1999 - 2010 Original cover painting by David Edward Wagner "Modern Man" used in first, second, and third editions.
Back cover also blank white, only lone figure and title and author name on spine.
Back cover also blank white, only lone figure and title and author name on spine.
2010 Thinking of marketing images for the second edition, bringing Linus back into print for the first time in eight years, I developed these 10th anniversary posters using the awesome artwork of Yurika Chiba. It was then first time I had used anything other than the Modern Man for the book. It was also my first semi-high profile book launch attempt and it was moderately successful, but largely in a broader scope of my own globally scattered community.
2013 I developed this cover to put on Createspace in 2013 for a larger distribution channel than my backpack. A little more compelling than the lone black figure on white but still lacking a certain oomph in the larger world of contemporary online publishing.
What may have worked 8 years ago does not hold true now. It is relatively easy to produce something professional these days, and from there it is only growing more and more so. The 'homemade' style is noticeable in quality when plunged into the sharp and shrewd world of e-bookstores and the many talented artists on its shores. The minimalist starkness of the cover, the blank whiteness of the back over, the clinical font, is not enough. I was happier with it but not satisfied. With so much else to do I let this cover linger on the back burner, a few copies sold over a few months.
What may have worked 8 years ago does not hold true now. It is relatively easy to produce something professional these days, and from there it is only growing more and more so. The 'homemade' style is noticeable in quality when plunged into the sharp and shrewd world of e-bookstores and the many talented artists on its shores. The minimalist starkness of the cover, the blank whiteness of the back over, the clinical font, is not enough. I was happier with it but not satisfied. With so much else to do I let this cover linger on the back burner, a few copies sold over a few months.
2013 At roughly the same time as the Createspace cover came this 2013 Kindle ebook cover. Again, an evolution over the previous versions for this, my first official ebook, but still looking rather unsophisticated and noticeably 'homemade.'
As the print version did, so did the ebook, garnering a few sales in a few months. Professional help was going to have to be procured, for both fine-tuning my ebook files and developing a sharper, more competitive title while still holding onto the meaning I found embedded within the original first edition.
For less than $200 dollars and a couple months of conceptually and financially getting there, I made the plunge.
As the print version did, so did the ebook, garnering a few sales in a few months. Professional help was going to have to be procured, for both fine-tuning my ebook files and developing a sharper, more competitive title while still holding onto the meaning I found embedded within the original first edition.
For less than $200 dollars and a couple months of conceptually and financially getting there, I made the plunge.
2014 This cover is more dynamic, the black and white negative reversal of the field changing the impact of the images.
I had used the subtitle 'a tale' on the last editions and was not satisfied with my choice. It was more a fable, a dark parable, then a tale, and that was the first idea I decided on and it changed my perspective on the presentation. The single figure is back, but larger, coming from the left still but with a more complex color scheme within his frame. He floats still, ungrounded. And instead of floating, he is releasing, all of it closer to the intention of the book itself.
With this cover by Nuvion, along with updated formatting for the novel itself, Linus Cain has already seen more action in the first month of its soft re-launch than in the previous version's several last months combined.
I had used the subtitle 'a tale' on the last editions and was not satisfied with my choice. It was more a fable, a dark parable, then a tale, and that was the first idea I decided on and it changed my perspective on the presentation. The single figure is back, but larger, coming from the left still but with a more complex color scheme within his frame. He floats still, ungrounded. And instead of floating, he is releasing, all of it closer to the intention of the book itself.
With this cover by Nuvion, along with updated formatting for the novel itself, Linus Cain has already seen more action in the first month of its soft re-launch than in the previous version's several last months combined.