Cover art sneak peak! How to make a (good?) cover.

Today, anonymously-obsessed-boyfriend and I used the holiday Monday to full advantage. As promised, here is the cover for Locked In, followed by what I learned about fake blood:

(Update: Link to larger image was broken, got it working)

Locked In cover

Now, for how to make a cover with zero budget, a digital camera and an image editor:

1. Food colouring is amazing, but you can’t use it alone for “blood”. This was the first (and obvious) observation. However, it is very good at planning out where you want your hand prints to go.
2. To make thick blood, corn starch and flour seem like very logical choices. However, while the blood will have great consistency and will stay where you put it, it will be fuchsia. See also: Klingon blood from Star Trek IV. Not zombie appropriate.
3. Coat self in flaming pink blood.
4. Walk into glass door and smear self convincingly on glass.
5. Take pictures. Shower.
6. ????? with Image editor
7. Realize that everything looks awesome in grey scale.
8. Profit? (Or a book cover that doesn’t involve making a sugar-based fake blood and sticky re-takes.)

There you have it. Time to get back to work.