I designed this cover for Ben Wolf, author of Ghost Mine and the Blood Mercenaries series. This was my first time designing a nonfiction work, so my style had to adapt to accommodate for it. Instead of creating a scene or relying on a cinematic design, I wanted “writing book” to be the first message a potential buyer would get. That called for a light cover and the word “author” as big as I could get it. Ben also asked if I would include a book that had both science fiction and fantasy elements emerging from its pages.

I took color inspiration from Save the Cat!, one of the most notable writing books for fiction writers on the market. It features a bold orange that goes against cliché color pallets for writing books (like red and black). Instead of orange, I picked an equally-striking yellow, which led to the play off of “power” as gears, machines, and electricity.

You can purchase Power Author on Amazon.

The book went on to be #1 in New Releases in Writing Skill Reference—briefly beating out JMS’s writing book, which was a huge deal for me, since I love JMS’s work. It also hit #10 on the bestsellers’ list in its category.