🔥 Covering the Story: Crafting the Face of Memories of an Ash Covered Sky

There’s something about a book cover that carries more weight than we want to admit. It’s the first impression, the handshake across the table, the thing that tells a reader, this one’s for you. And for Memories of an Ash Covered Sky, I knew that handshake needed to feel intimate, heavy, and just a little haunted.

What I didn’t know—at least not right away—was how hard it would be to get it right.

🧠 From Concept to Completion

Like a lot of indie authors, I started with an idea. I created a rough cover concept on my own with Adobe Photoshop and Canva—a symbolic image, atmospheric in tone, something that hinted at smoke, silence, and the emotional distance between two people with unfinished business.

That early version had good bones, but I knew it needed professional help to really come to life. So I turned to 100 Covers, a design team known for working with indie authors to deliver high-quality, genre-conscious covers that don’t break the budget.

We went back and forth. I shared references, my concept, different images I liked; in particular a young woman with a backpack that spoke to me in terms of one of my two protagonists, Sky Wilson. They explored different treatments: the ash, the colors, the central figure, the eerie light that feels almost cosmic. The key challenge? Finding a balance between literal wildfire and emotional wildfire—between storytelling and symbolism.

They listened. They iterated. They nailed it. (They were patient. I was picky. It is my creation after all and I wanted it to speak to me).

The final design holds onto the original intent I envisioned, but it’s bolder, more evocative, and instantly market-ready. The eye in the sky. The lone figure on the dark road. The sense of movement toward something unresolved. It’s everything I wanted readers to feel before they even opened page one.

🎯 Indie Author, Indie Strategy (or: How to Shout into the Void)

As any indie author knows, launching a new book doesn’t come with a built-in megaphone. You’ve got to build the booth, climb up, and start shouting. And figuring out where to direct that energy is part guesswork, part stubbornness, and part throwing spaghetti at the wall.

For Ash Covered Sky, I’ve been leaning into:

• Visual marketing assets: from full-res banner ads (like the BookBub version you might’ve seen) to social media visuals formatted for every imaginable ratio.

• Consistent branding: the smoky palette, the isolated figure, the cosmic tension between destruction and redemption—it’s all baked into the materials, from bookmarks to BookFunnel pages.

• Reader-first storytelling: because what matters most isn’t the algorithm. It’s the reader who sees that cover, clicks the blurb, and says, damn—this one might just wreck me (in a good way).

And while I’m still experimenting—BookBub ads, Amazon campaigns, maybe even some local bookstore outreach—I’ve learned to trust the long game. A good story finds its readers, especially when you believe in it enough to keep showing up.

🧭 What's Next?

I’ll be sharing more about my indie publishing journey in the coming weeks—what’s worked, what hasn’t, and how I stay sane in the in-between. If you're a fellow writer navigating your own release (or just curious how all this happens behind the scenes), stay tuned.

And if you’ve read Memories of an Ash Covered Sky or even just admired the cover—thank you. This one means a lot to me.

– Mike