Goblin Tales Cover

[jimhines]

I’ve been working on cover designs for Goblin Tales, my hopefully-soon-to-be-epublished collection of five goblin-related short stories.  The cover art is by Daniel Ernle.  He created this image for my German short fiction collection Der Goblin-Held, and I contacted him for permission to use it for Goblin Tales.

Some of the things I kept in mind while working on this:

• It’s important for the cover to work as a thumbnail, since e-book sales happen online.
• I want this to be recognizable as a goblin-related work (which is why I used a very similar font to what was used in the DAW editions of my goblin books).
• It has to capture the feel of the book/collection.  (I really like the way Jig looks like he’s setting off on a journey, and his expression is almost inviting you to join him.)

This is what I’ve come up with so far.  I’m not sure whether or not to keep the blurb from Publishers Weekly.  I like both color choices for the title font (though my son and my wife have both voted for the blue).  I zoomed in on Jig a bit more in the second image.

What do you think?  You can click on the pics for a larger view.

 

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[bodlon]

I'm leaning toward the blue one at present. I like the color with the art, and by not cropping it in quite as close, there's more to see. Jig's sword, for example, is more coherent.

I could go either way on the blurb.

[jimhines]

Thanks! That's pretty much the consensus I've been getting. This is what I've come up with for version 3.0:

[xap]

Think I like this best so far :) Though I do wonder about the contrast with the title in the other color. But yes, this one :)

[jimhines]

Thanks! I think we're getting close here :-)

[bodlon]

My PayPal account is already tingling with excitement.

[dantesspirit]

I like the blue better. It shows me more detail as far as surroundings and makes me want to know where, why and how the Goblin got there.}:)

[jimhines]

Thanks! I've posted version 3.0 in the comment just above this one, if you want to see the next stage in Jig's evolution :-)

[dantesspirit]

Ok, I changed my mind, I like that one even better cause now I want to know where he's been and why he has such a smug smirk on his face.}:P

[georgmi]

For the thumbnail, I prefer the zoomed-in version.

For the bigger picture, I prefer the zoomed-out version.

Is it required that you use only one image, or could you use the zoomed-in version for the thumbnails, and then a click through to a bigger version would give the wider shot? That way, you could have the blurb in the bigger version if you wanted it, and not have to deal with a big blob of unreadable gunk in the thumbnail.

[jimhines]

A little of both. For the cover to be embedded in the actual e-book file, I can probably add the blurb, since that will be unlikely to get thumbnailed (unless you're reading it on a phone, in which case everything's smaller). But the cover image that gets posted to Amazon, etc. is a separate image file, and will get autothumbnailed, so I'll probably leave the blurb blob off of that one.

[zvi]

I actually think the zoomed in one makes a better thumbnail, and the yellow color makes a better contrast (higher readability), so count me as a contrarian for that one.

[jimhines]

There's always got to be at least one!

Thanks. One of the really useful things I'm getting out of the responses, even when they don't all agree, is that neither option seems to be so horrible it makes people scream and run away. Which is good to know!

[trinker]

I like the contrast, too. On my screen, the blue is a bit...murky, and doesn't stand out enough from the background.

And I think the big light area on the side is a bunch of blankness begging for some thing else. Because it's the lightest thing on the image, it draws my eye, and I'm drawn away from the goblin, and the title...