Creating the New Look for The Woodhead & Becker Mysteries

Previously, I announced a change to the Murders of Substance series to The Woodhead & Becker Mysteries, as well as a change of the book titles to The Winterstone Murder and The Bridegroom Murder. After fixing the title pages and other pages of the books’ interior where the titles appear. Once that’s done, I re-published these books with their new titles. The next Woodhead & Becker release (coming in 2023) will have the new title format and cover style.

I’ve written about the origin of the original series and the influence of the 1987 album Substance from the British post-punk band New Order, and why I made the change. This post discusses the process of coming up with the concepts for the new covers, and shows the full visual transformation!

I work with Ziad Ezzat of Feral Creative for my book covers, and I absolutely love his designs. The original covers of the Murders of Substance series are haunting and gorgeous—so I was really disappointed when I realized I gave him bad directions on what readers would be looking for. 

After...Read More