Down with the Queen is up to ~57,000 words, which means I managed to output about 32,000 words this past week. This is utter insanity for me, as I have no clue what’s driving the writing spree. If I can keep it up, I might be able to release the book a month ahead of when I expect to! However, I’m not counting on it. As it stands, Gina, Lilith, and Rachel are having a hell of a month.
With all of this in mind, I’m very happy to also add that I’m going to be updating the cover of Born a Queen with a new cover by the talented June Jenssen in the near future. This past week we’ve regularly corresponded, and she produced a new cover for me that I feel fits the personality of Lilith better than the previous one. Unless something goes horribly wrong, she’ll also be doing the cover for Down with the Queen and any other books in the series. The cover is below, but the text isn’t final as of yet. I’ve been toying with settings to get it just right to my eyes, and I don’t think it’s quite there yet.
Ben I am in love, it’s really beautiful!
LikeLike
I love it as well. ^_^
LikeLike
Yap, that’s much more in an art style I like than the original. Admittedly the original gave of more of a “comic/superheroes” vibe, which might have some advantages … but aesthetically I just like this better.
LikeLike
Yeah, the original was done by professional comic-book artists, so it was definitely in line with comics. However, when I looked at different novels, it really didn’t stand out, and Lilith looked too… severe to me. June worked with me heavily to get the picture right, going through about 8 iterations until we got the final picture above. Most of those were admittedly various stages of color and background, but she let me tweak a few things here and there at each stage.
LikeLike
It kinda match with t-shirt and jeans Lilith for me.
LikeLike
Exactly. The previous one was mostly too formal. Lilith prefers to dress relatively casual. Not quite blue jeans, but other types of relatively casual trousers, and either a t-shirt or button-down blouse works well for her.
LikeLike
Wow! The textures on the clothes are great! Also, greatly awaiting Down with the Queen!
And could you give me some of that drug you’ve been taking to churn out 30k+ words in a week?!
LikeLike
I haven’t been doing anything differently, alas. I think I was just in the right mood to write. Hopefully I can keep it up! Believe me, I’m looking forward to publishing Down with the Queen. While Born a Queen is a finished story, from my perspective, there are a lot of unanswered questions involving Doctor Johnson. I can guarantee that those will be answered.
I do love June’s art, and hope to get many more pieces done by her once I feel I can afford to do so.
LikeLike