Six Historical Tales Cover Reveal by Rayne Hall

I met Rayne Hall through one of my authors, and let me say, I'm totally impressed with the titles she's putting out. Today she's here to tell us more about her latest Six Historical Tales... and a chat with the cover artist Nadine Boskovska. Welcome, Rayne!

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Interview with the Artist Nadine Boskovska

Rayne: You have created art for many book covers. What is it you enjoy about painting book cover illustrations?

Nadine: I simply love book covers and always enjoy making them. It is time consuming, it takes a lot of effort and energy to decide how the cover is going to look like and how to make it stand out from all of those covers on the shelves in the bookstore, but it certainly pays off to see the final result.

Rayne: Describe your creative process for 13 British Horror Stories, step by step from the moment when you received the brief to the completion of the picture.

Nadine: Right after receiving the short description from you about how you would like the cover to look like, I made a quick sketch and have sent it to you for a revision. After I got the approval, the painting process started. Few more update pictures followed and after we made the necessary alterations and the book cover was finished.

Rayne: What kind of book cover would enjoy doing next? Is there a genre, theme or style you've always wanted to paint?

Nadine: I enjoy doing fantasy book covers the most. They give me the freedom to experiment with shapes and combine different colours, to make the cover visually more appealing to the reader.

Rayne: Where can we see more of your art?

Nadine: My art can be fond on my online gallery.

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Interview with the author, Rayne Hall

The ebook Six Historical Tales has been published for a while. Why did you decide to change the cover?

The old cover was okay, but not great. When using stock photos,  it's always a compromise between what I want and what kind of picture is available. Artists can paint exactly the picture we want, so the cover is right for the book. I published Six Historical Tales with a stock photo cover, and am thrilled to replace it with beautiful art.

How did you decide what you wanted on the cover?

A book cover need to attract the viewers' attention, and tell them what kind of story they will find inside. With a collection of stories, this is challenging, because each story is different. The cover somehow needs to convey not just what one story is about, but the overall tone of the book.

The stories in the book cover different locations periods – Ancient Rome, Ancient Britain, Ancient Greece,  the Middle Ages, England in 1900 – so I picked one of the stories to represent them all. The character is Penelope who, in my story, does not want her husband Odysseus to come back. For the background, I chose olive trees and an evening sky.

A single half-body character against an uncluttered background works well because covers these days are viewed mostly online at thumbnail size. Anything complicated or cluttered just gets lost. So I wanted this cover to be simple yet detailed.

Choosing the mood was important. Most stories in the collection have a dark slant, and the cover needed to convey this somehow without giving the impression of horror. I asked the artist, Nadica,  for a warm colour scheme with a hint of ominous. I think she's conveyed this mood superbly.

How did you choose the artist?

I love working with artists, and have commissioned many book covers and illustrations. I get to know which artists are skilled and reliable, and what each of them is especially good at. Nadica has a knack for creating atmosphere and conveying mood. I can tell her what kind of mood I want. For 13 British Horror Stories, I asked for “atmospheric and creepy” and for Six Historical Tales I asked for “warm with a hint of ominous”.  Her paintings are awesome.

Where can we see the book?

Six Historical Tales is published as an ebook at Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, and other retail sites.