I expect Elenya’s Saga to sell far more eBooks than print copies, and that means I only designed a front cover. I needed something interesting for back covers, but doing nine more illustrations is a lot of work. It just didn’t make sense considering that print will likely address such a small part of my audience. The other day, I really got an itch to have a connected image across the book spines. Then I realized I can work a single image to work as back covers and a connected spine. Each book will take a different crop of the full mural, and the spines will present as a continuous portion of the picture.

I can estimate the book widths, but each book will likely be a bit wider than my estimates. Thus I did a painting that has plenty of wiggle room to accommodate the unknowns. The following is a preview with rough typography and dividers showing approximate book widths. Seeing it makes the whole thing feel real. I’m excited to have the set on my bookshelf.