While revising one book, I have been working on the book covers for three books in a series. I have been easily sucked into the creation/recreation/revision process of those book covers. I am on trial 3.5, but back to the main first image I used for the Kindle Vella version of Dark Blade: Forged.
First image:
In between the start of Dark Blade: Forged on Kindle Vella and now, the serialization and upcoming book release (not quite yet), have been through three different cover iterations, with some rough drafts that I will never show the world at any time, ever.
This is a cover I paid for, but after some early thoughts on it by various people in my life, I started thinking it wouldn’t work.
Because I didn’t feel super satisfied, I tried making covers with a combination of AI, editing the results, and Pro Canva, and here’s what I did there, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I can’t seem to get AI to put swords on images correctly - I don’t know how to write the prompt correctly, I guess.
And I really want a sword in the cover, because “Dark Blade” is the series title and starts the title of each book.
Due to a conversation with someone who has strong ideas about book covers, I went back to the first image, and started attempting to make it work for the entire series. Could it work? Does it work? There are reasons I don’t love the second cover that I am not sure I want to divulge here.
I haven’t decided yet, but I know I’m not satisfied with any covers I have created, paid for, used AI with, went back to creating, etc.
BTW, I am still working on the font and the font color for the series.
I’ll have a poll here in a few moments. Yes, this kind of kills cover release type excitement, but I really need help.
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Forged makes me think fire. Add a hot orange flame to the cover. The dark colors look flat and needs a background to show up. IMHO. Book covers are frustrating!! You'll get it.
This is really tough. I feel your pain as I'm working on my own as well. I'm not against AI, but you might try creating elements with AI and merging them to create what your looking for.