We've got you covered!

I've been thinking of this topic for a while. Now that my forthcoming book THE WARRIORS BAUMANN is awaiting its cover art, it seems even more appropriate to offer you a discussion on book covers.

They say the cover is the first marketing tool, and I would agree. You see it on the shelf (or on a website page) and the image catches your eye, draws your attention. For me, that's as far as it goes. Once in my hand I turn the book over and read the blurb - What's this book about? But it was that cover art that first got me to grab the book in order to see more.

I am not a book cover art aficionado; I care less about the art itself than that the cover represents the genre and hints at the particular story. Personally I prefer a simpler design, but I recognize that genre such as fantasy, science fiction, and romance tend to require elaborate cover art. Crime thrillers and literary fiction usually have a more toned-down cover, often symbolic rather than pictorial.

[click on covers to see larger image]

In my career, the first novel I had to arrange cover art for was AFTER ILIUM, a lusty tale of a young man who meets an older woman on a cruise to and tour of the ruins of ancient Troy, also known as Ilium. I tried and tried to think of what would be a compelling scene for the cover. Thankfully, another author offered an idea and then the cover, which I quickly approved. The design gives us three elements: the colors (red for blood), the wall (ruins of Ilium), and the big horse head (representing the gift horse the Greeks used to get into the city; hence, an icon of deception). I think it works very well. The only "flaw" might be that readers picking the book off a shelf may assume it is an ancient tale, a version of the Iliad story (it is, but set in the modern landscape). Thanks, Ceri Clark!

After that, I thought I knew what to do, cover-wise. Think through the story: what are the main elements I wished to get across? For my interdimensional steampunk trilogy, THE DREAM LAND, I had a whole new world to draw from. I also had amateur skills. The first book featured the discovery of a portal to the other world, which is a physical planet having a greenish sky. So I tried to create the effect: two explorers traversing into a greenish something. Not so great. The second book focuses on the evil queen but back when she was young and innocent. Again, the results were not the best. With the third book, which in part deals with a comet's approach, I got better: the cover does reflect the arrival of a comet. But does that draw a reader's attention enough to get the back cover blurb read?

Sometimes the idea is simple yet effective. For my contemporary intercultural romance novel, AIKO, it had to have a Japanesque image. I combined three elements: the child's face (a child is central to the story), the famous woodblock printing of the big wave (The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai) as the sea features significantly in the story, and the Japanese characters incorporated into the title letters (a purely aesthetic touch which emphasizes the Japanese aspect of the story). With a lot of tweaking it came together beautifully and I felt proud of it.

When I accepted the dare of my fellow fantasy authors to write an epic fantasy - and told it must include dragons - I looked for dragon images. I kept in mind the issues of using art for book covers, artist rights, and so on. I didn't find a good dragon image that I would be able to use without a lot of hassle obtaining the rights or worrying about those rights in the future.  Eventually I discovered artwork by a famous painter (Dragon Awakens, by Theodor Kittelsen) which was in the public domain and incorporated it into the cover for EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS. Although it may seem dull by fantasy book cover standards, I liked it: subtle yet ominous: the dragon emerging from the clouds, ready to attack. One "flaw" is that the artwork has been used for other covers.

One cover I am particularly proud of is my contemporary crime thriller, EXCHANGE, which is about the aftermath of a horrendous crime crossed with the arrival of an exchange student. I had the idea immediately. As I write about all of the gray areas of the gun control issue, I envisioned a cover which would have a band of white and a band of black with the gray in the middle. I found (and bought) a stock photo of a girl resembling the character in the story and positioned her in that gray area. The image continued onto the back cover where a "tattoo" of the sign commonly found at schools ("gun free zone") is placed. The front cover suggests a crime thriller while the back cover gives the blurb in a more intense font style appropriate for a crime thriller.

I work with an artist friend for most of my book covers. We discuss ideas when I don't have one right away and she offers suggestions. I've relied on her for several of my covers and sought her again for what I thought would be a one-off stand-alone novel about the effects of a pandemic on a single mother and her teenage son. That stand-alone became THE BOOK OF MOM, which itself became the first of a trilogy, then another trilogy, then a couple of spin-offs - all part of my FLU SEASON SAGA. For the first book, I imagined the mom's face, in a mask like we were wearing in that early stage of the pandemic, with lockdowns, shortages of everything, and so on. I expected a city in ruins as a background. Manipulation of stock photos.

The second book's concept shows the ghostly image of the Mom (from the first book's cover) as the Son goes off on his own into the woods - highly metaphorical! The third book features four of the daughters of the title, as the next generation takes over the story. 

I thought I was done then, but a story nagged at me, so I wrote Book 4 as a sequel - but it became a main line story, following a grown son into the rebuilding of a new but tyrannical  America - so the cover doesn't show any person, only the banner of the regime (more metaphor). Individuals don't matter in this new society.

