• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Victoria Aveyard

Victoria Aveyard

New York Times Bestselling Author of "Red Queen"

  • Home
  • Books  
    • All Books
    • Realm Breaker Series  
      • Realm Breaker
      • Blade Breaker
      • Fate Breaker
    • Red Queen Series  
      • Red Queen
      • Glass Sword
      • King’s Cage
      • War Storm
      • Broken Throne
    • Novellas  
      • Cruel Crown
    • Other  
      • Red Queen Coloring Book
  • About  
    • About Victoria
    • FAQ
  • Events
  • Blog
  • Press + Media
  • Contact

RED QUEEN Cover!

July 9, 2014 by Victoria Aveyard

So as most of you know, the cover for RED QUEEN was revealed last week. For the .01% of you who missed my avalanche of tweets on the subject, here it is again:

Sorry, I started to drool. I’m so in love with this cover. It’s everything I wanted, and then some. The folks at HarperCollins were really open to my original idea of a cover, and then ran away with it and made something better than I ever imagined. So who wants to see my original thoughts (because I procrastinate by designing covers)?
Back in the day when I was first penning the RED QUEEN manuscript, I would dip into Photoshop whenever I hit a roadblock. I designed symbols and covers or just manipulated photos until the ideas started flowing again. Here’s the first real RED QUEEN centric image I made (and stupidly included on the first page of the manuscript):
Pretty basic, but definitely gets across a clear message. Girl, crown, chess piece. Bam. And then I started to simplify even more, and tried my hand at a minimalist (hard to understand) cover:
The symbols are nonsensical until you read the book, and even then, they’re kind of hard to figure out. Also, I very clearly made this with rudimentary paint tools in Photoshop. Well done, me.
This is the final sketch I made when I knew a cover would be a real thing, and I wanted to jot something down so I had a better chance of explaining it to Kari Sutherland, the editor of RED QUEEN:
Not too bad, but definitely nowhere near the level of beauty we ended up with. And to illustrate exactly how easy the cover process was for RED QUEEN, this was what I told Kari when she asked about cover ideas:
“Uh, simple? I figure a crown upside down to show the world is not quite right. I’m big into simple, symbol covers.” And then I sent her a bunch of covers I liked, including:
 
Kari had the idea to add dripping blood and the Harper art wizards translated that into our first comp cover. It was a rough draft, but I still loved it, and leagues ahead of where I thought the cover would start:
First Cover
Second and Final Cover
So close to the final right? It only took Harper a single comp to nail down the cover of my dreams. A true miracle, if all the cover horror stories I’ve heard are true. A giant thanks to Kari, Suzie Townsend, Kristen Pettit, Jennifer Klonsky, jacket artist Michael Frost, jacket designer Sarah Nichole Kaufman, and the whole team at Harper who made this a real thing.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

Meet Victoria!

Victoria Aveyard is an author of #1 New York Times bestselling and USA Today bestselling books, two New York Times bestselling novellas, and a New York Times bestselling short story collection. She continues pursuing her writing career while living full-time in Los Angeles and is hard at work on her next fantasy series. Read More…

Categories

  • Uncategorized

Footer

Connect with Victoria!

Follow Victoria on Substack

  • © Copyright 2025 Victoria Aveyard. All Rights Reserved.
  • • Privacy Policy
  • Created with ❤ by Moxie Design Studios
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. ACCEPT Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Scroll Up