As promised, in this post you will get the opportunity to vote for your favorite cover for my new short story collection Killer Nights: Five Frightening Tales of Halloween.
In the past, I’ve tended to get a lot of criticism for my books covers. Yes, there are actually people out there who fall for it and judge a book by its cover. For Wanderer Among Shadows I did it all by hand and with colored pencils and the just made some touch ups with Photoshop and typed the title on it. For the Shores of Chaos series, I made a rough sketch of my idea, then uploaded it in Illustrator and added all the details and color that way. For Killer Nights, I did a combination of drawing, Illustrator, and AI to hopefully make this next cover a winner.
My initial idea for Killer Nights was to have a grim reaper and a spooky looking tree positioned in such a way, that it looks like a jack o’lantern face from far away. I made a rough sketch and then completed a basic colored design in Illustrator.
I tried three different types of AI generators: Canva, Grok, and ChatGPT. ChatGPT was the best so here is the final rendering of the grim reaper design:
I also did a sketch of a cover with a tombstone and colored it in illustrator.
The final rendering:
I also made a third design of a jack o’lantern and knife straight from AI:
So now it’s up to you! Pick your favorite book cover below and I will announce the winner in a few weeks. Please note, in the end, the final decision is mine. If I am reaaaallly not feeling everyone’s choice, I will go with my gut.
To see the full making of video, watch it here:
Genavieve Blackwood's Author Website 