COVER STORY

It's been an exciting few weeks. Last Friday I announced the release date for The Worth of Scars, pre-orders went live and I also revealed the incredible cover you see above.

It took a little while to get here - I have been seriously considering what to do with the cover for my debut novel since January, starting by drawing up briefs and mood boards and ending by pedantically picking out the minute details I wanted changed in the final proposals. In February, I approached a number of artists and companies with those briefs and eventually narrowed it down to Xavier and his team at Cover Kitchen, based largely upon their excellent and extensive previous work.

What did these briefs contain, and what did I want from the cover? Well, I outlined three main goals, all of which I hope you'll agree the guys at Cover Kitchen nailed.

The first was to 'catch the eye and stand out on bookshelves'. The blood-red contrasting with the dark, imposing silhouette does this excellently, in my opinion, standing out from a distance whilst also containing plenty of intricate details to examine close up.

'Hint at the grimdark nature of the book and its gruesome magic system (without being too detailed or gratuitous)' was next. Both the colour scheme and the sinister figure do this tremendously, if you ask me, with the ethereal threads emanating from the figure's face as well as their gaunt, sinister appearance hinting at the corrupting nature of the magic in the novel.

Then came 'indicate the genre of fantasy and the flintlock fantasy setting and sub-genre'. While the cover doesn't exactly fit with the prevailing fantasy zeitgeist - largely characterised (in my opinion) by the romantasy juggernauts like A Court of Thorns & Roses and reflected in the recent A Song of Ice and Fire editions - to me, it still screams the fantasy genre, and has a vaguely similar style to something like the hugely successful Alchemised by SenLinYu. As for the gunpowder element... well, I think the flintlock pistol gives the game away there very effectively.

Did they succeed? Well, I think so. Succeeded and then some, going by the response to my cover reveal - and in particularly a promo post of mine on r/worldbuilding on Reddit. People seem to really like it. Some of the responses - from complete strangers no less - are so glowing, in fact, that I can only hope the book lives up to the expectations it seems to be creating (see below)! I suppose I better get back to editing, then...

As always, if you want to pre-order the e-book you can here. Or, want to find out more? Get early sneak-peeks, opportunities and news about the novel? Check out my social media links here, or, to get all that direct to your inbox, sign up to my email newsletter here.

Cheers!