Howdy! It’s with great pleasure and excitement that I reveal, at long last, the real cover for Bane of All Things!

But wait, there’s more!

As I have noted before, Bane of All Things is meant to be the first of four books. I have finally landed on a title for the series – A Silence of Worlds. (I will dig into the meaning behind that in a future update.)

Now, about this cover

It’s been a long time coming, this cover reveal – decades, even. I’ve had plenty of ideas over the years of what could be the cover for this story, drifting between a particular tense action scene, or some dramatic posing of my main characters.

When cover designer Tim Barber of Dissect Designs asked me about it a few months back, I sent him a pile of ideas and descriptions. He wanted to avoid the overused fantasy cover concepts that crowd the shelf. But still, it had to be true to the story.

Tim further brainstormed with Inkshares CEO Adam Gomolin and Deputy Publicity Manager Noah Broyles, who will be driving the book’s launch and who has, of course, read it.

“I was basically grilling Noah about what he would see if he was holding the book in his hands,” Tim told me. “He described rocks at the edge of water, a fortress/castle at the edge. Cold, but not snow. An unforgiving place. To me, this is how I pictured what he described. When I showed it to him his reaction was, ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s what I saw.’”

That scene is found in Chapter Three, where our two main characters, Ryn and Josalind, arrive at their destination – Dragon’s Claw Abbey. I asked Noah why he considered this particular image so powerful. 

It’s all about atmosphere

“The arrival at Dragon’s Claw Abbey was potent for me in terms of both the striking imagery and what it meant for the characters,” Noah said. “I imagine the reality of being a convict is no more vivid than when you first come in sight of your prison. This place is not only the end of the world as far as civilization is concerned, but also the end of the world for Ryn and Josalind. Or so they think.”

It’s a foggy morning in that scene, not a stormy night, but Tim’s fantastic design captures the scope and atmosphere of the story as a whole. There is a storm coming. What Ryn and Josalind don’t yet realize when they first set eyes on Dragon’s Claw is that it’s already begun.

What’s next?

The awesome Avalon Radys, Inkshares’ Director of Editorial and Publishing Operations, will start sending out ARCs – Advance Reader Copies. These go to reviewers and established authors to build advance buzz and net (hopefully) favourable reviews for Goodreads, Amazon and so on before Release Day. We also want to bag a strong quote from a known name in the fantasy genre to add to the cover.

I can’t wait until November when the final product will be in your hands! 

(P.S.: Noah has a novel of his own coming out in September, The House of Dust, a southern gothic horror described by one reviewer as being “full of nightmarish imagery wrapped in elegant prose.”)

Cheers

Leo

Hey everyone. Just wanted to give a quick update on THE GHOST TRACKS. Inkshares has scheduled a release date of October 19th. The book is also available for pre-order at most major book retailers. I’m glad the book will soon be in your hands! Thanks for your patience.

Dear Henderson House Supporters,

Hello All,

Well, we’ve got an ISBN and a Library of Congress Control Number.

Here is the cover. It needs a bit of important copy to plug into that white void on the back, a final page count to adjust the spine, and it’ll be done. 

I struggled with the cover art. I initially thought I wanted something pretty, and harassed good friends with my bad ideas. As any sensible person would expect, the results of that direction didn’t translate the content. Also, my ideas of fanciful colors and dynamic fonts didn’t elicit any questions or emotional responses from the people surveyed. Another discovery showed those ideas were lost in the field of contemporary covers.

In a flock of swans, it’s the mangled farm goose that captures your attention. 

Out of frustration, I smashed the front of this in a few seconds and it stuck. It’s the frustration that speaks. The emotion. Those of you that don’t know my story probably understand what’s depicted here on a visceral level. Way down under the level of consciousness - where letters have no meaning and language is unrecognizable - pictures speak. 

All over the world, primitive cultures without a written language scratched and pecked momentous events into stone. Many of those friezes depict times of loss and death; these scrawls often have a horizontal line separating stick figures above and below while some exhibit rows of humanoid figures - both upright upright and inverted. That’s how we described burial or the debarkation of the living to the world of the dead. That’s how we recorded our pain.

Also, I think this cover works for reasons you’ll understand when reading my story.

Anyway, there’s your dose of nerd for the day.

The proof read will be completed and sent to Inkshares on Wednesday the 26th of May. From there, they will merge any repairs into the final pour. After that, it’ll be a few more weeks until the E-Readers are sent to you. Paperbacks follow shortly after that.

Thanks for your support,

Sharek

Hello All,

After a conversation with Inkshares, they agreed to a summer fulfillment if I can provide the proofreading by the end of May. I’ve contracted that through Reedsy with a delivery date of 26 May. Square peg, round hole. I still have concerns; I figure there’s nothing to stop them from kicking the can down the street again. We’ll see.

I’m moving toward marketing, and some disturbing realizations are facing me. Who really wants to read this? It’s not a happy story with a happy ending. Most of it is really depressing. I thought that maybe the story of my family might be able to help families struggling with the same condition (Li Fraumeni Syndrome) as mine, but that’s a horrible idea. LFS has no turnaround. There’s no cure, and now it’s known that traditional cancer treatments aggravate it. You might add a few yeas to a life but that’s it. Everyone needs hope in a situation like that; you’ll cry to God for it but you’re staring down the barrel of a gun. I really hope those families never find this story.

I don’t know what you’ll get from my book - hell half of you probably won’t read it when you get it - and that’s fine. Maybe it’s just for those that are gone. Maybe it’s just the satisfaction of knowing all those moments wont be forgotten.

Thank you for your help. I appreciate it,

Sharek