I’m almost ready to republish ‘Samuel’s Girl’ under Leg Iron Books at a price way below the previous print price.
When I put up the cover for ‘Jessica’s Trap’, you guys spotted a typo and some other issues. Still gave me time to fix it, but this time I’m looking for a quick check first. Here, then, are the new front and back covers for ‘Samuel’s Girl’…
The theme is a circle drawn in blood for a reason 😉 The image is the Second Pentacle of Venus from the Key of Solomon, the pentacle that gets you your desires. There is a theme through this series of books and that’s why the covers will be similar. It won’t be obvious with these first two but will become very obvious indeed with the third.
Now for the back…
There will be an image between the Leg Iron Books logo and the space for the barcode but I haven’t decided on it yet. It’ll be something that will become clear later in the book and it will be in blue, because that’s the colour of the next book’s cover. That isn’t important right now – what matters first is whether a) there are any typos and b) whether that blurb would entice you to open the book.
I’m still on the big push for November. All this stuff has to be out of the way for December 1st so I can blitz the Christmas anthology and then take time off for Christmas.
So, anyone with stories for that anthology, December 1st is the deadline and then it’ll be done in 7-10 days and then I take a rest for a few weeks.
January 2nd, full steam ahead again. I need time off in late January too, for my father’s birthday. After that it’s full throttle.
I have five days to get Samuel’s Girl off my to-do list so any comments on those covers are welcome at this stage.
Six days from now, if you see a problem, keep it to yourself 😉
underdogs bite upwards 
“regular church attendee” – I personally think it should be “attender” (I don’t know where this -ee thing came from, though it’s become commonly used for people who do things. I find it illogical: an ’employee’ is one who is employed, an ’employer’ is one who employs.) Otherwise, I found nothing to quibble at!
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‘Attender’ works for me 🙂
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How about church goer. Seems more vernacular
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I’d agree with Walt. ‘Church attender’ or ‘attendee’ is a bit ponderous, and not really how it would normally be articulated in conversation. If I was speaking, I’d use ‘goer’.
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I went with ‘goer’. The final version is currently going live.
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Top of the head and totally ignorable first reactions: no way to know tne circle’s drawn in blood because, first, everything else on the cover is red. It would seem to stand out more if the title and byline were in a contrasting color and/or if the symbol looked a little more hand-drawn and maybe leaked a little juice….Back cover: think the headline would read better if the “(and she’ll make sure you do).” were in parens. It’s a great teaser, btw. Then I just question whether you want to blatantly give away that she kills him. Seems like a spoiler.
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Churchgoer… ideal. Thanks.
The covers are full of things with meanings that become apparent through the book. They’re also themed because the books are interlinked – not a series so no need to read in order, each one stands alone. Still, they all link into one big story overall.
The circle is hand drawn 😉 I drew it in pencil then scanned and meddled with it to get the red-on-white.
It becomes clear very early that he’s doomed, and his death results in most of the rest of the story turning out as it should. Samuel is only alive for the first few chapters, then things get… interesting for him.
Thanks though, your comments have been a big help. I’ll go ahead with loading this one now.
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Two things:
1) A *WONDERFUL* tool for use in deciding things like attendee/er/ goer etc:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=church+attendee%2Cchurch+attender%2C+church+goer&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=5&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cchurch%20attendee%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cchurch%20attender%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cchurch%20goer%3B%2Cc0
I was surprised by the results and how radically the usage has changed.
2) Leg, I fully understand the artistic desire to have odd elements of one’s cover revealed “later in the book,” BUT… that’s not what a cover is about. The cover is primarily a sales tool for people who don’t know you or the author or anything beyond the cover in front of them. It’s job is to be interesting/attractive, AND provide some real information about what’s inside the book.
At first glance for me, the front cover would say, “OK, some sort of book about Jewish religious stuff.” (Never mind if the star might not be right or the symbols wrong… that’s just what would strike me.)
The point about the red color not indicating blood as it stands is true, but I’d add one more element: a small, subtle, but unmistakable drop or smear or curlicue of blood leaking off the symbol or falling/landing below it somewhere.
Seeing THAT would immediately alert me that it’s not a religious text about “the daughter of Samuel son of King David etc.”
However… I’d still be *possibly* left with the thought that maybe it was some kind of Anti-Jewish diatribe. Probably not though — just mentioning it as a possibility.
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The N-Gram analysis is also interesting because of another unexpected thing: the dramatic increase in use of the terms “church attendee” AND “church goer” since 1990ish. I’d thought Christian religiousism had greatly decreased in that period!
Unfortunately N-Gram only goes up to 2008. I wish they’d update it.
MJM
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Seems to me that ‘churchgoer’ or attender/ee’ implies someone who goes there for appearances sake, rather than out of actual belief.
I know a few of those 😉
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Actually, now that you’ve spurred the thought: Churchgoer in the US has a strong “feel” of someone very religious. Church attendee hints more at someone who just shows up to fill a space in a pew on Sunday because that’s what’s expected. Thus we see almost every US president being Church attendees, but the actually religious ones are probably pretty rare.
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If it was mistaken for an anti-Jewish rant, all the Labour party would buy a copy so that’s not necessarily a bad thing 😉
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Heh, kind of like my https://assortedtopics.quora.com/AATTAACK — pulling a crowd in who normally would never read it. :>
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Heh! Just replied to the ‘goer’ thing, then scrolled down, only to find….
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