Here are two versions of the new cover being designed for book 3:
The goal with this new cover is to evoke the Vikings attack on Paris–which, in 845 A.D., was still a fairly compact town, located on Mount St. Genevieve above the Seine River. The key word is “evoke”–with a book cover, due to its limited size and the need for clarity rather than being too cluttered and busy, the visual elements are best kept relatively simple.
These are just very rough first drafts, not finished covers. But I’d welcome comments, critiques, and votes for which version you like best.
I want to start off by saying that both my sister and I love your series. We went on this site to check when the fourth book might be coming out. I have to say, though, when both of us saw the two new covers, neither of them really resonated with us. We both feel that Halfdan should be featured. We already enjoy the old covers, but if you really want to make a new one, please feature the main character on it; otherwise, it can be a bit confusing.
We’ve just begun reading The Viking Warrior to our 8th graders once again in Titusville, PA and many are devouring it in anticipation of reading books two and three. Thank you for such a great read that is appealing and appropriate for young adults. As to the covers, I’m all about the first cover. Keep up the good work Mr. Roberts!
Thanks. If your students have any questions they’d like to ask me, please encourage them to do so, either on this site or by email. And I’d be glad to “visit” you class with a phone session, if they would enjoy that.
Dear Mr. Roberts, the Strongbow Saga is storytelling at its finest. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this series. The combination of fictional characters with real historical events and people is deeply impacting. I love your detailed writing style of the many battle scenes and duels. The revealing insights into the Viking culture spread over the coming of age of Halfdan is expertly done. Patiently waiting on book 4 release, I just recently reread book 3 and was not able to put it down for a second time. Thank you and well done.
Thanks very much. I’m going to try hard to make book 4 the best yet.
Hello mr.roberts, we have spoken before over email, which you probably don’t remember. If I may be honest it’s just a cover.. when will the next book be released!! I have not read another book since I read the saga for the second time! I’m dying to know more about Halfdans adventures!!
Hello Thomas, and thanks.
I’m close to finishing the work necessary to republish book 3 when it reverts to me, and I’m eager to get back to writing book 4. It will be released in 2012!
hello mr. roberts first and foremost i would like you to know the strong bow saga got me reading again. i had gone several years without picking up a book and even looking at it let alone sitting down and reading one, so for writing these works i thank and applaud you. i even lent them to a friend of mine who reads all the time and like me he read them in less than a month. he told me he just couldnt put them down, and i was like i know i felt the same when i read them.
as for the cover redo i like the 1st the best. yet i think maybe if your just using one viking for the caver and you want him to have some symbolization of the third book make the viking bigger. when i seen your cover my mind went ok this is where ragnors war/battle is going to unfold so show a bigger viking looking torward the city and maybe even have a raven flying over his head. i dont know but thats what went through my mind hope this helps.
Thanks for your vote and ideas, James, and thanks also for letting me know that the Strongbow Saga got you reading again. I’m both flattered and touched.
I think my favourite is the first one!
The beard throws me a little off, since Halfdan is considered a beardless youth throughout the series. Are you planning on changing his age to something older when you revise?
No, I’m not planning on changing Halfdan’s age. The figure is not supposed to be Halfdan. I was trying to come up with some cover image that would evoke–not be an actual, detailed representation of, but just evoke–something that happened in this volume of the story. Because the capture of Paris was a major element of book 3, that’s what this cover is intended to symbolize: a Viking signaling the attack on the town.
Hello there Mr. Roberts!
I saw that you had posted pictures of your ideas on the new cover art for book 3, and you wanted a little feedback from the readers.
I like your ideas for the cover art very much, I think the background is very attractive, and would catch my eye if I walked past it in a book store. However something that detracts from the cover is the plastic toy figure that has been copy pasted with a different resolution, into the grass. This is the same with the cover art of the first book, great picture, bad copy paste job.
Something that Harper Collins did manage to do was to have their cover art kind of go with the story, whether it was the picture of Halfdan holding the sword or bow ready for battle, and the new challenges, or it was him on the cover of the third book starting to look older and more prepared. These covers really did ‘evoke’ a sense of passion, as I can identify with a picture of a man who has recently become a free man who sets off to hunt down his brothers’ murderers, than a pix-elated plastic toy holding a flag.
When I see a plastic toy, I can’t bring myself to feel any of the excitement that happens during the book, and if I was a new reader of the series, I wouldn’t get what Halfdan would really look like.
I understand most of this has been out of your control, but now that you have the opportunity to create your own cover page, I would suggest something a little more towards the setting of the story, and something that the readers can identify with.
Thanks for your input.
I’m very sorry to have seemed so blunt, but I do feel that if I was in your position, I would like to hear honest input from the readers of the series. I think your books are a magnificent pieces of work, and I would want the cover page to do your high degree of writing justice.
I also noticed that in the first picture, the section where the figures arm is holding the horn to its mouth is grayed out and hasn’t had the background of either the building or grass placed in it!
Best of luck with your new books, and I can’t wait to buy The Long Hunt soon!
No need to apologize, and I do appreciate your honest input.
One thing I’ve found interesting in soliciting input on the new cover is that a number of people, including you, really like the original HarperCollins covers. While I thought the first HC cover, for Viking Warrior, was quite visually striking, I felt the second and third covers were pretty nondescript–just more images of the brooding, handsome/sexy looking model whom they thought would appeal to and attract female readers. I did not feel those covers’ images had any particular connection to anything in the story.
As I’ve been republishing each book, my goal has been to make the covers look more like historical fiction covers, rather than romance novels. HarperCollins was not trying to reach adult historical fiction readers at all–a pretty large segment of readers–they were after teenage girl readers. I’m delighted to have all ages of readers, but now I am trying to reach a much wider readership than the books found in their original release, and something–whether the new covers are part of it, I can’t say–is making that happen. The series is selling much better than it ever has before, and reaching a wider cross-section of readers. It is also, for the first time, beginning to attract a significant number of readers in the U.K., which I think is very positive.
Both of the test covers that were put up for comments are very quick, rough drafts by the cover designer, by the way, and visual flaws like those you point out will be corrected when the final cover is produced, once the final overall design is settled on.