Good to the Last Drop, Cover reveal

Here we go again. The last round of the rereleases.

It's been strange thinking that I've come out with a book a month for the entire year, and I haven't published anything new yet outside of short stories.

Then again, I'm going to keep publishing with new material starting September and going forward from there.

Right now, I hope everyone has read Honor at Stake, Demons are Forever, and Live and Let Bite. There might be some minor spoilers along the way.

Anyway...

For those folks who were here the first time through will remember the original cover to book four, Good to the last Drop.  It was made by author Dawn Witzke, and looked something like this.

And, again, if you've finished Good to the Last Drop, you have some idea of why it looks like this. It was taken from the original batch of photos I made when doing Honor at Stake, at Mount Olivet cemetery in Queens... though that is technically not a spoiler.

Those of you who have read it already, you know why there's a red wolf there. You know why there's a sword. And you know why the location.

I never thought this one was perfect (the face on Amanda seemed a little off) but I was fine with it.

Now, we have a new publisher, a new artist, and a new cover.

The new cover is

Ah... dang, that redhead is hot....

I'm sorry, what was I saying?

Anyway, the art is solid. The model is attractive. I can even fit it into one of the scenes from the book. I even like the lens flair.

Though on the other hand, I recently had someone on Twitter tell me that the covers would probably make him bolt for the hills if it weren't for the fact that he was familiar with me and my work. Probably too much romance novel.

Um, guys, while I do see that you have a point, I would like to discuss what genre we're in. In a world where we have gunfights with the mafia, Vatican ninjas, vampires, SpecOps teams, flashbangs, MOABs, werewolves, and throwing Stars of David.

From what I can tell, there is no such thing as "urban fantasy thriller." However, the best genre that they DO have is "vampire suspense." Now that sounds like the proper genre for what we're doing.

Now, look at this photo of the top books in vampire suspense from a few months ago.

I will say again:

This isn't the genre vampire romance.

This isn't the genre vampire girl books.

This is the genre of vampire suspense.

Even though #4 was written by Lynsay Sands... a romance author.

But again, this is a snap shot of the top books in vampire suspense.

And, frankly, if I could turn your attention to the "creator" of the urban fantasy genre (no, not Bram Stoker, even though I'd make that argument), this is the cover of Laurell K Hamilton's earlier work, back when I would argue she was still a good urban fantasy novelist, as opposed to writing ... well ... bisexual furry orgy porn.

.... That's it. You couldn't tell that her costar in this book involved a mercenary named simply "Ted" who decided to hunt supernatural beasties because humans had become "too easy."

What about the comic book version of the same novel? Certainly, those have to be "better suited" to an urban fantasy series with enough guns that Hamilton and Larry Correia end up on the same gun panels.

.... Uh huh. Okay. Nevermind then.

So, if anyone has a problem with the new cover of Good to the Last Drop, well, take it up with Amazon's genre system. Because we're following the trend of cover art in a genre that should be perfect for us.

Also, again, the redhead is hot. And the art is nice, full stop.

Good to the Last Drop will be coming out within the next few weeks. And if you haven't read the previous books yet, here they are.

Honor at Stake     Demons are Forever

              

Live and Let Bite

Cover Reveal: Honor at Stake, evolution

I had thought that my Pius series had gone through a lot of changes over time. I never expected that Honor at Stake would try to catch up. But then again, Honor at Stake is the only book of mine to have two publishers, and be pulled from the shelves twice.

The first time Honor at Stake was released, it was with Damnation Press. It took a while to pound out a cover.

The first Honor at Stake cover they sent me was .... eh.

The image on the left was the first one that had been sent my way from Damnation. I had to ask for some changed. The end result was the one on the right -- which I believe we can all agree is the better cover, if only for the clarity of the title alone.

And, really, the second one was okay. My biggest problem was the lilac colored binding. Yes, really.

