Attacking the Cover

I recently commissioned a cover image from Daniel Ibanez. I am very pleased with Daniel’s work, and he is a super-nice guy. But I ran into one vexing problem—no matter how I tried, the title seemed to wreck the beautiful painting. And since the Atomic Monster books are so small, the effect was magnified. I even considered putting the title on the back of the book, but this was a misguided idea that just felt backwards and wrong.

Finally, I decided to put the great cover art on the back of the book. I flipped the original back image so it would work better on the front. I was torn about this, but I really wanted the racing vehicle image to remain unspoiled.

At first, I simply flipped the entire image, then fixed the text on the sign (which was now backwards). I printed out a few sample covers before I realized that the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car! Since this is not a British novel, I flipped it back to its original orientation.

It has taken a while, but the current incarnation has grown on me.

I hope to have this latest novella out in mid-August. Charlie and I are still going over a few corrections and details (the delays have all been my fault), but we are getting very close.

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