I’m sitting in Denver at a conference for publishers and booksellers. New World Library just sent me a photo of the final cover for Lone Dog Road. I think it looks great.
And, remember, you folks helped me choose it — both the title of the book and the cover itself. Tell me what you think.
I also want to alert you to an amazing offer coming your way soon. New World Library is preparing to send a free copy of a PDF of the book to those who pre-order through an Amazon link if you agree to write a review on Amazon’s site once you’ve read the book.
Don’t worry if you have pre-ordered the book from another site or plan to do so. My understanding is that you will still be able to participate in this offer. I need to get more information from the publisher before I can explain this with any confidence.
Anyway, look at this cover and give me your thoughts. And look forward to a new post very soon explaining the specifics of how you can take advantage of this offer of a free PDF of the book.
Now I’m off to meet with the booksellers to let them know about Lone Dog Road. If any of you are booksellers and want to talk about arranging some kind of event/signing/promotion with your bookstore, write to kim@newworldlibrary.com. She’s in charge of making things happen, and she’s doing a wonderful job.
I’m happy you selected this one, it was my choice! Thanks, Kent!
I love the cover!!
The concentration of light at the edge of the book leads you right in! Looking forward to reading it!
Looks awesome!
Looks great. Looking forward to receiving my own copy!
It looks great, love it!
I see the cover top to bottom as a….spiritual turbulence to an unsettled paths of realities that lay ahead in a journey that is being walked into
It’s Gorgeous! Congratulations.
Very inviting cover. Can’t wait to read it.
Beautiful cover. They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover but in some cases that’s not true. The bleak dry desert and the foreboding dark storm clouds give you a sense of impending uncertainty while afterwards the sun shines like an illuminant. I look forward to reading this book as I thoroughly enjoyed Neither Wolf Nor Dog.
It’s a stunning, powerful cover that is perfect for a stunning, powerful book. Now it just needs to be prominently displayed in every bookstore in the world.
It was the cover I voted for and it looks fabulous. The colours are breathtaking and the typeface is perfect. Very eye catching. Like everyone here I can’t wait to get my very own copy and read it.
Beautiful, rich image
beautiful cover… I like how the contrasts of the photograph are used to emphasize the different textual elements, specifically the title and your name
Oh Kent the cover looks amazing!!! Wow!!!! Can’t wait for more info. So exciting and delighted for you!
From someone who grew up on the prairies of North Dakota, exploring the Badlands, this cover seems to convey the feelings of that little girl from so long ago. It so eloquently conveys the mood of several books of yours I have read as described on the back cover. This riveting story is a…. “moving study of the way the land shapes the people who live, love, dream and die upon it.”
The cover looks wonderful. As in all the books I have read of yours with Native American connections, this cover tells me of difficult things I will read about, but will walk away enlightened in a profound way. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Thank you for your perseverance to make it happen.
Yes the cover looks great, especially sitting next to neither Wolff nor dog so many similarities at a glance… I also like how the photo of yourself is one that I voted for so that’s a feel good and lastly, in the description I like the way it already draws you to the story about the boys wanting to complete their bundle once again and replace the broken chanupa.🪶
I preordered it through your suggested link, Bookshop.org, which seems to be a very fine organization in helping smaller book stores. (They claim: “$36,493,937.11 raised for local bookstores”. My purchase: “You raised $2.20 for local bookstores!”)
I have written many reviews on Amazon over the years. One does not have to purchase a product from Amazon to write a review. You can still write a review. They just won’t say “Verified Purchase”.
Once I get the book, in late May, and read it, I’ll plan to write a review on Amazon, which I have no doubt will be highly favorable.
The cover looks good.
FYI There is a painting with a similar, but darker, sky. It is at the South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD, by Harvey Dunn entitled Storm Front.
https://www.southdakotaartmuseumstore.com/storm-front.html
Your cover is much more interesting !
I don’t really have an opinion since I’ve nothing else to compare it to. It looks like open prairie grassland which I’m sure is fitting and leaves one with a feeling of openness and the natural world perhaps where buffalo once roamed by incredible numbers. Certainly a beautiful natural scene. Thanks for asking my opinion.