Then there was when entirely self-published the series. There were multiple reasons for it -- speed being the first one. The novel had been unpublished, pulled from shelves, and then put back on Amazon within the space of a week.

A large part of the delay on the first rerelease was generating a cover.

I've done posts on covers I've created myself. Had I known that self publishing was this much in my future, I would have minored in computer graphics.

However, Dawn Witzke had already done several cover redesigns on The Pius Trilogy when I self published it (I suspect in part because they were cringe-worthy and she couldn't stand the sight of them). So she was almost eager to do Honor at Stake. I sent her multiple images from the local cemetery, Mount Olivet, which is where the major battle of the novel took place. I took over 700 pictures that day, and barely covered it.

The picture on the left isn't the exact image used for the book cover, but it's in the ball park.

On the right ... well, it's amazing what you can do by changing the lighting and adding a few clouds, isn't it?

And then Silver Empire signed on the Love at First Bite series.

And this is the brand new cover.

Not bad, huh.

Personally, though, I think I'd have been happy with just the redhead, but you really can't exclude Marco from the cover. The gist of this is to make Marco look sinister and threatening ... because that's really how he looks for most of the book..

And before anyone tries to critique the book let me show you an image of the current bestsellers in "Thriller / Paranomal suspense / vampires," as of the time of this writing.

So, yeah. I'm good with the Honor At Stake cover from Silver Empire.

The Catholic Geek: Love and SCOTUS 02/12

The Catholic Geek: Love and SCOTUS 02/12 by We Built That Network | Culture Podcasts:



At 7PM, EST, author, artist and paralegal Dawn Witzke will join us for a special Valentine's Day episode. She will offer commentary on President Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, and then she and host Declan Finn will discuss romance writing. Witzke promises that she will then pontificate on the virtues of Valentine's Day. Finn will try not to scoff.

If you haven't already, check out some of the books below.

And if you have, please leave a review.

    

Honor At Stake, the Book that will not Die

Honor At Stake was pulled from Amazon this week. But don't worry, it's going to come back.

To start with, My work with Damnation / Eternal, / Caliburn press is done. That's it. Game over. Why? In part, I don't know. It was a bit of an accident.

I did ask to have my books back. I was expecting at least a conversation. I would have said that they might want to keep Honor at Stake, perhaps the Matthew Kovach novel Summer Death Camp, and we'd work on it from there.

But, nope. I asked, they removed everything from the servers, and gone so fast, it made my head spin.

And, of course, I couldn't even get my original file. So the ARC PDF had to be made into a document, the corrections had to be re-imputed, everything with Damnation / Caliburn had to be ripped out, then turned back into a PDF.

So, yeah, this has been fun.

For the record, the upcoming schedule looks like this.

Sometime in the next 24 hours, I will be submitting the entire Love at First Bite series thus far to Castalia House.  Yes, surprise, I finally have a name to the series. It's only been on my computer for 10 years, and published for 9 months. But whatever, right?

Anyway. Why am I dropping everything on Castalia House? Because I hadn't thought that I might make it anywhere with this series. And now that I have, I might actually like someone like a publisher to help me out with it.  But, I'm not waiting for them. Why? Because, simply put, Honor At Stake has already been picked up by one publishing company. It's been published. It's out there. If Castalia has a problem with it being published already, nothing will change that -- including self publishing it via Createspace.

Also, I'm assuming rejection. Why? Because if I plan for ONLY success, Murphy's law dictates that it's going to screw me over. But, if I have everything ready to go when I'm rejected, then I might have a shot.

Yes, welcome to the inside of my brain. It's dark in there.

Now, Set to Kill, if it's rejected, will be rejected in the next week or so. So as it's coming back to me, Love at First Bite #1-3 will be headed in their direction.  They have a guaranteed one month turn around time on books. So by the time I have Set to Kill up and running with no problems, I should have confirmation that Love at First Bite is rejected, and I'm ready to hit publish on book two.

So, the schedule, barring acceptance by Castalia, looks like this....

