A Tale of Two Book Covers

I'm sure by now you've noticed that I have two novels with dog paws on the covers. It started with Keeping Bad Company, and it was a bit of an accident. I was thinking very different thoughts about the cover, and was just sorting out some old pics on my computer, when I found this unedited shot of Riddick's paws.

I didn't realize, at the time, that I would lose him to heart failure before the book was ever released, but then the cover became even more important. From cool, to special. Baby Boy immortalized. And how very appropriate, given the Lean Dogs, and how important the club's name and symbol and mythology is to me.

So when it came time to pick a shot for the cover of Part I of Fearless, I decided to forgo the initial idea of a motorcycle in favor of another black dog. A dog for the Dogs. This time it's little baby Viktor's feet on the cover. Like I said before, it just felt right. I happened to be snapping pics of his feet, and swapped the camera over to black and white on a whim, and here we have his little-big feet on the pavement.

Every book cover of mine is a happy accident. Always, I was working toward a different vision, and the whimsical, accidental, freak shots are the ones that always look best and end up the final cut.

I'm working on the ultimate, final cover of Fearless now, but each individual part will have its own black/white/chrome cover. Up next it's this...

And it's coming right along. Won't be too long now!