Short Story Cover Challenge

The Unicorn is tearing out his mane! Usually Katherine’s publishers design beautiful covers for her books, and all she has to do is look at the artwork and say if she likes them (or not). Sometimes they let her suggest changes... which is not always a good idea, since she doesn’t know very much about marketing books. But now she is putting together a collection of short stories for you to read on Kindle, and it needs a cover image, so she has asked me to design one from scratch.

Believe me, even though I am a muse, this is a lot more difficult than it looks! First of all it's an e-book cover, so it must work well at small “thumbnail” (or hoof) size. On a Kindle it will only display in black and white, so the contrast has to be good, although it’ll show in colour on most other devices so needs to look good on them, too. And, as if that wasn't difficult enough, there are seven different stories in the book and the design has to give a general idea of all of them.

Here are a few clues. The stories all contain some fantasy/magic, ranging from historical settings to purely imaginary worlds. They all have heroines and some gentle romance. Two of them are about death. The Muse thinks this book will appeal mainly to teenage girls, though the stories were originally published for adults in fantasy genre magazines. (If this book were a film, it would probably be cert 12A.)

So think MAGIC, HEROINES, ROMANCE, DEATH.

The title of the collection will be either Death Singer or Rubies (both of these stories are in the book). Which title do you like best?

Here are some covers I’ve done for DEATH SINGER:

and one that looks a bit different...

And here are a couple for RUBIES:

Which cover would inspire you to click on the book and download a sample?
Please help the unicorn! Or my lovely mane will soon be in tatters…