I’ve been thinking about taking Soultaming the Serpent into the print world for a while now, but the closer we get to finishing the contest, the more I want it. In fact, I wanted it beforehand but was warned that changing the author name on a print book is a lot more painful and stressful than just hold off, so hold off I did.
And I do have to admit, I’m actually a little glad I held off because I’ve been thinking of changing the cover.
Yes, the cover is what inspired this story to begin with, but I really want to try something else - and when better than the print version and different author name?
After a friend send me an absolutely epic drawing of the full cover art from Of Jade and Dragons, I’ve become obsessed with that style.
There is so much about this cover that I absolutely love and I know I can utilize my skills to create something similar, but that links more closely to the romance and love of my story, less on the epic scale of fantasy books.
And while Korean mythology was a huge inspiration for my story, it is not Asian-centred, so I will want to change some elements around.
Because of that, I’ve been obsessively browsing through Pinterest to better understand this style of drawing and similar, and have come across some absolutely beautiful inspiration images.
And this is where you come in!
How are you liking the current cover for Soultaming the Serpent? I love the purple and pink of it (and will find some way to utilize that) but I do want something a bit more modern in terms of an art-style.
And that is all from me for this week.
Last update update under this penname will be coming to you on the 30th with final stats for Soultaming the Serpent and how everything progressed from the cover to a book that I absolutely love.
See you around!
For real tho it's tough! fwiw I really do love the cover you have, but I can understand wanting to make it more like, your _own_ cover that more directly reflects the content, after all this work to make a good book.
For me, I have felt a little bit like my cover typography held me back a little bit, more because of the general style and direction I took with my story than anything else. I'm lucky in that my stock was relatively unaltered to get the illustration part across, because my story doesn't work nearly so well without her, but it definitely means omitting details I would have liked to put on the cover as well.
I don't wanna vote in the poll here because my vote is "what will make you happy!" and that's not so easy to encapsulate in an up or down vote. 😁
I mean I say change it but at the same time, the original is still great. I'm cover hunting too and it's so hard! Especially when the artists I like are minimum $500😬 I know one illustrator I love for epic is 1.5k. Gotta be rolling in it before that kind of investment