Tag Archives: cover design

Cover Reveal: Watersong

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I’m excited today to reveal the cover for the first book in a future trilogy titled The God War’s Chosen. The book is Watersong, and it’s an epic gunpowder fantasy primarily set in a tropical island nation.

Thanks to the talented people of Deranged Doctor Design, I have a great cover for the first book of the trilogy. The next two covers should be finalized over the next month. It will probably be a year or so before the first book is published, but there’s nothing like getting people excited early.

Without further ado, here’s the cover:

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Cover Reveal: Sunlord

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This is the final cover for my upcoming Sunweaver trilogy. Again, I’m in love with the great work the folks at Deranged Doctor Design did for me.

You can expect the first book of the series, Sunweaver, to be released by the end of February, but it may be ready much sooner depending on how the editing process goes.

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Cover Reveal: Sunweaver

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I’ve just gotten some more great artwork from the talented artists at Deranged Doctor Design. This is for the first book in my Sunweaver series. The character depicted on the cover is Deril, a powerful Sunweaver and the son of the Sunlord, who is the only man who can keep alive their world’s sun.

This series is set in a world with a dying sun. In this world, there are two primary types of magic users: Sunweavers and Fireweavers. Sunweavers take their power from the sun and can, in turn, fuel the sun. Fireweavers, on the other hand, take their power from the planet’s core. Due to the fact that the Fireweaver god, Halarik, is the one who weakened the sun, Sunweavers persecute Fireweavers.

Through the story, though, we discover that the world is not nearly as simple as it seems at first glance. I can’t say much else without revealing major spoilers.

I don’t have a firm release date yet. I’ve learned that I’m not good with the whole release date thing. I feel the pressure to get it done, and then I get so anxious I don’t work on it at all. So I’m saying you can expect this either late this year or early next year.

Without further ado, here’s the cover.

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Cover reveal: The Gilded Empire

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Just got the cover art done for the third book of World in Chains. You can look for this one to be released early next year (probably March). I’m still hard at work on editing The Shadowed Land, and after that, I’m going to turn my attention to Sunweaver, the first book in a new fantasy trilogy, which I intend to release in December.

This book takes the story in a different direction as far as the world goes. Through the first two books, you get hints of higher levels of technology. In the third book, you see a part of the world that is much more advanced technologically. This presented a challenge for the design of this cover, but thanks to the talented folks at Deranged Doctor Design, I have a cover that remains true to the first two books while showing the differences in this one.

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An Update: Sunweaver Book 3, World in Chains edits, and some random thoughts on writing huge epics.

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I’m 71,000 words into the final book of my Sunweaver trilogy. Things are really shaping up nicely as I approach the end. I expect the book to be somewhere between 100,000 words and 110,000 words, making it roughly the same length as the first two in the series.

I’m also busy editing Book 2 of World in Chains. I hope I can get that one in good enough shape to have it out toward the end of the summer or in the early fall. I’ve written the entire series, which is what I plan to do for all my series at the moment.

I may come to a point where I have a series that’s too long for that method to work. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have Wheel of Time style epics swimming around. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to writing them, and when I do, they might be shorter series to begin with. I don’t get quite as epic in my word count as some epic fantasy authors. The longest of any of my books is the first draft of World in Chains book 4, which stands at about 170,000 words. That’s nothing compared to one of Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive books.

Within the next week, I should begin the cover art process for Empire of Chains. Hopefully that all goes smoothly, and I have the cover ready by the end of the month. In the meantime, I will likely run through the book a couple more times to check for any typos that have eluded me this long.

I sent out a request for cover art today.

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So I decided it was time to stop debating. I’m going to self-publish, and it’s time to get a good cover. I went with Deranged Doctor Designs because I was impressed by their body of work. If everything goes well, I will hopefully have a great cover in a few months, and then I can publish the book. I’m actually doing what will probably be the final read-through right now. Well, there might be another one or two because I’m paranoid about publishing something with grammatical errors or typos (and therefore being one of those self-published authors.

I’m really excited to get Sunweaver out for the world to read. I know I won’t attract a ton of readers at first, but I hope I can find enough readers who love the story even half as much as I do.

As for Empire of Chains, I’m putting it on hold for the moment. I need to decide if it’s truly the type of story I want it to be. Don’t get me wrong. I like it. I’m just not sure if it’s the best it can be.

We’ll see. I might change my mind on that.

I also think I’m going to get back to my revision work on Watersong (though I’m still not sure if that’ll be the final title. Any feedback on it would be appreciated). I’d like to publish both series (it and Sunweaver) at the same time.

I hope I can keep up the kind of pace I need to do that.