Halfway through a series isn’t  when you want to revamp the look, but necessity drove author and publisher Dawn Vogel. “The first two books in my Brass and Glass series were published by a small press. Unfortunately, they decided to close up shop before the final book in the trilogy was complete. They returned the rights to my books to me, but with the closing of the press, the cover artist I had for the first two books was no longer available,” she said.

Vogel had been publishing other authors and the Mad Scientist Journal as part of the DefCon One Publishing group. So taking over the production of the trilogy, including new covers for the first two books, made sense.

“Fortunately, I knew other cover artists, so I connected with one online and asked if she’d be interested in redoing the first two book covers and making a third cover to go along with the set,” said Vogel. “We started out by looking at covers for other steampunk novels and identifying the elements I liked the best. I sent her a really awful drawing I’d made of The Silent Monsoon, the airship in my novels. We went back and forth on a couple of different ideas until we were both happy with the direction things were going.”

With new artwork in place, the series launched under the DefCon One imprint this fall with the final book in the trilogy, The Boiling Sea, scheduled to be released on October 22, 2019.

“I liked my previous covers, but my new cover artist was able to create covers that I love,” said Vogel. “For the first time, the airship I’d envisioned, with its multi-colored balloons, is on the cover of my book. All three of the covers make it very clear that this is a steampunk series with an airship, maps, and clunky diving suits, which point to the sorts of adventures that the crew has. I’ve got a nice, consistent line design, which is key for a series. And the covers all have a bit more color than your average steampunk novel, which makes them stand out in a wonderful way!”

Look for DefCon One  in the GeekGirlCon 2019 dealer room, November 16 and 17, at the Conference Center, 800 Pike Street, in Seattle, Washington. Vogel will be speaking on panels at the event.