Et voila. I'm really pleased with this, and think that the graphic designer did a great job of bringing the brief to life. I had the notion of presenting some kind of 'do-it-yourself-bluesman' kit, though had no real idea how this was going to translate in pixels. The final effect is, in my opinion, rather pleasing, and does a good job of representing the novel's central conceit.
The faded brown graph paper was an afterthought - the initial cover used a bright blue background that stood out well when reduced to thumbnail size and slotted into the Kindle Store yet was fairly garish when viewed up close. Though somewhat toned down by comparison, this final version has a much more professional feel to it.
The strapline 'They Woke Up This Morning' was an after-afterthought, intended to provide some sort of curiosity-arousing enticement to delve into the novel. As well as connoting the blues via reference to that old cliche it can also be said to apply to each of the central characters, who literally do 'wake up' to themselves throughout the course of the novel.
Of course the red guitar is meant to represent a phallus firing up into the fertile concavity of that hat, whilst the black of those boots is a direct reference to Thanatos, the Greek personification of death. Hidden within the green dot of the fag packet is the all-seeing eye of Freemasonry, and if you count all the squares on the page and divide them by the number of frets on the guitar multiplied by the dashes around the bottle you get 11, which happens to be the scrabble score for the word COYOTE.
And you thought it was just a standard book cover. Tsk.
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