"On the hospital bed, her delicate body cradled between thin white pillows, Rosita dreamed."
-A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
Books make the world better.
This week I'll be posting about some of my favorite books YA, their covers and their fabulous opening lines.
#BooksofMastodon #AltTextCoverDay #WritingCommunity #YA #BooksWorthReading #fantasy #favoritebooks #Mythology #folklore @bookstodon
#folklore #mythology #favoritebooks #fantasy #BooksWorthReading #ya #writingcommunity #alttextcoverday #BooksofMastodon
#AltTextCoverDay
Book 4 Friends without Benefits
A tattoo of a dark red heart with a ribbon banner that has the title of the book within. the background has some graffiti that looks like more hearts and again, is lit from the center, fading to shadows on the edges.
#AltTextCoverDay
Book 3 You Wish
A decorative bottle with a long, thin neck and short, wide bottom, tilts slightly to the left. It's a light color with an asymmetrical dark band spiralling around the wide base and two thick dark rings on the neck. Smoke is coming out the top. The title is to the right and the background radiates light towards shadows in the corners.
Fun fact: I make several versions of the bottle before settling on this one.
#AltTextCoverDay
Book 2 Splitsville
This book has the same color palette as the first (all of them do) as well as the same text placement, with the exception of the title, which is centered horizontally and at the bottom center. A dark black crack splits the background, which looks like smoke and fire, and the whole scene has a bit of a fish-eye lens look. On the left is a silhouette of a devil obscured by the smoke, and on the right is a silhouette of an angel, also obscured by smoke.
#AltTextCoverDay
Book 1 Past Life Strife
A night scene with a full moon bright in the middle. A skeletal tree rises up on the left, its branches reaching right. A bird is silhouetted against the moon. Below, in a valley, a river runs through a small, sleepy town. The image is mostly black and white with a warm, greenish hue. Author's name is at the top in white. The title is centered vertically. A red band runs across the bottom with the series name and book number.
#AltTextCoverDay
I'll describe the covers from my Rise of the Discordant series, because this is the only series where I created all of the covers from scratch (with one exception that I'll note later). I had a tendency to rework my early covers, but these have remained the same since first publishing. There are five books in total, so I'll thread them all below. Of note, the font on all is a whimsical serif called Amatic. Noting that here due to character restrictions.
I’m loving all the posts for #AltTextCoverDay today so join in if you can!
Here’s a beautiful book I bought earlier this year on a trip to Oxford. We visited the historic Blackwell’s bookshop which is enormous as I wanted to go to the rare books section at the top of the shop to see if they had any first editions of my favourite author, Barbara Pym. She studied at Oxford University and many of her books, which were published in the mid 20th century, are set in the city. I was surprised to find they only had one, Crampton Hodnet, and that it was no more expensive than a standard hardback book. I’m #blind so my husband described the cover and read the blurb for me and even though I’ll only ever read this book in Braille or audio now I had to buy it!
This novel was one she wrote just before WW2 but it was not published in her lifetime. She had a difficult #publishing journey after initial success in the 1950s and was eventually shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Quartet in Autumn in 1977. After her death in 1980 Macmillan finally published this one in 1985.
I’ve read all her books and a recent biography of her, so I love that I get to own this piece of her publishing history which is something she never got to enjoy.
#bookstodon @bookstodon
#alttextcoverday #blind #publishing #bookstodon
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow cover alt text:
Central image on white/offwhite floral patterned background. Central image is surrounded by tiny yellow stars.
Central image (doing my best but I can't do this justice)is a messy-bouquet type arrangement including berries, ferns, evergreen, small purple flowers, several kinds of leaves, and two double-petal roses offwhite roses.
At the base of the bouquet are small plants with red and green leaves whose roots hang down below the bouquet. A small black bird is perched in the middle of the bouquet and a red snake -- mouth open, fangs extended -- is twined through the bouquet from bottom left to top right.
Across the front of the bouquet is parchment-style ribbons with the name of the book. The ribbon by 'ONCE' is pierced with a gold sewing needle, and the ribbon at the bottom with 'WITCHES' is pierced by a pair of thread scissors.
