Except for THE GOOD KILL, of which I contracted out to Extended Imagery, for better or worse, you decide, I’ve created all my book covers, including the one for my latest novella RAINY SEASON.
It’s a fun process creating book covers, one that allows me to escape the writing process tedium for a while and become creative through other mediums. I like to create the cover early on in the story development process so I can refer to it for inspiration similar to the way I refer to the logline.
The covers I created are mostly designed around photographs I took, except for HOW NOT TO DIE, which you’ll see if you look closely, is designed around a photograph of me in a hospital bed flashing my middle finger in defiance as I’m being treated for heart failure, which was the result of a freak side effect of the chemo drug I was taking at the time (I was speedily switched to a different drug which has yet to cause my heart to fail, fingers crossed), and except for HERCULES GONE MAD, which is designed from a drawing of mine.
I also didn’t create the photograph that is the basis for RAINY SEASON‘s cover. That magic is credited to Alex Knight, a UX/UI designer living in Tokyo.
Japan is a special place for me. My family and I hosted an exchange student from Japan for my senior year of high school. He and I are forever brothers. I was stationed in Yokohama for my second duty station in the navy. I spent a lot of time in Tokyo doing things that sailors do within settings similar to Mr. Knight’s photograph before meeting my future wife, who is Japanese and was a college student studying at a Tokyo university at the time.
I found Mr. Knight’s photograph at a wonderful photo sharing site called Unsplash. I’m a big fan of Unsplash and I’ve discussed its attributes here before, which are primarily that you can use any of their high quality photographs for free for any reason and without attribution, but it’s recommended that the photographer be given credit when possible.
Which I am happily doing now…
Thank you very much, Mr. Knight, for your wonderful photograph and the magic and memories it has conjured within.