The cover is well composed with vibrant and alive colorations, forboding and exciting with hope at the same time. Love the striated hills continuing along the horizon on front and back cover. The white lettering on the book jacket with the deeper backgrounds gives one a clear and clean first scanning of the written endorsements. The cover is boldly carved to connect to the reader emotionally.
Artistically, I like its crispness of color; its contrasts; the layout of the landscape as a whole. I see the subliminal imagery of either a canine’s or bison’s right eye and brow, angled, expressing seething anger (to the upper left corner of DOG) and to its right side, the faint image of the animal’s left eye hidden somewhat by its furrowed brow.
As it appears in the full spread layout here, your portrait image seems somewhat whimsical to me, to be honest. I think a full-face straight-on expression would’ve better supplemented the seriousness of the story found between the covers.
Interesting, Steve. I hadn’t seen that hint of an image until you mentioned it. I wonder if the cover designer intended it. It certainly speaks subliminally to the animation of the landscape, a theme in all my works.
As to the photo — point taken. You may remember when I asked for opinions on two photo options. They came out in a dead heat. I chose the one that had a slight hint of humor in it, not wanting to be too endlessly ponderous. Right choice? Wrong choice? Water over the bridge at this point.
It’ll look great on the side table next to the bed, where I will read it. It’ll also look great on the bookshelf beside my writing desk with your others. My anticipation grows.
The cover for Lone Dog Road is very powerful as it is symbolic of Earth and Sky. It is the backdrop of the struggle Native Americans suffer.
I trust the Spirits are pleased.
We travel different paths or roads, but they will take us to the same place.
Books like this help us all, if we can walk in another’s moccasins.
I will be forwarding this to Tattered Cover in Denver, Kent.
And will write reviews, especially on Goodreads.
I quit Amazon long ago.
Prayers always, Kent.
You’ve given birth.
I was not part of the choosing, but this is an eye-catching cover and I love the detail on the back. I have now finished the trilogy and have watched the movie more times than I can count. Needless to say, I very eager for this novel. Thank you for all of your writing.
Superb.
Hello Kent – There is nothing wrong with the chosen picture. The dynamic colors speak of a journey in progress. The sun’s rays (mid-right) could be a passage just beginning at sunrise or ending at sunset – or both. From there, I diverge from the universal approval of the final cover choice. A third choice exists: the image in your post of early afternoon, 27 February. I’ve copied it below, hoping it will transfer so you can see which one I am referring to. It is the landscape with two streams flowing through the grasslands and with foothills at the back.
I find it ironic that this image from your 27 February post contains some of the same elements as the chosen cover, but in quite different pictorial detail, and with a richness that the favored cover does not have.
The meandering streams are water roads leading to and from points of departure and arrival, and respite spots between. One water-branch narrows into a marsh, (travel terminated? changed?), while the other in the background pools large below the foothills, perhaps a tributary of a much larger river – a greater story. The hills beg us to speculate what may be beyond; the clouds’ shadow-and-light play on the hilltops hint at the mixed experiences of any journey. The expanse of the foreground depicts a demarcation between the low and the high lands – again as any journey worth its name is sure to offer.
But that is not all. It takes some effort, but the deeper view is worth it. This landscape erupts with points of sentient life. Clearest is the lower right shape of what almost certainly is a buffalo, or less likely, a horse – the hump behind the head argues buffalo. Directly opposite (lower left) we have two more, similar shapes, less distinct, but still clearly living creatures. And closer to the hills are more wandering life forms.
Wait! What is at the center of this deceptively simple panorama? Look closely. Do you see him/her? Another life form – small compared to the others, but smack in the center. Could it be a dog? The outline suggests yes, a wandering canine. Likely a coyote, but just as possible, a feral dog. No others of his kind appear unless they are hidden by the tall grasses. Just as a journey’s road hides and reveals, reveals and then hides again. Could this tiniest burst of light and shadow be the ”lone dog” ( literal or symbolic) of the book’s title? Why not? And if so, why not the perfect cover for Nerburn’s readers, forever immersed in the landscapes of his magnificent tales and teachings.
I can’t find the image you are referring to. Can you post it or send it to me as a PDF at knerburn@kentnerburn.com?
Awesome cover, Kent. I love your books. They make laugh,cry and send me to a special spiritual place. Can’t wait to read it his new one. I know it will be all that I expect and more. Thank you for being you!