Text:
At the top --
"A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love." - KIRKUS on The Ten Thousand Doors of January
On the ribbon --
The ONCE and FUTURE WITCHES (each word on a separate line of ribbon)
At the bottom -
ALIX E. HARROW
AUTHOR OF THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY
Happy #AltTextCoverDay! It is wonderful so many are sharing their covers with #AltText! There is a lot of meaning in covers and I'd like to let you all know you are absolutely amazing for participating! Here are my covers. I hope you enjoy! #AltText #books #CoverAltText
#alttextcoverday #alttext #books #coveralttext
Books make the world better.
This week I'll be posting about some of my favorite books YA, their covers and their fabulous opening lines.
“The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards”
-A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
#BooksofMastodon #AltTextCoverDay #WritingCommunity #YA #BooksWorthReading #fantasy #favoritebooks @bookstodon
#alttextcoverday #favoritebooks #fantasy #BooksWorthReading #ya #writingcommunity #BooksofMastodon
For #AltTextCoverDay
Alt-Text:
A ship bearing no relation to the one in the story streaks in front of a planet that's never mentioned in the book. A distant star breaks over the planet's limb, casting the ship in a golden aura and illuminating the terminator on the planet behind. Makes the ship look like a flying saucer instead of an interstellar freighter. Cool picture though.
A Dead Guy at the Summerhouse by Marian Allen
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1942166087
The Cover is Two black and white faces, one pointed toward the front, one to the side.
Title and Author name are mostly in red, some in white.
An odd domino effect.
Black and white drawing of two male faces. Red text in a late 1960s - early 1970s style font.
A Bend In The Future By Abby Brown
Tammy's move to the city opens secrets hidden from her, many on the horse farms around her.
Building a future means forging unexpected bonds and traveling roads she never imagined.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JKXDWD8
Fall scene with slightly cloudy skies. Trees dropping orange leaves on a gazebo. Flying geese overhead. A collie watching. Shoes on a rock beside a basket of apples.
These stories reach to us across the stars. They share a thought, a dream, or a hope. Stories that touch the heart and soul.
Or, how they might go wrong.
Very wrong.
Front Cover: Planet and trees reflected in a lake. Originally purple, now blue. Concurrent Earths and Gail Brown in Black with white edging.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JCQY84N
If you need a copy, message me!
For #AltTextCoverDay, here’s the cover of my latest novel. I asked the new Be My Eyes AI to describe it, so I’ve used that as the Alt text description. I have never seen the cover myself, but it sounds as if my huge team of designers produced something pretty much like I’d asked for. #BeMyAI is very impressive, as you’ll hear from the detailed description.
#Books#Writing #HistoricalFiction
#alttextcoverday #bemyai #books #historicalfiction
It's #AltTextCoverDay!! Woohoo!!
I will probably be posting over the next couple of days because spoons, work, etc. But I'm excited!
I'm also taking requests! If you are curious what this or that book cover looks like, feel free to ask and I'll add it to the list!
I participated in #AltTextCoverDay but was sad that the Mastodon input box required me to severely edit them. Brevity is laudable, but it's hard to capture the beauty and complexity of some art in such a small place.
I didn't see many cover descriptions on Mastodon. Maybe there are more elsewhere?
I'll probably wind up publishing the full text on my website.
@vicorva has successfully funded their sequel to Books & Bone for a second entry in the Tombtown series about a town of underground (literally) necromancers! https://veocorva.xyz/books/the-beautiful-decay-by-veo-corva/ Veo is very hard at work to finalize the book in print & ebook formats, and if you judge the book by its lush cover by @dona it will be a breathtaking offering indeed. #AltTextCoverDay
(CW drawn eye contact, fire?)
@JessMahler 's upcoming What You Will: A Queer-er Shakespeare further queers the already queer story of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1407930 I love the simple, evocative cover with calligraphy and rainbow textures by @welshpixie , blending historical and modern visual cues to tell you what the book is all about. #AltTextCoverDay
Weaveworld by Clive Barker, art by Tim White.
A broad margin suggestive of a Persian carpet with motifs from the story, with a realistic painted scene inset in the centre.
The scene is a gentle round of a top of a hill at night, covered by snow, two trees flanking, winter-bare and skeletal.
Footprints lead to a ragged man with thinning hair, stepping forward in a nimbus of golden radiance. The light around him spirals up in twists of sparks, encircled by pointillist wheels.