Another day, another cover

I used to think I wasn't too bad at graphic design - until I had a few covers made by people who know what they're doing. Really, it's so very important to have an eye-catching cover. So I had my favourite cover designer, Rebecca Poole, take a look at the covers for Morgan's Choice and Morgan's Return.

Here are the old ones (done by me) as comparison.

We were both very happy with the (inevitable) spaceships I'd used in the previous versions, but I wanted to see if we could get the people element into the visual. Rebecca and I tossed around some ideas, and finally decided on a "his" and "hers" approach. Then it was all down to the cover models. And once again we were reminded how hard it is to get the right kind of cover model. Ravindra is dark-skinned, but of Indian appearance, not African. There are a few around, but long hair and unshaven would not go with the image (sorry Vikkas), and I didn't want anybody too young. So the man in the cover is a compromise. He's not as dark as I'd like, but I really like the pose, Ravindra looking for answers to difficult questions. And of course I LOVE that ship.

Then we moved on to Morgan. I knew she looked like those very beautiful women of mixed race that you see in South America, but with strange, chrome eyes. We found a stunning model, Bex fixed the eyes, added an incredible space scene with weird alien ships - and we were done.

I'd never really realized how important fonts are. Believe me, the detail makes all the difference. And you don't HAVE to have the titles in the middle of the space. Who knew?

I think these covers are absolutely stunning, and they fit the stories really, really well. Bex is an absolute pleasure to work with. Take a look at her site.

Oh, and if you want to know more about Morgan's Choice and Morgan's Return, you'll find the series page here.