Back in 2023, author Joseph Schwartz got in touch with me. His editor, Matthew Howard, had recommended my book cover design services and Joe wanted to know if I could help.

“I’m writing a series of swords and sorcery tales.”

There was more to Joe’s initial message but it’s fair to say that I was hooked by that sentence in particular. I enjoy working on all sorts of books but there is something especially fun about fantasy novels.

We swapped some emails working out the basic details of what was needed (the type of cover, which formats, the publishing timescale, and so on) and I provided a quote. With that all done and dusted, Joe was added to my schedule to start work in a couple of months’ time.

“I was hoping to get some further details from you about the design.”

I usually start the designing process by sending a short list of questions to my clients. The aim is to gather an overview of the ideas a client may have, together with a sense of the overall themes of the book and where the client expects to place the book within the marketplace.

• Do you have any thoughts/ideas for what you would like to see on the cover?
• Are there any themes you would like to convey with the cover?
• What kind of books would you like Wilder Fire to sit alongside on a bookshelf (this can help to get an overall sense of the tone for the cover)?
• If there are any specific characters or locations you would want to feature on the cover, are you able to provide a short description of them?

Joe sent me his responses and it was clear that we were looking for a design that incorporated “a full moon”, “a canine eye”, “a forest”, and “trees on fire”. This gave me plenty to get my teeth into so I opened a new document in Photoshop and started doodling ideas.

“Please find attached a first set of concept ideas for the cover.”

I like to come up with three or four different concepts to present to a client. There are many different ways to interpret a particular brief and I want to make sure that people are given the opportunity to see several options so that they don’t feel pressured into going down one particular route. With Joe’s cover, I presented four different concepts, all built around the core design elements we had identified.

Joe and Matthew reviewed my sketches and notes and decided that option 2 was the direction they wanted to take with this cover. Joe made some suggestions for changes he would like to try and I started work on a more detailed sketch that incorporated those updates.

I presented a couple of options to Joe showing a subtle variation in how the moon was depicted. We all agreed that a crescent moon was more immediately “readable” as a moon and that one was therefore the right way to go.

At this stage, the main areas of the design had been blocked out so we all knew approximately where the various pieces of text would go, but the final decisions around fonts and the exact placement of the text had not yet been agreed.

“Here is a first version of the painted cover for review.”

Then came my favourite part of the process, as I sat down and painted the final artwork.

Nearly all of my illustrations are painted in Photoshop and I start by setting up a new file with the correct dimensions and pasting a copy of the sketch into the new document. I also gather together any reference images I might need. In this case, that involved roping in my parent’s dog who very kindly sat still long enough for us to get a few photos of her eye!

With a podcast or some music playing in the background, I start painting. The process varies depending on the subject but, in this case, I started with larger areas of colour for the fur and the iris and gradually added more and more detail to create the individual hairs and the details in the eye. I then turned my attention to the mini scene within the pupil, building up the skeletons of the trees before adding the flames and smoke over the top.

Once I was happy with the painting, I moved on the text. We had agreed to swap some of the text around, moving the author name to the top and dropping the series title to the bottom. It had also been suggested that we could incorporate the hero’s sword into the title block so I painted a sword and positioned it between the two lines of text.

Then it was over to Joe to review the new version.

“You killed it!”

It’s always a good feeling when you deliver something a client likes and I was delighted that Joe was so enthusiastic about the design. This version was approved by Joe and I could then prepare and export the final upload-ready cover file. Wilder Fire is only available as an ebook so, in this case, there was only a single front cover JPG file required.

As well as the cover file, I also sent Joe a 3D mockup of the cover to use when promoting the book. This is something I include for all my book cover clients.

“On to the next project.”

I was thrilled that Joe wanted to continue our working relationship and he soon set me to work on some further illustrations. We developed the sword design from the front cover into a black and white illustration to use inside the book. This design is significant to the story of Wilder Fire but to find out why, you’re going to have to read the book!

Joe was already well into the editing stage for the second book in the series, so we were also able to start work on the next cover. While that process followed the same overall arc as the first book, it was streamlined by the fact that we had already established a look for the covers. My job was to take Joe’s ideas (inspired by one of the unused concepts for book one) and to fit them into the series design that had been established for the first book.

“I was drawn to this story by its synopsis and its arresting cover.“

Wilder Fire was released in November 2023 as an ebook (to purchase and as part of Kindle Unlimited). The second book, Blood Daggers, followed in March 2024 and, a couple of months later, Joe got in touch to share a review he had received. This reviewer had highlighted the cover design as one of the reasons they had picked up the book.

It’s not always easy to draw a clear line between my work as a cover artist and the success of a particular book. There are many factors that go into marketing a book and the cover is just one aspect of that. So it was great to hear this piece of feedback and to know that, for one reader at least, my cover design had played a part in them purchasing the book. The fact that they then loved the story is, of course, all down to Joe and Matthew’s hard work!

All three books in the Thomas Berenford Chronicles are available now in ebook format.