Cursed Mage’s cover skyrocketed my publishing journey
Cursed Mage’s cover nearly looked completely different before I had second thoughts and rolled with another designer one year ago.
When I drafted Cursed Mage in 2023, I already had a cover. At the time, I rolled with premade covers thanks to my shoestring budget, so I bought one that I felt conveyed the story, slapped on a title and byline, and voila, my book had a face to it.
In those days, I was still on the entire, you need to be on Amazon and compete to succeed kick. And when I compared Cursed Mage’s first cover to those in the same niche, well, I had two words for it: It sucked.
The cover itself wasn’t bad, and it had that dark paranormal fantasy vibe to it. But it was beyond bland, compared to what I had commissioned in August 2024.
Why the original cover for Cursed Mage fell short
Cursed Mage’s original cover features a girl with a lean build, blue eyes, pale skin, and long, dark hair with blue highlights.
If you’re wondering where Kaija Jokiharju’s look came from, the model on that first cover is your answer. She’s also standing in front of what look like cemetery gates, implying a dark, paranormal setting, and the typography for the title drives this home.
The sky is also an inky midnight blue, with thick fog pouring in. That said, this cover drew me, but there were some caveats.
For one, nothing about it pops. If Cursed Mage were a lead magnet, I may’ve kept everything as-is, since it’s in that “good enough” category. But it’s nowhere near great, nor is it something that’ll catch a reader’s eye when compared with other covers.
There’s also nothing there that even remotely implies an elemental magical system, or that Kaija knows how to control any element.
Rebranding with purpose: The new cover
Then came the vetting process for a cover artist in August 2024, which was something I’d never done before, so I had no idea who was even credible. I found Hampton Lamorieux, whose samples looked incredible.
I knew I wanted the new cover to maintain elements from my original, and Hampton hit a home run with it, keeping the blue palette but going with a deeper, more inky shade of midnight blue.
He also found a lighter shade to put around the edges, which gave it a stark color contrast, and even used it for the fog in the background.
If you look at Kaija’s hand, water’s spraying from it, again using that same shade. Overall, the color scheme screamed paranormal fantasy, one with the new adult/college variety, thanks to the campus in the background.
The inky typography drove the paranormal elements home even further, as did the model’s closed eyes, which signified mystery. In short, this one looked like a sports uniform rebrand done properly; something that’s rather rare in the world of sports these days.
Ditching the ‘Zon saved me money and sanity
You know I like to brag on here, and I’m glad to say I’ve completely exited the Amazon system for the most part. While reader tastes and trends change, making my own, personal store Priority No. 1 and being upfront with my brand gives me some advantages.
- I’ll never need to change the cover unless I feel like it
- I’ll never need to conform to genre expectations
- I’ll only need to conform to theme expectations
Not only does that save me money from investing in another cover, it saves me sanity. And for that, I’m perfectly okay with it.
So, if you found this cover enticing and want to learn more about Cursed Mage and the Catenarian Chronicles, be sure to check it out at my own store.
Why? You’ll save money and help an independent author—not fund Jeff Bezos’ empire.