But life gets easier for THE GRANDDAUGHTER, an idealistic young woman who starts a kids' band in the western town she and her mother and brothers have escaped to.

However, my artist friend suffered a family tragedy and it would not have been possible for her to devote time to my project. So I tried another artist I found through mutual writer friends on social media. He sent me mock-ups which I thought matched closely my vision. In the end I chose not to use his cover; he did the work so he got paid. I hired an art company, let them give it a try, but their covers turned out to be different from what I wanted - perhaps the first inkling of AI-manipulated art. I said thanks but no thanks. 

By then it was months later and the book was finished, just awaiting a cover. As a sci-fi story, it needed something that showed the general setting of the story (a city in chaos); couldn't avoid it. I was able to return to my artist friend and she produced the cover I liked. She went on to create the other covers in the series - or we agreed on something as a compromise. For example, after working on a more elaborate cover for the latest novel THE GRANDSONS, we switched gears and went with the simpler silhouette image using a stock photo from her collection. This cover image matches some elements in the story: the persistent glow from the east plus the riders on horses (definitely a Western).

Now I have another book ready to go: THE WARRIORS BAUMANN. As a ribald comedy (you read that right!) set 200 years after THE GRANDSONS, it should be sci-fi but civilization has further regressed so we find our main characters in a medieval setting, on a journey across the Ozarks to the capital of Louis (St. Louis) so one of them can wed the princess. It smacks of epic fantasy, so it needs a cover that matches the genre. I have sent my ideas to an artist professional whose work I've seen and like. My artist friend agrees that what I'm asking for is more than she could do effectively to the degree the story deserves.

Now we await the amazing result! THE WARRIORS BAUMANN launches December 1, 2025. 

Meantime, the next book, A TIME OF KINGS, originally conceived in a spiral notebook during social studies class when I was 13 and subsequently put off for years (despite a college screenplay version and two post-college attempts at novelizing the screenplay) is well-underway and should be finished in the foreseeable decade. An elaborate medieval-esque cover shall definitely be required.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2025 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

What An Amazing February! More music & updates!

What a month! The shortest month is always full of so many events I can hardly keep up. First was the Day of the Groundhog (not the horror film), in which I simultaneously began the process of moving to a new 'writing studio' (at which I shall also eat, wash, sleep, and collect mail). Next came my child's birthday, which is no longer a big deal now that she's well into adulthood. Then, be still my quickly  anticipating heart, the Kansas City Chiefs, my hometown team since I was a little boy (I watched Super Bowl I live on TV), played in and won the Super Bowl, which was their second in a row and third victory in four visits in five years, an incredible feat! That after a 50-year absence from the final contest. 

Then their celebratory parade which followed was forever marred by tragedy when two youths who should never have had handguns decided to settle their personal dispute in a crowded place. The month continued with more moving (great exercise, all this lifting of heavy boxes of heavy books) and more writing/revising/ editing on the latest works-in-progress (more below). Lastly, comes my annual visit to doctors and receptionists to prove I am still, for now, alive.

Nothing I write next can possibly beat the month I've had so far.

In my previous blog post I spoke of how music had inspired me. In fact, I have used music to inspire my writing far more than any writing has inspired my music. As a music student I looked for texts I could set to music but did not apply them to many songs. My own music tended to be purely instrumental, although I did manage a fair setting of *Coleridge's long poem "Kubla Khan", using four singers, a woodwind quintet, piano, and a gong. Another text setting of a poem eventually lost its text when I couldn't find a singer but did find a violinist willing to play it (with piano accompaniment) for my senior composition recital.

It may be no secret that I listen to music constantly while writing and revising - anytime I'm working on a novel. I choose music which fits the story, often that which fits a particular scene, and play it over and over as I see the story in my mind and try my best to describe what happens. I've never really paused to think about how that works. It's both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing to be able to see a story unfold like a movie playing in my head. It's a curse when I can't shut it off to sleep or do other things I need to do.

In my more recent novels I've included lists of the music I listened to while writing the novel, believing that readers may also enjoy it. I suppose my music listening began with my first published book, AFTER ILIUM (2012). Began, I mean, in the sense of selecting particular music to aid my writing. For After Ilium, which is the sordid tale of a young college graduate who meets an older woman on a tour of the ruins of Troy (also known as Ilium), I listened to the CD of Secret Garden's Songs from a Secret Garden (1996), which to me provided the ideal soundtrack if the story were to be made into a movie. The sweeping, often soaring melodies, and intimate, vaguely exotic harmonies fit the setting of the story perfectly.

Another example is my MFA thesis-turned-complicated novel A BEAUTIFUL CHILL (2014). This story, what I deem an anti-romance, involves the up-and-down relationship between the new professor on campus and a self-absorbed art student. She is from Iceland, so I immediately listened to Icelandic music, or music which could be Icelandic in feeling. Yes, Bjork. Yes, Sigur Ros. But other music as well, like Miriam Stockley's album Miriam (1999), which features evocative music that put me right there in the scenes of ancient Iceland (part of the subplot). And music from other Scandinavian musicians which created the spiritual space for me to create in.

