I had a really great idea for the cover for Destiny, Book Two of the Last Paladin Series, and then I realized that I wouldn’t be making it to the part I’d initially planned to end the second at. I know it’s very common for writers to make covers for their books that have nothing directly to do with the story, but personally I find that extremely annoying. I love to see the vision the writer had of the main character or some important part of the story.

Unfortunately that means the cover I’ve been planning to use for Book Two, even before Book One was finished, now isn’t relevant to the story within its pages, since that part of the story will now be pushed to Book Three. That sucks to such a high degree of suckatude that I cannot even begin to express my annoyance. If you’ve never tried coming up with a cover for a story that captures the essence of the characters/action/story, looks good on the front of a paperback book cover (you have to plan for the smallest possible size), looks exciting/interesting and is overall good enough to encourage writers to pick-up your novel, out of the thousands of other books available, to read the back cover, then you understand how unbelievably difficult this is to do.

Seriously, the goal of any cover is to be good enough eye candy to encourage readers who are into the genre you’re writing about to pick-up your book and check out the back story. It’s your primary form of advertisement before everything else. Your second and third primary forms of advertisement are the back cover snippet of your story and the front inner flap excerpt. These show the readers your writing style and the general concept of your story, hopefully getting them to read the sample Amazon and other websites offer. At this point you’ve sank your hooks into them, metaphorically speaking. You’ve pulled the reader into your world and hopefully they’ve enjoyed the experience and will come back for more.

So back to finding a cover for Destiny, recently I’ve been letting my mind wander as I write the last quarter of Book Two hoping to come up with a new concept that will fit my requirements for the cover. As I’ve talked about before, usually as I write I run through graphic images I’ve pulled out specifically relevant in one way or another to the current story I’m working on. Most of the images are from Deviant Art’s website. I might see if what the artist has in regards to posting his works on other websites or even if I can ask to be allowed to share his work, but first I have to find where I originally pulled the image from.

Anyway, the image is from the Ultramarines: Warhammer 40,000 universe. It’s an action shot from the perspective of the enemy attacking a group of Ultramarines that just rocks. I was thinking I could use the concepts and layout the artist did for this shot for something relevant in my own story. The scene would be in a large cavern. The viewpoint is if you were the attacking enemy charging the group. Picture a large stone statue of a gorgon reaching up to the sky (or cavern ceiling) in the middle of the scene, near the base a large Minotaur warrior in legionnaire armor holding to two enormous double-headed battleaxes shimmering with magical power and is in the process of turning to face an oncoming enemy. Picture ornate chest armor, shredded billowing cloak, armored shin guards over black hooves and elbow high metal gauntlets. Back-to-back with the Minotaur is a modern NATO soldier caught in mid-turn with their rifle swinging around. Maybe she’s a female sergeant with short hair and her helmet off. Lower in front of them are maybe two more modern soldiers, one injured laying on their back with the other shooting back over their shoulder as they try to drag the injured away from the oncoming enemy. Another Minotaur is in the front right of the picture falling backwards with one arm slice off at their upper arm, while the other has a fist spike weapon. Lastly on the left side of the screen are two more Minotaurs rushing up with a large shield in one arm and a fist spike in the other.

I’m still trying to picture the scene. It can’t be too much or it won’t display properly on the cover size allowed on the site. What do you think? Does the scene sound interesting? Would it catch your eye and encourage you pick-up the novel to see what the story is about? Do I need to go back to the drawing board and try for another image?    

Today I had the pleasure of being interviewed by a DODEA Wiesbaden High School student name Tristan Mann.

He picked up one of my first copies of Flight and has really enjoyed the storyline. Another fellow gamer, we had a great time talking about some of our favorite video games and Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies in-between questions. As soon as he posts the interview I will link to his youtube page, but for now you only have my take on the interview.

Sometimes I get so focused on getting the next story out I forget how cool the storyline is. Talking with Tristan about how I came up with the idea for the series and discussing Books One and Two really got me excited all over again for the story.

