What’s better than a cover reveal? How about two of them?
Long-time readers of this blog know I’ve been planning to commission a new cover for Investigation, Mediation, Vindication. As much as I liked the original design, I wanted something more genre-appropriate to attract the urban fantasy audience.
This is the first time I’ve redone a cover of one of my existing books, and I normally wouldn’t have made a blog post out of it… but we went ahead and also commissioned the cover to IMV’s forthcoming sequel. Blood is Thicker Than Lots of Stuff won’t be released until late April, but I wanted to share both covers now. Going forward, this is the style you’ll see used for all seven books in The Many Travails of John Smith.
Historically, my covers tend to be a little bit divisive, even among friends and family. I don’t expect these to be any different, but they have a lot of fun touches that I enjoy. My hope is that they’ll appeal to the largely untapped urban fantasy audience while still being just different enough to suit the series’ off-kilter attitude.
Without further ado, here they are:
And here is the unlettered artwork. If there’s enough interest, I’ll make the full-sized versions available for download.
What do you think? Do you love them? Do you hate them? Are you scratching your head, wondering how a Google search for extra-strength Tylenol could have brought you here? If so, I share your confusion!
The new cover for Investigation, Mediation, Vindication should go live sometime this weekend. If you prefer the original cover, that means you have a few days left to claim that version (and the paperback edition) for your bookshelf. Who knows… maybe it’ll become a collector’s edition?
Still to Come
Blood is Thicker Than Lots of Stuff will be out in late April and the third book in the series, Ghost of a Chance, won’t be far behind. I’m aiming for a late May/early June release date for that one. It’s substantially longer than the first two, so we’ll have to see.
I’ll then be spending the spring/summer drafting the last book in The Murder of Crows, One Tin Soldier. As much as I’m enjoying John Smith and his increasingly ridiculous cast of friends/enemies/frenemies, I’m equally excited to bring the story of Damian Banach, baby Crow, to a (hopefully thrilling) conclusion! Look for that book no later than November… and don’t worry; I’m not changing the cover style for that series!
In April, I’ll start the countdown festivities for Blood is Thicker Than Lots of Stuff. Look for sample chapters, book stats, content warnings, and whatever else I can come up with. If there’s something you’d like me to post about, please let me know, and I’ll see what I can do!
Until then, stay safe and keep reading!
Newsletter? Newsletter!
If you’ve read this far, you’ve got gumption, kid. In fact, you’re just the kind of person that would make an awesome subscriber to my newsletter. Come join the fun!
And by fun, I mean “be alerted when new books are available.” If this site’s blog posts are my monthly, in-depth, fact-heavy shareholders’ reports, the newsletters are my far-less-frequent, carefully crafted pseudo-tweets, skipping all the nitty gritty to tell you what you actually want to know: what’s new and how you can get it.
I promise that I will never spam you… because spamming takes effort, and I am way, way too busy for that.
You must log in to post a comment.