Veilfall is Getting a New Look
And so it was foretold that all burgeoning, self-published noobs shalt publish a novel with a cover doomed to confuse and repel. Whether by shirtless muscle man or genre faux-pas, the author shalt indulge their but-my-book-looks-different-SHEEPLE! arrogance, before realizing the depth of their own naivety and designing a normal cover …
—The writing gods via thunderous boom
My husband loves business stuff.
I won’t give “business stuff” a more formal definition, because I try to maintain a sort of “how can business be real if our eyes aren’t real?” mindset whenever possible, but I am nonetheless a secondhand listener of multiple entrepreneurship podcasts. Occasionally—if reluctantly—something wise sticks. Most recently, it was this:
If everyone does something exactly the same way, there’s probably a good reason.
Which roughly translates to:
If your genre has a distinct visual style, you should follow it, idiot.
The Veilfall series undeniably looks unique. I made the covers without much consideration for the visual language of the romantasy genre as a whole. In some ways, I became the type of client that used to give me nightmares back when I was a graphic designer.
“I might not know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want.”
I knew Veilfall wasn’t a typical urban fantasy. I knew it didn’t have castles or dragons. Most importantly, I knew that I didn’t want my books to go unnoticed.
Romantasy is an incomprehensibly huge genre. There are more stories available than anyone has time to read, and it’s scary tossing your book into the content ocean, knowing it’ll likely drown … so when it came to cover design, I went for something a little different.
But in marketing, different isn’t always a good thing.
The old covers are still available in my shop!
I think it hit me when I started seeing photos of Spark of Pursuit with other books. It looked so out of place, and while I truly do love the covers I published with, I’ve come to two whispered conclusions:
The flock knows things.
And sheep who go off on their own kinda sorta … die.
(Except for that one that disappeared for a few months then came back all fluffy)
Over the past few months, this realization has grown from a fretful little voice in my head to a full-blown emotional poltergeist. Because the problem with side-stepping genre conventions is that people can’t tell what genre your book is! Or worse, they’ll assume it’s one they don’t want to read.
Covers are about communication, and if you’re communicating the wrong message, it’s much harder to get people to read your book. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing for the sake of writing. Like, passionate, obsessive, will-neglect-all-other-areas-of-my-life-for-the-draft love.
Buuuuut I’m also a greedy little gremlin that wants more Kindle reads.
So this is one of those rare times where I’m admitting that business is real (gross, I know), and though it’s sad to see the old covers go, I’m thrilled to announce that the Veilfall series is getting a new look.
Paperbacks available on Amazon starting June 19, 2025
I’m so so proud of these covers, and I really believe they’re going to open doors for Veilfall that wouldn’t have otherwise opened.
But most of all, I want to thank all of you. The readers that took a chance on the old covers, not entirely knowing what you were going to get. You are the star that indie publishing orbits, and all the warmth and joy that makes this gig so damn fun is because of you.
Thank you so much.
— Annika, the sheep who came back
The new covers will be available on paperback on Amazon starting June 19th, 2025. A few signed copies with the old covers are still up for grabs in my shop.
Farewell, my purple beloved
