"Love your book cover!"
Updated: Apr 17, 2019
(Read down to the end of this article to see the full-size version of the cover)
You know the adage, "You can't judge a book by its cover!"
That may be true when it comes to people, but you can't sell a book without an appealing cover. I suppose if your name is JK Rowling, James Patterson or Tom Clancy that rule might not apply. But if your barely known name is Mike Saad, an eye catching cover is the first step to getting your book off the shelf (literally or digitally) and having someone read the "blurb" to find out what it's all about.
I received plenty of positive comments about the cover for A DAY LATE, and my thanks go out again to Peter and Caroline O'Conner at Bespoke Book Covers in England for their fine work on another knockout cover for A DOLLAR SHORT. They nailed it on the first draft!
The cover captures everything I was looking for - a connection to the first book, the dark and mysterious Moscow, Russia where the story takes place, the intrigue that Michael Christian encounters there, and the anxiety of an International crime thriller. The domes of St. Basil Cathedral are familiar the world over. And although the designers didn't know it at the time they created the cover, I stood in Red Square, at that very spot, decades ago.
As promised, below is your first glimpse of the new cover for A DOLLAR SHORT. I am giving this preview, as of this writing, only to my blog readers!
When will the book be available? The manuscript draft is complete, rough edits have been entered and it is now in the hands of my able Beta readers. It will be a hard run, right down to the wire, to post it onto Amazon by the end of March, but we are all engines full ahead.
As I read the manuscript for the umpteenth time, I was drawn back to this trip to Moscow as if I had just returned. I think you will find the characters Christian encounters as complex (and as deadly) as in A DAY LATE, and hopefully you'll get a sense for what Moscow was like right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I use Michael Christian's observations and impressions to take you there to experience it. I hope you'll enjoy the story.
Peter O'Conner asked me recently if I was ready to begin design work on the cover for A BLANK CHECK, the third book in the series. Give me a couple months then look out!
