Rebranding the Mythical Menagerie Series

So, you know in the old days, before the joys of e-books and online shopping, where you still went to an actual bookstore and bought physical books? It almost feels like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Anyhoo, at the risk of showing my age here, I used to frequent a physical bookshop back in the good old days. And because I live at the bottom end of Africa, we’d have to wait extra long before the books finally arrived here – even longer for the right format and size, if you’re as finicky as I am. You’d need to grab them when they landed on the shelf, otherwise they’d be out of stock and you’d be screwed.

So there I was, quietly freaking out about The Wheel of Time (long before online fandoms) and collecting each instalment as they appeared, ooh’ing and aah’ing over the pretty covers and debating with myself (before the Internet, kids) whether that was really how I pictured Rand and wondering if I could secretly be Moiraine.

And then BAM! Book 10 hits the shelf and – what is this fresh hell?! – they’ve changed the cover design!

I’m telling you, twenty years later, and it still stings.

(And in case you were wondering, I do have Book 14, but only on Kindle. Will the madness ever end?!)

All of this is to say, you’ll understand that when I decided to rebrand my books, I didn’t do so lightly. I console myself with the thought that people only buy e-books nowadays and no physical copies of my books are gracing anyone’s shelves (which also makes me a little sad. Let’s say no physical copies, YET). At least with e-books, a rebrand doesn’t sting as bad.

Although I really LOVE my existing covers, the market wants what the market wants, and I have to do what I can to get these books noticed by more readers. This means they need to conform to genre expectations.

So, while I was in the trenches with the final instalment for Book 3, I also designed a whole new set of covers, not only for the first two books but also for the next two (yes, this is going to be a 4-book series – if all goes as planned! – but I’ll keep Book 4’s cover under wraps for now).

What do you think of the new covers?!

Myth Maker, book 3 in the series, will be released on 1 September 2025 and is now available for preorder from Amazon and all the usual online retailers.

Grab your copy NOW! Go on, you know you want to!