A book cover is rarely created using one perfect image. Different images are combined in clever ways to communicate the genre, the location and the special elements in the story, such as a spotted dog!
For the cover of A Deadly Concoction (to be published in 2024), we searched for a background image of a stately home standing isolated in a lonely English landscape.
The next two important elements to fit with the ‘series look’ of the other covers was a woman walking her Dalmatian. Both needed the right body language to create a sense of mystery and danger so this image has potential but needed tweaking.
We darkened the sky and the foreground to create a mysterious mood.
We found a replacement Dalmatian that looks alert to danger.
Then the woman needed some specialist adjustments to get the right body language. Note the following changes:
Many thanks to Shutterstock for the images and Elizabeth Mackey Graphics for the cover design.
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