(I Also Write Children's Books!)

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Oh Yeah, The Cover

You people like cover art, right?  Everyone likes cover art.  Here's the cover for volume two of the Inscrutable Machine.




This may be the most pure and perfect example of cover art ever revealed, because everything on the cover is in the book, and everything is drawn completely wrong.  The gate is wrong, that's the wrong moon, those are the wrong kind of tentacles, Conqueror Orbs don't look like that, and the cat... actually, the cat isn't HORRIBLY wrong.  And none of the spaceship interiors look like that.

And he didn't include Remmy, and you don't have a book without Remmy.

Small note on the edits: We removed most of a page from the first book in the magic shop where the kids recap to Lucyfar.  I agreed to cut it precisely because you are losing zippola, so it shouldn't have been in there in the first place.  I know you folks like to know what changes.

Right now and through Christmas there's a 99 cent sale on the first book, in case any of you don't have it yet!

9 comments:

  1. how did they get the conqueror orbs wrong when you have a picture of one on the front of every chapter of the first book (I am assuming the picture is of Vera and since all the characters in the book say it looks exactly like a conquerors orb.....)

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  2. Yeah. I'd always envisioned the orbs looking a bit like that red rock salt you see sometimes (but in other colors), but it was definitely clear that they weren't marked or metal or really anything like that.

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  3. Losing a *page* from the recap? Um... Ouch. Unless the edits were already in when I reread the book before new years, there's not a page to lose. We get three different explanations: Penny's - consise, restrained, and requires her to be drawn out. Claire's - exuberant geeking out (short). Ray's - tries for restraint before geeking out.

    It's one of the few places we ever get a look into Claire and Ray that doesn't come from Penny. It also gives us a look at Lucyfar as she takes the disjointed pieces and builds an accurate view of the events. More support for her intelligence and subsequent decision to use them as support for the next scene. Yeah, the details they are talking about are already known to us, but that's not what the scene delivers, for me at least. You've already got it presented well so that it's not a boring recap, and I don't know what you could really cut from that.

    And yeah, much as I disliked the look of Vera on the first book's cover, this is even farther out. *bleh*

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    1. Don't fret. I was really careful about what was cut. There are parts in there where Ray discusses how he's learning to fight, and Lucyfar comments about the knife thing - all of that was kept. Everything that added rather than just recounted, I made sure to keep.

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  4. I know that you are not supported to judge a book by its cover but that cover really don't fit in with the picture i got in my mind

    But i got addicted to the first book so i am going to read it and way and ignore this cover ;-)

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  5. Is that cover art actually going to be on a cover?
    Haven't found a print version anywhere


    What's the title of the book in the websites background?
    Seems to an old german one

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  6. I also wonder if the book is being released in a print version. None of the bookstores can find any reference to the ISBN. I prefer real books to e-books.

    Electronic book readers would tend to limit my reading and be costly.

    I have books at work, home, my sisters hours, my car, and my sister-in-laws house. If I forget a book, I always have access to books wherever I am. So I would need five (5) or more book readers to cover my constant needs.

    When it rains, I continue to read my book since it is just paper and will dry. With electonic book readers I would need to stop or risk damaging them.

    When I read, even while walking and climbing stairs, I occasionally drop the book and even kick them down steps.

    I love real books because they can take all the damage I put them through.

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    1. The book is being released in print version. I just saw proofs for the hardback!

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  7. Tried to stay up late to read it when it was released at midnight, but I have to get up at 3 for work so I didn't QUITE make it. I will say that I just barely made it to work on time. I read when I woke up, when I was stopped at a light, and when I was walking down the hallway to my office. This is going to be a long day. So far, I love it!! I'm so glad to have another adventure of our favorite trio.

    Also, #1 bestseller in "Children's Aliens Books" whoo hooo!

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