My novel, The Soulkeepers, is coming right along. This week, I've been working with an artist on the cover. If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know I write cross-genre. The Soulkeepers is an upper YA paranormal, with inspirational, suspense, fantasy and romantic elements. A fifteen-year-old boy of chinese-american descent is the main character.
After much discussion, the artist sent me seven amazing sketches promoting various aspects of the work. I'll tell you right now, any one of them would have made an above average cover. Four of them had a male as the central figure, two were abstract, and the seventh had a male plus the face of a female character from the book.
Here's something interesting about YA: researching the market, I found that the books rated as having the best covers featured a female face. However, these books don't necessarily have the best sales. What's an indie to do? In the end, I asked the artist to expand on this last idea hoping that the tension between the male and female character in the artwork would appeal to both male and female readers.
What's your opinion? When you think of the best YA covers you've seen this year, what elements come to mind?