For a science fiction novel (actually a trilogy) like THE DREAM LAND, which is partly set on another world via an interdimensional portal, I struggled to find the right music. In fact, I struggled finding the best way to start the story which had boiled in me for years. It wasn't until I happened to purchase a cassette of Enya's album The Celts (1987) that I could proceed. The music was for a documentary about the Celts, but for me, well, I saw the mighty Zetin warriors on the wild moors of Tebbicousimankale in what would be the opening scene. Other music I came across which might not have seemed to fit, actually did. I found that film music works especially well: no lyrics to get into my head and all the drama I need for the scene. Video game music also works the same way. The soundtrack for Silent Running (a 1972 film about a lone gardener on a spacecraft) composed by Peter Schickele was a major influence on the writing of the first novel. I did see the movie but it was many years prior to me rediscovering the music and using it to inspire my writing. Also, the music of The Moody Blues, especially the albums Seventh Sojourn (1972) and Octave (1978), provided several cultural references (e.g., interdimensional travel, etc.) which I used to support two teen nerds becoming rulers on another planet.

You get the idea. The music is not simply a lovely background for my hobby but a key that unlocks and opens the mind. For me, it is necessary and I can rarely write new material without the right music. Yes, when I'm far enough along in a new manuscript I may write without listening to music if I have to; probably the music, having heard it previously, remains in my head. To this end, I maintain a large library of CDs and digital (MP3) tracks in every style, genre, mood, and instrumentation. I recently, in my moving, carried five boxes of CDs from one place to the next. I have as much more music thankfully on portable hard drives, flash drives, and on my computer itself. I will never run out and continually add more.

UPDATE

I finished my pandemic/family saga trilogy FLU SEASON (click for the series page) and immediately started in on a fourth book, which I dub a sequel to the trilogy. 

FLU SEASON 4: THE BOOK OF DAD is complete and undergoing revision at the moment. I expect it to be available by summer. Revision was delayed because I immediately began a fifth book in the series, following the grown daughter of the Book 4 protagonist. It is about half-way at present. I know how it will end but I set it aside to revise Book 4 and get it ready for publication. I look for Book 5 to be available in December 2024. 

Will there be more books in this series? I don't know. If a compelling plot presents itself I may pursue it. Otherwise, I try to end every book as though the reader could stop there and be satisfied. But we shall see.

*See the error on the score? Samuel Coleridge Taylor is a music composer; Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the famous poet.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2024 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Story of AIKO part 3

Last evening I went out to dinner with a friend and was asked the question I love to answer: Where do you get your book ideas? Yes, I could wax poetic for several minutes trying to answer that question. The short version is: I don't know. 

I explained that it's rather like an infection. One germ grows into many, doubling then tripling in size, over and over until I am so full of that virus it explodes through me. I can no longer think or do anything else but write the damn story. Sometimes I try to write too soon and I get bogged down. Sometimes I wait too long to start writing and the story fades. By now, I know when to start and I try to choose the best time, set up the right environment, and close off the world to lay fingers to keyboard. Then magic happens. If I'm lucky, that is.

To understand how I came up with the idea for my newest novel AIKO, you can read my previous posts:
How I got the idea.
How I changed the idea.

Even now, I told my friend, I have a story boiling in me which started probably a year ago. Nothing specific happened that I can recall: just a few disparate images, words, maybe a meme on Facebook or a quirky tweet on Twitter--something jogs my brain and I let it stay. The germ will fade on its own or it will grow. The currently boiling idea occupies my waking moments. I have decided how it will begin and how it will proceed but not yet how it will end or what the actual arc of the story will be. See how it unfolds, partly following my commands and partly at random, is the fun part of writing.

Before I can write the new book, however, I must see the latest through to bookshelf status. I've dealt with the story of AIKO the previous two blog posts this month. Now it is time to do what is commonly called -da da da da da da daaaaaaah! the cover reveal. (In my linguistically-challenged psyche, I would argue that it should be a cover "revelation" not a "reveal"--but not worth a fight at this time.) I've teased readers on the previous two blog posts, so here is the -trumpets again- cover of my newest novel AIKO.

You might wonder about the elements of the cover. The famous woodblock print of Hokusai's The Great Wave of Kanagawa works well because the sea is a major plot point throughout the story although it is not a seafaring tale. The child image is important because the entire story revolves around what to do with this child. The Japanese characters (kanji) inside the O of AIKO serve to spell her name in the characters which are meaningful to the story--and explained in the book. SPOILER: One kanji character means 'love' and the other means 'child'.

So there you have it! AIKO is available in ebook for Kindle edition now and in print soon. It makes a great Father's Day story, as father and daughter meet and decide their future together.



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(C) Copyright 2010-2015 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.