I thought you might be interested to hear how I go about coming up for a cover for each book. First of all, I don’t even think about the cover (or the title) until I’ve finished the first draft. The reason for this is I want a complete picture of the story, so that I can pick out the most striking visuals.

Once I have finished the first draft, I get in touch with my illustrator and tell him the rough idea of what I want. We go back and forth until he has enough to get started. He then gives me three sketches (see below). I choose one, and we go from there.

You may notice that in all my illustrations, I try and zoom in as much as possible on the picture, rather than go for a more panoramic shot. This is only because most of my sales come from e-books, where the potential reader is seeing a small picture. It is vital, then, that I make that picture clear and easy to see. If I tried to fit in loads of characters, each one would simply be too small.