I must have gone through a dozen iterations of my Pearseus covers through the years, which is hardly surprising: we fantasy fans expect familiar book cover design elements when searching out our next read. We’re a picky, dedicated, and loyal lot, so I didn’t want to risk lost sales and future readers over a poorly designed cover!

In 2018, Forbes reported that science fiction and fantasy genre books, both print and digital, had doubled sales in the previous eight years coinciding with exploding self-publishing growth on Amazon and other publishing platforms. By cutting out middlemen (traditional publishers), says Forbes, independent SF and fantasy writers scored more profits than their traditionally published peers.

According to Self-Publishing School, fantasy tops the Amazon genre list. Fantasy can further be broken down into subgenres including the following:

• Science fantasy combines science…