Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Have you seen the cover for Gravity?

Author Cherie Reich has published her three Gravity books in one comprehensive volume. It's called (appropriately) "Gravity: The Complete Trilogy" and here's the cover for it:
First off, I really love it. And I want to explain why. But before I do that, I want to give credit to the artists that brought this book to production.

The picture was created by Angela Harburn. Cherie purchased the rights to use it for her cover art from Dreamstime.com. Aubrie Dionne designed the cover (the fonts and such), and Cherie drew the bookworm on the back of the cover for her Surrounded by Books Publishing logo.

Now...why I like it. If you take into consideration the placement of the spine, then the front of the ship makes a line (arrow) that points right to the title. So you can't miss the name. Additionally the reflection of the ship on the planet below frames it in so that your eye is draw to the center of the picture. When viewed as a whole, the images on the front cover condense to the words on the back, inevitably leading you to read the blurb.

That's just great marketing.

I'm very happy to judge this book by its cover. In a word: excellence.


Have a great Wednesday.

31 comments:

  1. I agree, it's a beautiful cover indeed! I hope that Cherie's trilogy will be available in print ;)

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  2. It is a great cover and I also like the color choice, but the image looks off center on my screen. I see it as the spine cutting down the middle of the ship placing its nose on the back cover. On Cherie's site however, the front cover shows the whole ship just under the title. Still, it's an awesome cover and like Trisha said, I hope it'll be available in print as well.

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  3. That's why I posted it last week - that is one awesome cover, especially for science fiction.

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  4. Love the cover...but only 2.99 for a Trilogy? Way too cheap. I say at least $5.99

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  5. And you say you're not an artist. Great cover and an even greater cover of it. Thanks!

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  6. Oh my. That's gorgeous.

    What's that thing with the unicorn horn?

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  7. It's beautiful! She chose well in picking that as a cover.

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  8. It's better than 99.9% of the covers on my publisher's website.

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  9. Mike, thank you so much for featuring the cover!

    Trisha - That's the print cover (full length of it). I hope to have it available in a few days.

    Elise - I have an ebook cover which features the ship, and the print cover does cut like that, but it really does look awesome in print too.

    Cindy - Aww, thanks! But they're just novelettes/novellas in the trilogy, not full-length books. I wanted to keep the prices close to the individual ones.

    Matthew - It's the spaceship's wing. Heh.

    Thanks, everyone! :)

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  10. I love the cover. I've enjoyed reading the different parts of the trilogy too.

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  11. I've noticed a number of book covers that have employed this technique, and sure enough, it works every time for me. Awesome cover. It's gorgeous! :)

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  12. Dreamstine has a lot of great images. The cover turned out well.

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  13. Looks like a fabulous book!

    And just came from DPK's blog... awesome review!

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  14. Thanks, David! And I mainly picked the cover because it was purple. Everything else was just a lucky bonus.

    Libby - Yes, Dreamstime.com has so many great images. So far all my images for my cover art comes from there.

    Thanks, Morgan!

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  15. I like pink clouds!!!

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  16. To answer the title question: yes, yes I have. It seems to be everywhere lately. But that's a good thing. And $2.99 is a great price.

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  17. Yup, I have seen Cherie's cover. Good stuff.

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  18. I like the cover too, even though it's an interesting choice for "Gravity." It doesn't seem to show an up or down or those things I associate with gravity. But that's exactly what love is about and I understand love plays a big role in these books.

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  19. That cover is just waaay cool!

    Nutschell
    www.thewritingnut.com

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  20. Very cool cover! By the way, Michael, I just read an awesome review of your book over on David King's blog :)

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  21. That is a beautiful cover. I love the muted colors.

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  22. I liked hearing your reasoning behind judging this book by its cover. How cool to see who was behind the cover too.

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  23. Beautiful cover. Great job by Cherie and her artist.

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  24. This really is a clever, gorgeous cover. And you're right about the way a person's eyes are drawn to the blurb and how the title is emphasized. I have to come up with covers for my upcoming manuscripts, and these optical techniques are something to bear in mind.

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  25. You're right. This is smart marketing with the graphics!

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  26. It's a great cover, but I really like how you dissected it. The deliberate placements to make the most of the picture are things I wouldn't have thought about. Very interesting.

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  27. einstein said:

    you can't blame gravity for falling in love...

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  28. You're right! That's a great cover. I enjoyed your analysis of it. My understanding of visual arts is that it's all about how to draw the eye to certain parts of the picture. So it's very smart how they used this gorgeous picture!

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