Almost eight years ago, I had the idea that would eventually become my first published book. I wrote the first draft in six months. Time to publish! thought I. Little did I know that five years of rewriting lay ahead.

All writers take this road. You’re left for a long time with your goal dangling just out of reach, your publishing legs growing longer with each day but your logical side wondering if you’ll ever be tall enough. You live on dreams and hopes. For this reason, to keep me going as I rewrote my story, I dreamed ahead by making my own book covers.

The first cover of my first book was made in 2003/2004, and featured Lord Of The Rings concept art and the original title of the book. Also, my old pen name, and a very, very audacious bit of labeling at the top. I call this BRAN HAMBRIC AND HIS BRIGHT RED WORDART TEXT:

In 2005 I went dramatic. I tossed the moon necklace into a floating orb of energy and made BRAN HAMBRIC, VAMPYRE KNIGHT MASTER:

Later in 2005, I was informed my book was not dark enough to merit neon blue text. Also, I decided to drop the second part of the title altogether. So I cartooned it up a bit with some blue and gold, to make BRAN HAMBRIC IN HAPPYFUNVILLE WITH TWO CURVED GRADIENTS:

Even later in 2005 (I was on a design craze) I propped up a pair of jeans with paint sticks and made my most contemporary cover in ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, JUST AN ORDINARY BOY BRAN HAMBRIC:

In 2007, I finally learned some basic design essentials. My parents relented and let me use my full name. I brought back the rest of the title. I tossed in some gnomes, misty clouds, and boom! BRAN HAMBRIC AND CASPER THE GHOSTLY TEXT:

Later in 2007, I got the latest Photoshop, and really went at it. I designed a logo from scratch, turned the inner glow WAY DOWN, and went for a simpler, more mysterious cover. Also, mist. Which makes this BRAN HAMBRIC YOU BETTER WATCH OUT FOR THAT BLACK HOLE:

As you can see, my design skills improved somewhat as I went on. The logo in the last book eventually became the logo used on all the Bran Hambric covers. So sometimes, procrastinating around in Photoshop between drafts actually does pay off.

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Posted in About Me, Bran Hambric, Writing
Tags: Book Covers, Old Stuff

Click to see larger image

In celebration of seven years since 3/3/03, I’m very proud to finally show off the cover art for BRAN HAMBRIC: THE SPECTER KEY!

Most BranFans already know this, but I started writing the first book (Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse) late at night on March 3 of 2003. Every year I try to do something special to commemorate the day that in some ways started this entire journey!

The artwork is by the amazing Brandon Dorman, who also did the cover for my first book. As you will see when you finally get to read BH:TSK, the color green is very fitting for many, many reasons

Be sure to head over to BranHambric.com for more details on the book. As always, you can follow me or @BranHambric on Twitter for the latest news. Happy Branniversary!

From my notebook, 3-3-03

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Posted in Bran Hambric
Tags: Book Covers, Brandon Dorman

Ah yes — 2009 is here, and yet another year of even crazier crazyness lies ahead. True to form, I am starting the first day of this year as a person who is drastically behind schedule. In fact, I am so behind at the moment, I shouldn’t even be writing this. I should be writing on the outline for Book Two, which was due to my agent a month ago.  Instead, I am sitting here and trying to think up believable excuses for my lateness, such as:

A) I was kidnapped by a band of zombie head-crabs who took me to their base and forced me to watch Dancing With The Stars until I confess humanity’s darkest secrets (under those conditions, it wouldn’t take long for me to break),

B) Whilst eating a lasagna I accidentally tipped the tray onto my keyboard, causing it to melt into its own insides, thus distorting my keys beyond recognition and severely slowing my thought process,

C) This distracted me.

But none of them will work, because the fact is I’m actually sick again, have been in bed the past two days, and in this condition it is virtually impossible to write a coherent sentence that doesn’t involve ‘AND A BIG BOMB GOES OFF AND THEY ALL DIE THE END LET ME SLEEP NAO’ which I don’t think would please my publishers at all.

