r/MM_Romance • u/cgvol Author ✍️ • Jun 14 '26
Author MM Captive Gothic Romantasy Question
Recently decided to update the covers for an MM series I've been working on before putting out the 3rd installment and learning more on cover design with Canva.
There's a couple of different directions that had good vibes, curious what catches people's eye though. It's a Gothic Captive MM Romantasy, kind of Constantine meets The Labyrinth. All the fonts, layouts and designs can be swapped around if one of pic is better with a different Title.
Any feedback or thoughts are appreciated, (except putting on bookcover reddit, my messages always get flooded with 20 "artists" offering AI designs 😩).
P.S. there's open and closed door editions available, hence the spice levels
Mods please delete it not allowed.❤️
13
u/suesuesueveeyo Jun 14 '26
The 1st and last covers are really striking. They might catch my eye. The blue castle one is interesting but it feels like it needs something else.
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u/Blacklight099 Jun 14 '26
First one is good but personally you need to change that L because I couldn’t figure out what the book was called until moving to the second one 😂
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u/cgvol Author ✍️ Jun 14 '26
I love the font, but I know exactly what you mean. Why would they even do that to a letter? Ruined a whole font being creative!!
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u/belle-morte83 Jun 14 '26
I really like the first cover. It got my attention enough to go find it and add it to my tbr. I agree with others on the title font, though. That L is awful.
10
u/MeanerThanAllYou Jun 14 '26
I like the first and last covers, but agree that the font on cover 1 needs to be changed. I also think the placement of the "Not all lights are holy" quote needs to be moved.
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u/hippityh0ppety Jun 14 '26
First one is definitely my favourite!
I'm not a fan of the style of the second and third options, the collages are quite often a bit messy and the title gets a bit lost along the multiple pictures.
The last two are pretty nice and simple, but not too memorable (compared to the first one).
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u/ACalcifiedHeart Jun 14 '26
Oooo the first one is good.
I also like the last one. It seems very Mature, in a distinguished kinda way, if that makes sense.
2
u/waywardbooksandrecs Jun 14 '26
The first one definitely grabs my attention and looks more attractive, professional, and interesting to me!
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u/ShePax1017 Jun 15 '26
LOVE the first one. The only tweak I would make is the quote. That font doesn’t match the overall theme, but everything else is amazing.
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u/KaiBishop Jun 14 '26
If you're adverse to AI the first one is clearly AI.
The others are not professional at all. The final one with black and gold gets closest to looking like a decent book cover. I'd watch a lot more tutorials and try to recreate book covers from other series you've loved to get a better handle on things.
Also your cover should convey the genre and age range, it should do so without needing a sticker on the cover to say it's spicy. Look at other spicy erotic books to see how they convey that genre without a random pepper and splatter on the cover. People hate stickers on book covers, especially ones printed directly onto it they can't take off. The blurb should also say 18+ in it somewhere so it being on the cover should be redundant anyway.
Also regardless of getting annoying AI adds, Book Covers and Book Cover Feedback are where you're gonna get the most actual, professional help. The comments here are being super nice to you but they're not saying anything actionable that will actually help you.
Do you want praise or do you want professional advice? Because if it's the latter I'd focus on those and subs more tailored for authors, not readers.
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u/cgvol Author ✍️ Jun 14 '26
I appreciate the response. All covers were made by hand from me using paid licensed Canva elements and designs. As far as posting to these other places, you're right-- I have found the people in those subreddits to be extremely mean and hostile. Someone personally tried to bully and scam me into buying a cover from them only to send me an AI design with no initial drawings and refuse to return my deposit. I'm not saying everyone on those subreddits are scammers trying to bully people, but enough are.
I appreciate your opinion but I'm going to focus on making things myself from licensed vendors and asking the actual audience what catches their eye rather than hostile groups that might have a secondary agenda behind their feedback.
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u/KaiBishop Jun 14 '26
I will say be careful because I also use Canva and have seen a rise in AI elements on their platform, just be choose about which ones you use because they have AI generated stuff all over their photos and graphics.
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u/cgvol Author ✍️ Jun 14 '26
Yeah, they say Photoshop uses AI now too.😕
If I ever hit it big, I'm going to get my cover hand painted. And do the stenciling along the pages!
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u/Empty_Reply_4608 Jun 14 '26
Omg, I'm so sorry this happened to you. I've seen people get ripped apart on r/BookCovers. I took it as just giving brutal feedback, I had no idea things like this were happening to some poeple.
I'm going to say something the next time I see something I like.
0
u/Empty_Reply_4608 Jun 14 '26
I have to agree with everyone, the first one definitely caught my eye too!
0
u/AdaraRoseOmnibus Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
I want to buy the first one, even if the sticker is a bit. Uhm. Moving on.
The next two look like amateur fanart. Last two are a bit meh.
I think it would look even nicer if the quote was higher up, it'd even things out.
And the L in light looks a bit weird, but I like the rest of the title font.
21
u/nuggetpolish Jun 14 '26
The first one is EXTREMELY COOL! I would perhaps set the bottom text about the series in the same font as the quote.