Demon's Throne Cover Updates
Added 2021-11-27 02:01:00 +0000 UTCWhen I posted the Spellblade 4 cover, I mentioned that I wanted to do better typography for my future series. Well, I kind of lied, because I decided to update the typo for Demon's Throne, an existing series. (For reference, typography refers to the words on covers, among other things).
The Demon's Throne typography has bothered me for a few reasons that I won't get into. Updating it to reflect the quality of the art on the covers makes me very happy. The title actually stands out from my name now.
There is one potential downside: print versions. I have much, much better looking print versions now. But if I use the new ones going forward, people with the old ones will have mismatched copies.
Not many people buy the paperbacks (physical is like 1% of my sales, although I do buy my own books). Realistically, I'll probably go with the higher quality print versions, but it does bother me a little to change them partway.
Anyway, just a small preview of the updated covers that might interest some of you. Let me know if you have any thoughts. The updated art should go up some time next week.
Comments
I don't often buy physical books at this point - and usually when I do, it's after the full set is done. So ... from my perspective, it's not a problem. I don't know what the proportion of people who buy them as they're released or buy the physical copies all at the end is? Because that seems like it would be worth a fair bit of consideration. I also have my share of 'mismatched' covers, and have been known to buy multiple copies if the series is good enough. Though usually that's "they started rereleasing early books in hardcovers" and so on. I'm also in the 'buy the ebook' as fast as possible crowd; but that doesn't apply to this discussion.
Jesse
2021-11-27 17:18:08 +0000 UTCThose are some real lovely looking titles now, that's for sure. Shame about the mismatch problem and I don't really have anything insightful in that regard, sorry.
Kartaal
2021-11-27 07:11:04 +0000 UTCPart of the problem is that it does change the spine quite a bit, which is why I'm quite uncertain. The titles are very different, but the biggest change is that they're more in line with normal fantasy covers and have a cutout of part of the cover on the spine (instead of just text). So it's a big mismatch, in exchange for a much nicer looker physical cover. Amazon doesn't let me do two versions, unless I do hardcovers (which would sell almost nothing, realistically), so it's something I need to be certain of, unlike with the ebook cover.
K.D. Robertson
2021-11-27 05:48:19 +0000 UTCAs of the (apparently few) people who buys the physical copies, I would say go with the new versions. It's a bit annoying that they won't match, but so long as the spines are mostly the same it doesn't bother me. If the better typography means a few more sales at the cost of a slightly mismatched set, so be it.
Eric Arthur Blair
2021-11-27 02:12:35 +0000 UTC