So, in my half-delirious exhaustion and illness, I stayed in bed today and searched the Interwebs for my favorite books covers (my characters are safest when I’m not contemplating their demises). If you are not a writer, you will not understand this practice. But the fact is, many of us, myself included, go to the bookstore simply to see the new covers, and when I’m sick BN.com works just as well.

But, this time I also have some ulterior motives. Since 2009 is here, that means we have only about 9 more months until Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse comes out! One of the biggest steps in a book coming out is its cover. Most books are defined, at least in the beginning, by its cover — if it’s a good one, it will succeed far better, because people will pull it off the shelf and read it. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of people do judge a book by its cover. And even though I don’t have much direct control over the cover for my book, I still can’t stop myself from hunting about for good artists I like. And thus, I have found

My Favorite Book Covers Of All Time

To begin:

The cover for the book Flora Segundais definitely one of my favorites in regards to color. I love how the purples blend into the greens, like some sort of a glow from the center. Also, I love how it all seems to be one color, and then there is this big glow in the center of the green.

Savvy by Ingrid Law has one of my favorite covers of all time, done by Brandon Dorman. I really like how there is so much blue at the top that blends strikingly into the golden yellow glow down at the bottom.

I love how the cover for Tantalize revolves around the color red so much. It seems that the girl in the photo is actually part of the cover, the way she blends into the black below. Also, I love that font for the title

While I love the covers for Twilight by Stephenie Meyer in the US, I especially like this version from Europe (I can’t find which country exactly). The green goes perfect against the black and dark.

I love all of the Percy Jackson covers, again because of how the artist (John Rocco) focuses on one very strong color and has glowing things in it, like the lightning. This cover is just amazing.

I am a huge fan of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. But the best Colfer book cover I’ve seen is this one for Half Moon Investigations. I don’t usually like covers like this, where it isn’t really an illustration, but rather a bunch of fancy design and words — but for this one, it seems to work well (I wonder though, if that device behind the words Half-Moon is an icy batman or a Super Bowtie Noodle symbol).

While I was traveling, I saw Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams at an airport store and bought it on the spot, simply because I loved the cover so much. I don’t know what it is about this, but it seems to be such a wonderful and mysterious cover: from the faces you can’t see, to the glowing green that is actually slightly reflective if you hold the book.

And now for a few covers I despise:

Yes, that is the cover. It certainly makes you want to tear the book off the shelf, dash to the counter, and pay for it as fast as you can, so you can read what lies between those mysterious, bleached-bumblebee covers. The only reason I can imagine for this cover was that the white was supposed to be a photo, but the designer pocketed the money and left town, leaving his project editor very confuzzled. And:

Oh hideous boringness of a cover on such a classic.

As for my book cover, I’m not sure exactly how much I’m supposed to say or if they’ll let me name any names yet of who we’re hoping for. But at the moment, the publishers are working on the cover, they have some artists who are interested, and for at least the past few weeks we’ve been discussing different ideas for how it will look. I’m sure many of you who have read the preview chapters might have your own ideas for it as well.

Speaking of the cover for The Farfield Curse, we probably don’t have much longer until that comes out (I am flying to Chicago in February to talk with my publishers, so it could either be ready by then or in the works). I’m trying to think of some cool way to do a big reveal of it. Part of me wants to print the image and do a big thing on 3/3/09 on a live BlogTV show, which would be exactly 6 years after I started writing the book. Another part wants to do that classic reveal on BranHambric.com, where each day for a week I peel away a covering of the book (like that Megan Fox/worst Photoshop hoax of all time).

If my publishers really wanted to be wicked, they would pull this trick on me, chop my cover into little pieces, and give me one piece every time I finish part of the outline for Book Two. That would certainly get it done faster

Question for the comments: What are some of your favorite book covers? Link to the Amazon or BN.com images!

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Posted in Bran Hambric, Writing
Tags: Book Covers, Bran Hambric, Writing