Honor At Stake, first week in June.
Tearful Puppies Bite Back and Set to Kill, second or third week in June.
Murphy's Law of Vampires, First or second week in July.
Live and Let Bite, probably September.or so.

Obviously, there are a number of factors that go along with this. Castalia, is, of course, the big factor here. if they decide they want the books, it may take months for them to be available.

So if you want them fast, hope Castalia doesn't want them. If you want them done well, you're probably going to have to wait.

Another thing to worry about is the art. The cover art for Honor at Stake is being put together over a series of days. I spent all day yesterday taking photos at Mount Olivet cemetery in Maspeth, just to get something that could be used for the cover.

So yeah, this is going to be fun. The art can be done in record time, but that depends on if my artist has other things to do. Unlike me, she has a life. I just have my books.

Yup. I'm Pathetic. I just have my novels. Oh well.

Look at it this way, next year, I'll at least have three novels to be considered next year for Sad Puppies. Perhaps even Rabid Puppies, if Castalia likes me.

Who knows? Though at this minute, who cares? I need a nap.  Sorry to cut this one short, but damn, I'm tired.

Be well, all, and God bless.

Pius Covers

So, remember when Dawn Witzke was so put off by my covers for Pius Holidays and Pius Origins that she went out of her way to make me new ones?

She then went and took a whack at the Pius Trilogy.

New covers, coming soon in some cases, include....

Book 1

Two

And, of course...

I think they look rather nice, don't you think?

Yes, I'm not giving up on the Pius Trilogy.  Ever, really.

Don't worry, it's going to get stranger, I'm sure.

Dawn makes her book covers for sale -- right here. Go, enjoy.

Cover designs: A Pius Legacy

Yes, we're already at that stage.

COVER DESIGN FOR THE SEQUEL.

Yes, a sequel.  You thought that I was going to be done with A Pius Man, didn't you?  You thought that I was going to take a year even if I did want to do a sequel, didn't you?

MUAHAHAHAHA. FOOLS! 

No, seriously, book two, A Pius Legacy, takes off right after A Pius Man is finished.  And it is finished...

Okay, not really.

It's written. I finished writing it. And I'm having people read it over right now, as we speak.

What? I've been writing this thing for nearly a decade. Did you think I wouldn't have sequels ready to follow hot upon its heels?

Now, on cover design....

If you remember the last time this happened, I went ... well, insane is a nice way of saying it. Someone was going to die, and it was probably going to be me.

At the end of the day, instead of trying to build my own cover design from the fairly tacky options I had been given, I'm going to also consider my other options. This time out, I've got a concept for my cover, and a concept for a premade cover.

Item the first: a createspace cover.

This is an image I've always liked when thinking about the Pius trilogy. Crosshairs on the Vatican, or on someone who is clearly a pope.  It's an iconic institution, and the image leaves no doubt about what the book is about.  You know that Bad Things will happen to the Vatican, or the people in it.  And once the fecal matter impacts the air impeller, the Church itself will be in the middle.

I don't know. I like it.  But it could just be me.

Now for something completely different.


The other option is a premade cover from Sarah-Jane Lehoux.  You know her because one of her covers was what I used for A Pius Man.

This was first suggested to me by my father, who liked the thought of having a war declared on the Catholic church represented by a Satanic image.

Obviously, like all trilogies, A Pius Legacy will have the bad guys starting with the upper hand.  And, perhaps, ending with the upper hand, depending on how you look at it.

Yes, it should have a very Empire Strikes Back vibe to the whole thing, and I think this image also works nicely.

Now, either way, we're going to have some fun around here. There will be blood. There will be violence.

And it's going to be fun.

Leave a comment below, tell me what you think about either image.

Be well.

Cover Art, Graphics, and Slowly Going Blind.

Sorry for not posting on Wednesday, I was busy blinding myself.

No, I'm not kidding.

