Book Cover Sagas

and some new character art!

Author

N. A. Walker
September 16, 2026

Before you riot, I know it’s technically not time for another newsletter. However, I skipped August (thanks for noticing) in lieu of Revealing Fate’s release day on September 1st. Besides, while this one might be a little longer than normal, I think it’ll be fun.

I did one of these posts showing the design process behind Cloaking Fate’s cover and it was well received, so I figured we’d do a sequel.

Revealing Fate’s cover was a pain, but not for the reasons you might think. My artist is crazy talented, and I already had my design ideas after all the legwork with Cloaking Fate’s cover. This should be cake, right? 🎂

WRONG.

Colors, people. Getting the colors right was AWFUL.

Turns out something can look fantastically vibrant in a digital format and print like crap. 💩 And guess the only way to figure that out?

Trial and freaking error.

Our process went a little something like this:

This was our starting point based on the info I gave my artist. As you can see, we pulled elements from CF’s cover, which I wanted to be consistent throughout the series, such as the frame, title placement, and stars. We swapped the sun for a tree.

We started to play with colors here. I wanted to fade from dark wine red in the sky to a forested foreground. I also asked for the tree’s roots to be more symmetrical. Turns out we both hated the orange. 😆

This was better, but I still didn’t like the tree roots and I didn’t want to lose the silhouette design behind the title. I wanted flames! 🔥 And lightning! ⚡️

So, my dear angel artist gave me flames and lightning. We liked this better, but the colors were still off. I wanted to be “wowed” and this didn’t quite deliver. “COLOR,” I cried! “Give me color!”

And so, she gave me color! Violet flames and fall-colored trees. “Aha!” I proclaimed. “It’s perfect! Print it!”

It is NOT perfect. And so we wept. 🫠🫠

Just kidding. We didn’t weep. But we may or may not have balled our fists and cursed into the void. It takes time to upload and order author prints. A week spent waiting for your first peek at a finished book to arrive feels like a small eternity. And when it falls tragically short of expectation? Despair.

As you can see, the colors (which looked much more vibrant and detailed in digital format) fell completely flat in print. It was too dark. You couldn’t see the flames. Everything muddied together.

So back to my artist I went.

She livened up that lavender per my request and deepend the contrast.

So we printed again. And it still wasn’t what I wanted.

I’ll admit, I started to get discouraged here. I wasn’t sure if my color scheme was going to work in print format. It was still too dark and the details were lost.

We went back and forth several more times trying to tweak colors. And each time, I had to print a copy to see if the latest adjustment worked the way we hoped. We went through this process with paperbacks ordered via Amazon KDP, AND paperback/hardcover prints via IngramSpark. Long story short, I ended up with a lot of author proof copies that will never see beyond the dark corner of my office closet.

FINALLY, after much pleading, apologizing, and agonizing, we got it right, and Revealing Fate gained the cover you’ve come to know (and hopefully love)!

She’s even beautiful in print!

Thus, the saga concludes. Hopefully next year I get to do it all over again with book three! 🤩

If you made it this far, you’re probably asking yourself about this aforementioned character art.

I left a teaser on Instagram not long ago and have been playing around with Procreate in between bursts of writing. Mostly it amounts to scrapped pieces that get added to a private archive, but I think this one turned out decently. I’m moderately pleased and plan to share.

But, as always, you be the judge. Can you guess the scene from book two!?

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