Covering an Omnibus - where do you put all the words?
No, I don't mean covering the side of a double decker bus with an advert for my book... although the book in question might well turn out to be the size of a small bus if it were printed and bound in the traditional way. I mean my Seven Fabulous Wonders omnibus collection of all seven titles in the series, which is available as an ebook only (being kinder to trees and buses).
In America, such collections are called boxed sets and come with the kind of e-cover that looks like a shelf full of books. But my Seven Fabulous Wonders series was never published in America, so I decided to call mine "Seven Fabulous Wonders: the omnibus collection" and go down the single cover route.
My first attempt looked like this:
This cover followed the design of the seven individual ebook covers, so I kept the series title small across the central black band and used "the Omnibus Collection" as the larger main title. I didn't even consider if this might be confusing for someone who came across the omnibus before seeing any of the single titles, although I did feel it necessary to add "all seven books" as a subtitle, which should have rung a few alarm bells at the time.
Then, recently, I was looking at this cover and realised "Seven Fabulous Wonders" would work quite well as a title on its own. It wouldn't need the clumsy subtitle "all seven books", and there suddenly seemed no good reason why "the Omnibus Collection" should feature so large on the cover. So I swapped the text around:
I didn't have to change the title of my omnibus, only the text sizes on the cover. But I couldn't resist a font change as I did so. (The more observant among you will notice that the main title font now doesn't match the title font on the individual covers, but I am considering a redesign of those books so will change the fonts to match when I do that.)
So did you spot the difference? Which version do you like best? Do they look like the same book at first glance? What do you think of the new font? (Friendly warning from the unicorn: anyone who says "change it all back again" will be transformed into an evil monster and slain in a suitably gruesome manner by the hero of Katherine's next book.)
You can buy the Seven Fabulous Wonders omnibus from the following stores:
amazon uk / amazon us
Nook
Kobo
Apple
In America, such collections are called boxed sets and come with the kind of e-cover that looks like a shelf full of books. But my Seven Fabulous Wonders series was never published in America, so I decided to call mine "Seven Fabulous Wonders: the omnibus collection" and go down the single cover route.
My first attempt looked like this:
This cover followed the design of the seven individual ebook covers, so I kept the series title small across the central black band and used "the Omnibus Collection" as the larger main title. I didn't even consider if this might be confusing for someone who came across the omnibus before seeing any of the single titles, although I did feel it necessary to add "all seven books" as a subtitle, which should have rung a few alarm bells at the time.
Then, recently, I was looking at this cover and realised "Seven Fabulous Wonders" would work quite well as a title on its own. It wouldn't need the clumsy subtitle "all seven books", and there suddenly seemed no good reason why "the Omnibus Collection" should feature so large on the cover. So I swapped the text around:
I didn't have to change the title of my omnibus, only the text sizes on the cover. But I couldn't resist a font change as I did so. (The more observant among you will notice that the main title font now doesn't match the title font on the individual covers, but I am considering a redesign of those books so will change the fonts to match when I do that.)
So did you spot the difference? Which version do you like best? Do they look like the same book at first glance? What do you think of the new font? (Friendly warning from the unicorn: anyone who says "change it all back again" will be transformed into an evil monster and slain in a suitably gruesome manner by the hero of Katherine's next book.)
***
You can buy the Seven Fabulous Wonders omnibus from the following stores:
amazon uk / amazon us
Nook
Kobo
Apple