My newest novel is The Red: First Light. It’s a near-future thriller, with a boots-on-the-ground military theme, and it’s my first science fiction novel in ten years. Read the back cover copy here.

Right about the time I finished the first draft, last September I think it was, I asked my daughter, Dallas Nagata White, if she was interested in doing the cover art. Dallas majored in art in college and works now as a professional photographer. I described the plot of the book to her, and asked if she could come up with some sort of photo art. She readily agreed to work on the cover, but decided to do a digital painting instead of a photo project, since she’d been wanting to get back into painting anyway. She read the book, loved it, and was more enthusiastic than ever, but project after project kept rolling her way and she didn’t really get started until midFebruary…but the result was worth the wait.

Just as a disclaimer, I put the text on the image, so all of you true graphics people, please blame me for any deficiencies! 🙂

And here it is! Be sure to scroll down to see a second image, showing the detail of the face.

The Red: First Light; digital painting by Dallas Nagata White

Cover detail for The Red: First Light; digital painting by Dallas Nagata White

It’s a wrap-around book cover, but I’m not going to show you the back cover until I’ve figured out the text. Hopefully by tomorrow…

Update: click here to see the full, wrap-around cover.

The ebook will publish in just a few days. The print book will follow. Please use the “New Book Alert” form on the right sidebar to sign up for my very occasional newsletter, and I’ll let you know when The Red: First Light is available.

Emily Irwin has created a new cover for my novel Memory and I love it.

Click the image below to see a larger version in a new window:

Emily is a graphic artist currently working and living in Montreal, but she grew up here on Maui and went to high school with my kids. She first read Memory in high school and has read it several times since. My daughter knew I wanted a new cover, and suggested I connect with Emily–which I did.

Emily listened to my very vague cover ideas, and created a series of thumbnail sketches incorporating my ideas and some of her own, and then, as a whim, she added one more concept, much more abstract and fantastical than the others. That was the image both my daughter and I immediately gravitated toward, and the end result is the cover above. I’m very pleased, and I hope this cover will give new life to the book.

Emily’s cover will be going live on the ebook over the next few days, and will be featured on a new print edition of Memory, coming soon.

When I first started re-publishing my backlist of novels, I created new covers myself for all the books. It seemed like the thing to do in those long-ago, pioneering days of winter 2010-2011.

The situation has improved considerably since then. Thanks to Bruce Jensen I was able to re-use the original cover art from The Nanotech Succession books, and Jenn Reese created a new cover for Memory.

Limit of Vision was the last novel to still have a cover by me, but it’s now stepping up in the world. Maui artist Sarah Adams has just finished a digital painting that will soon be on the ebook, and will also appear on the new print version at some future date.

Here it is. Click the image to see a larger version in a new window. And let me know what you think!

Limit of Vision is probably my most obscure science fiction novel, which is too bad. In my admittedly biased opinion, I think it’s a very worthy book.

If you’ve never heard of it and are curious to know more about it (or to see the original Tor cover) visit the Limit of Vision page on my website.

If you’d like to sample the book, you can find it at these vendors:
Amazon.com USA
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble

For would-be readers outside the USA, UK, or Germany: avoid the hefty international surcharge by buying from Book View Café. Check back here or on twitter/facebook/G+ for an announcement on when Limit of Vision will be available from BVC.

My how things change.

If you’re following the evolution of self-publishing, or if you’re into romance novels–or maybe it’s erotica?–you’re probably familiar with the latest “hot” book cover. There are subtle variations of course, but the basic idea is to display a man’s unclothed and well-developed chest. He is only seen from neck to waist. There is no head, no face, no personality. ***He’s a pure sex object–assuming you find anonymity attractive.

According to Wikipedia “Objectification is an attitude that regards a person as a commodity or as an object for use, with insufficient regard for a person’s personality or sentience.”

I grew up in the seventies when women were frequently and emphatically speaking out against sexual objectification. From what I remember, if you’d tried something like that with a woman–we’ll allow her a bikini top, but otherwise let’s imagine her featured on a book cover, shown only from neck to waist, her large breasts well-exposed, and no head showing, no face, no personality–well, I can hear the outcry ringing down through the decades.

I still don’t see women “featured” like this, but there are many such covers objectifying men. Having grown up in the seventies I personally find it rather embarrassing, not for the sexual connotations, but for the de-personalization. The cover type is so common though, I can only assume these books sell quite well.

*** I link to this particular book only because it happened to show up in my facebook feed today. And the cover certainly caught my eye!

The cover I designed for Memory didn’t seem to be too popular with y’all, so I asked artist Jenn Reese, a writer herself and owner of Tiger Bright Studios, to come up with something new, and here’s the beautiful result.

The new cover went live today on Amazon, and should show up at Barnes & Noble before too long. Find the ebook here:
Amazon.com USA
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble

What sort of cover sells books? I don’t know, but I’m willing to keep experimenting.

Let me know what you think!