The Isle House Ghost Cover Reveal, Again

 

Something different in covers this time around. This represents a scene in the story, as Red, Ellington, and Goldie await the appearance of the "ghost." My first thought was to paint this scene, but that thought lasted 15 seconds. My next thought was to do it in pen and ink, seeing that I already have one cover in that style. My initial idea was to do it semi-realistically. The figures would still be mostly in silhouette, but the highlighted areas would have more detail, and there would be some perspective, and there would be a background, with shadows. Just ideas and wishful thinking...

On Monday, after putting it off for months, I decided to give this approach a go. I called up images on the computer of dogs and cats sitting in profile, and a man sitting on steps in profile, and using those as references, sketched out each of the figures on typing paper. And then, because my wife was on a facetime call with her sisters - typically a two hour plus gabfest - I retreated to my room and got down to work. No more procrastinating. 

Goldie, Ellington, and Red waiting for the "ghost."

I combined the individual sketches, tracing each onto a single sheet of typing paper (because it was thin enough to just see thru) as seen above. I then filled in the black areas with a black sharpie, and photographed the art. I uploaded it to my computer and in Gimp, my image manipulation program, I darkened the blacks and whitened the whites, and sized the photo of the art to fit in the cover. I toyed with the idea of adding some sort of background in "post." In Gimp, like Photoshop, you can add layers of additional art, texture, or lighting effects. I tried adding gratinated background, but decided that I really liked the stark simplicity of just the silhouettes on white, so all I did was just added a black border to the book cover and left it just this simple.

There is a rumor going abound that covers matter in book sales. And for all I know, it may be true. I, however, have changed my covers fairly frequently, and have never notice any results, positive or negative. Moreover, I think that if you  look at the covers of the 100 most popular books in any genre, you will find a wide variety of covers and cover designs. There may be clumps of similar designs, but there is always a variety of approaches. My takeaway is that the only distinction that matters in covers is; does it look slopped together, or designed?

I don't know how this cover will work, if it works at all. But I'm having fun with it.

I now have a solid release date: Thursday, 5 February 2026. I will put it up for pre-sale on Amazon for $2.99 on that date. For all the other stores, where it will be priced, as usual, for FREE. I may upload it on Draft2Ditital a day early to give the story a chance filter down to several stores by the 5th, and will upload it to Google on the evening of the 4th. Audiobooks should follow in a day or two.