I was telling him about how Book Two is going to have Minotaurs, Centaurs and Elves. We had a quick discussion about the Minotaurs, since we both are big time D&D and MMO fans. I explained my concept for the Minotaur Race like this: Picture Minotaur Roman Legions that are armed with runic metal gauntlets that transform into either a fist punch-spike sword that looks like a Gladius or into a large Roman shield. They also have a secondary weapon slung over their back that is a large double-headed battleaxe.

He loved the mental picture I painted for the race and thought it sounded awesome. I told him I was having a lot of fun with the story and that was just one small piece.

One of my fans from Goodreads, Richard Webster, had a great idea about discussing some of the up and coming things from Book Two. I really liked the concept and will try to slipping in some of the main characters bios from Book Two.

Tristan and I also discussed where I got the idea for the Last Paladin Series from. I explained to him that I always wanted to write and I’ve had several persistent dreams. One being about a teenage boy that was hidden on Earth when his people were decimated, the dream is about how he goes back to his own world and confronts the evil there.

Dreams are never one consistent story, but bits and pieces that are formed as I was growing up via Fantasy/Sci-Fi stories and movies that I grew up with. My childhood was quite horrible, so maybe it was my way of looking for a way out of the pain I was borne into.

Whatever it was, the dreams have been with me since my earliest memories.

When I started writing the Book One, I realized there was an entire story with how Startüm is discovered on Earth by his people’s ancient enemy. It was kind of a surprise since I had planned to start out by quickly going to Irlendria, but once I thought about how that story would go it just made sense to write it out. That is how Book One came into being.

Tristan asked me how many Book I’ve planned for the series, which was an easy answer. For now there is four books planned, although from how well the response is I have a great ideal for slightly altering the planned ending of Book four. If I do that I will easily have another three books to add to the series.

I also explained to Tristan that due to the extensive history of Irlendria and the war that has devastated their planet for around 3000 years. I have a lot of options for pre-stories. I already have one planned that would tell the story of how Startüm’s Mother and Father, Novastar Ironwolf and Ilmarinen Ironwolf, met and fell in love. It would go up to the point of where Novastar’s Father, Shadowfang brings Startüm to Earth.

Also I have a Sci-Fi series that has been building in my mind. One of my other long time dreams since I was a child. I’d like to start this once the first series of The Last Paladin is completed before I do any pre-stories.

All in all, I had a great talk with Tristan. He’s a pretty cool guy and we had a great time talking about everything.

Before you even begin the createspace.com process, I would recommend determining  the design you want for the cover of your book. I believe this is so important because of two things: 
 
First, because for most of us this is a skill we will need to rely on another person to complete this, and the time and money it will take will depend on when we can complete the process of publishing our story.
   
Second, because we should have at least the outlines of our website determined before our book is published, and the art for the cover of our book is an essential element needed to make our website really stand out and promote our story.

I went ahead and found my artist at http://www.deviantart.com/  Just by going over artists websites and profiles you get an excellent idea of the different types of art available for your story, and normally you can see the going rate of what each artist is charging for the work they are doing. Also,
you have the perfect medium to communicate with them and arrange for the work that you would like for your cover.

Typical practice is for you to explain what you are looking for and a general price to be discussed. Once that has been determined, normally you work with the artist to get a rough sketch of what you would like to be drawn. The artist sends you the rough sketch for your approval to proceed with the final image, and you pay half of the cost at this time. The last half is due at the time the artist has finished the piece to both your satisfaction. You get full rights over the image for your website and book and to do as you like, and they get the option to post their artwork on their website.

Prices vary greatly between artists, so it really is important to do your homework. I did my cover with Leo Black http://dleoblack.deviantart.com/ who was a great artist to work with. He made me feel comfortable with making changes and brought my image to life. Not to mention, I think his artwork is incredible.

Once you have your cover finished for your book. I suggest getting your website created and setup if you do not already have one. I used www.weebly.com for my page. As long as you have your own content ready to go, aka artwork, everything else is drag and  drop for the entire design. No other special software is needed and they link automatically with Twitter and Facebook and other websites to automate your posts and help you
establish your web presence.

This is important since you will be doing your own marketing.