So, you know that It Was Only On Stun! will be self published. And, I gotta tell you, I didn't particularly like everything that was offered to me, in terms of cover options at the self publishing places I'm looking at -- Amazon.com, and Lulu.com.

So, I decided to try it myself.

I know, I know. You're thinking, "John -- or is it Declan now? -- we've seen your artwork.  Your Vatican ninjas were a bit of a joke. Why do this to yourself again?"

Well, because I'm stubborn, and because this should have been simple.

Let's start with what I showed you already.

Now, this photo on the right is what I originally had up.  There are a few problems with it.  The quality isn't that good when you look at it up close, the blood spatter on the badge isn't that good, and the "Junior" has become unneccessary.

"Junior" by the way, is because my father had his own company called "Declan Finn Associates," a little side gig for resume building and interview preparation.  Anyway, that's where the Junior came from.

Then my father said I could drop the Junior.

Did I mention that I love him dearly?

Anyway, so there was that.

So, what's the next step, you ask?  Well, there had been an option on Amazon.com that gave you a banner-type display for your title and author name.  It looked kind of nice, actually. Also, someone suggested that they liked one of the earlier "flair button" image that said, "Good Morning, I see the Assassins have failed."

And, so, I started to build that with the Amazon cover generator.

Unfortunately, it didn't want to work for me.  The image I had was always getting cut off from the cover layout that Amazon had. It was a pain in the ass.

So, I built that myself.  While it looks nice, can you see the problem?

It now looks like I have two titles to the book.

Oh joy.  Shoot me now.

So, once again, back to the drawing board.

I knew I had to go back to the original thoughts on the matter. I knew the assassins comment had to go. The blood covered badge seemed to offend no one, and it's part of the convention, called C-Con in the book.

So, that's good, right? Perfect?  I copied a "Hello, my name is" badge from offline, then slapped it on, morphing it a little, and presto, done.

Not quite.  You see, Amazon's cover creator requires 300 pixels per inch. I had 96 PPI.

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Ahem.  Anyway.  So, back to the drawing board.

So, I had to go back to the beginning on the badge.  The image I had stolen from online hadn't been that high definition to start with, and I didn't like the blood spatter.

I made my own badge, from scratch, and tinkered with some blood spatter online. I had to adjust it later, in the image itself later on, but aside from that, it seemed to work.

After that, it was easy.  Start with red background.  Add black circle, white letters, past the badge over it, and we're done.

Then what do we do with the author name?  Simple white lettering?  Black on red?  Orange on red?  Seriously, what would make it easily distinguished from everything else? What would be bright enough to leap out and grab someone's attention if this were on a screen, or a bookshelf?

Enter Clive Cussler.  He's been an author I've read since I was a kid.  His Dirk Pitt novels were very much straightforward adventure stories, and he's been a bestselling author since, well, forever.  I remember he once mentioned how he was in advertising and insisted on four-color covers, so that it would be eye-catching.

So, I cheated.

Do you see something somewhat similar between the Flood Tide cover, and mine for It Was Only On Stun!  

I literally took the color from the title graphics, and used it to ink my own title.

And then there was the back cover, which I had to jury rig multiple times because I had to put text in with margins I couldn't see, and I had to account for a bar code I didn't have yet.

Not to mention, I hated the lower cases in the author name.

So, then it ended up like this.

And then there was the author picture.  A friend of mine told me I had a great Facebook photo, but it wasn't professional.  So, I had to fix that with freeware called Photofiltre.

So, at the end of the day, what does the full cover look like?

It looks something like this.

So, what do you all think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Leave a comment below, and tell me what your opinion is.

We're getting close, people. Almost there.... We're so close, the next blog entry is number 300. I want to hold off until next week. I hope to have an announcement then.

What announcement? Well, the title I want is "Forget Sparta: I! AM! PUBLIIIIIIISHED!"

Let's see if Amazon can keep up with my ambition.

So, until next week, all.