Battle Heat’s cover rebranding: Reveal + Why!

I like to share my journey as an indie author and be honest about it. That’s why I’m going to reveal—and break down—the cover rebranding for my debut novel, Battle Heat.

Battle Heat Cover Rebranding

Note: The illustration will remain on the cover of “Vechtlust” (Dutch edition) and the case cover for the “Battle Heat” (English edition) hardcover!

The original cover was a beautiful illustration by Till and Dill. It was exactly what I had imagined; the cover I had visualized came alive in this beautiful illustration, which is why this decision was so hard. Why, then, did I decide to change the cover for the English books?

Market research

The first reason that started the whole thinking process was that, in my genre, readers prefer object covers instead of people. But in general, readers tend to gravitate toward non-person covers. Also, people care what other people think and might not read a particular book (especially romance) in public because of the romantic aspects on the cover. The new cover is a little more discreet, and I want to attract as many different readers to my book as possible. If a more mysterious cover does that, I’ll take it!

Could I have figured this out beforehand? Sure. But I tend to be cautious of market research for wholly different reasons, which I won’t go into right now.

Character visualization

Another reason for the cover rebranding was that I realized not everyone liked to have characters all fleshed out visually. It’s the same with castings for adaptations; readers (and people in general) are very critical of how they see a character. With an object cover, I give the readers a little more freedom. Obviously, I use the illustration for several things, but there’s a certain fluidity. If people don’t vibe with how I depict my characters, they might be deterred from reading the book, even though they might enjoy it a lot but see the characters differently.

I’m in love with the illustration, so it will remain on the Dutch version of the book (Vechtlust) and the case cover of Battle Heat’s Hardcover. It’s part of Battle Heat for me.

Future plans and vision

The last reason is that I have plans for following books in this world and regarding this series, and I want all the covers to match my vision. There’s a specific branding inside my head that I needed to get out, and a cover rebranding was one of the first steps to fit it all together.