Cover Art Photoshoot

Last month I was lucky enough to attend the photoshoot for the cover of my upcoming novel, The Dead Dragon Job. I've since received the finished artwork and will be revealing the cover design later this week, but in the meantime, here's a peek behind the wizard's curtain...

For most authors, the first thing they see of their book's cover is when the publisher sends them the finished artwork. There's a good reason for this: few writers are marketing experts, and a cover's primary purpose is to make readers pick up the book, not to please the author. However for self-publishers, creating a cover you love is one of the perks of being in charge!

Of course it still has to be good enough to attract readers, which is why I went to a professional. Larry Rostant did the covers for my previous (traditionally published) novels, so I knew he would do a good job. He's a photographer who specialises in fantasy covers, so you may have seen his work in bookshops (e.g. on the UK editions of a certain George R R Martin's novels...).

A lot of authors and publishers have apparently turned to digital artists in the last couple of years, because Covid lockdown meant that many photographers couldn't work. However there's nothing like a photograph to give an air of verisimilitude to a fantastical subject, especially as I wanted the cover to make it clear that my heroine is not white (she's half-Gujarati).

After I provided a design brief, he sent me a cost estimate and some photos of suitable models to choose from. However I was surprised and delighted when he also invited me to the photoshoot!

The model, Gulnarah, really got into the spirit of things, embodying my plucky detective heroine perfectly. We hired her for enough photos to make covers for three books, hence you'll see her in a couple of different outfit in this blog post.

I even got to help out! Here is me on the right of the picture, having flicked her coat into the air so that Larry could capture some cool flaring action. We used a wind machine for some shots, but manual flicking is apparently the best forheavy fabrics.

The photography is only half the story, however. Larry takes lots of different shots, including closeups with dramatic lighting, then uses them to produce a composite image. After that he adds the background and some cool "special effects" to give the finished images a real fantasy vibe! (You'll get to see that in the full cover reveal on Friday.)

The one thing he doesn't do is the title lettering. Fortunately I have some experience in that area, having worked in non-fiction publishing for some years. So I bought a typeface with a nice period/fantasy vibe, called Hierophant (very appropriate, since there's a tarot reader in The Dead Dragon Job!). It was pretty easy to add some cool text effects in Affinity Photo (which I highly recommend if you're looking for an affordable alternative to Adobe Photoshop), and save them as styles so I can reuse them on subsequent covers.

I'm so excited to share the finished design with you—it makes the book feel so much more real—and I hope you will come along for the ride as I put this story and its sequels out into the world!