes automatically.

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New Book Covers, Part Deux!

Last week I posted that I was doing new covers for my two existing books and I also posted pictures of two possible covers. I appreciate all the feedback I got on that post.

The Slightly Revised Beginning Cover

The Slightly Revised Beginning Cover

To review, this is now going to be the new cover for The Inventor’s Son: The Beginning which I did not have posted last week. I will be uploading the new covers to all the outlets when Book 2 is released.
Continue reading →

Posted by SB James in Older Blog Posts, 2 comments

New Book Covers!

Alright, everybody! I’ve gone down to the wire with this… But seeing as how my book is about to get published, and I still am not 100% sure about which version of the cover I’m going to use, I though I’d let you readers see them and get a bit of feedback, hopefully. Once I make my final decision, I will be taking down this post.
Okay, first I will show you the redesign of The Inventor’s Son’s cover. It’s not radically different, but I wanted to make the cover look more like it was a real book cover…

This is the redesigned Inventor's Son cover.

This is the redesigned Inventor’s Son cover.


And now I want to show you the two covers I came up with for The Scientist’s Son. I had a really hard time with this book cover, mostly because, unlike gears, which are so very symbolic of Steampunk and of inventions that it was never a question that would be the theme I’d use. But for a scientist, most symbols are not from that era, but later (like the sign for atoms, etc.), so I had to improvise.
This is one of them, a series of hexagons put together.

This is one of them, a series of hexagons put together.

...Or this one with a skull, which makes it creepy, scientific, and possibly more Steampunk.

…Or this one with a skull, which makes it creepy, scientific, and possibly more Steampunk.


I have my reasons for not using stock photos and images of people in my covers, not the least of which is that I can’t really find many Steampunk themed stock photos that aren’t of grown men and women. I also was leery of having a face on a cover that is supposed to represent the main character. Also, the covers represent books that my main character finds among his father’s writings that help him to follow the clues to locate him. In The Inventor’s Son, he is given a red journal, and in The Scientist’s Son, a green one.
So now that you’ve seen them, let me know what you think, please! PS, I am going to do a new cover for The Beginning also, but it will be very much like Book 1’s cover, only a darker backgroud color.

Posted by SB James in Older Blog Posts, 4 comments

Here is the Cover for My New Book!

The Inventor's Son Cover

The Inventor’s Son Cover


I was hoping to get a feeling of this being like an old fashioned book cover rather than the ones we see all the time with photoshopped images on them.
I’ve uploaded the book to Amazon. As of right this second it’s still “in review” but I previewed it (to death) last night and everything looked good there.
I hope that from the cover it’s fairly evident that it’s a Steampunk book… I’m experimenting as much as I am writing. I remember years ago when I was in art class, I was working on a project that everyone else was doing. I had started making my sketches different than the other students, and suddenly, I got nervous, so I changed it to make my sketches look like everyone else. When it came time for the teacher to look at what we were doing, he looked at mine and said, “Well, you were going to do something different, but I’m disappointed that you ended up doing what everyone else did.” I took those words to heart.
Sorry if my thoughts seem a little disjointed; I’ve been up all night after hitting that “Save and Publish” button. Gonna make myself some coffee and then start doing my make over of this page as well as my Twitter, Facebook (yeah, just made the page yesterday, sigh) and all that…
If you’ve got any opinions, please let me know what you think!

Posted by SB James in The SB James Author and Artist Blog, 3 comments