Title and author
Title
Answer in the Negative
Author
Henrietta Hamilton
Photo of the author
Author biography
Description
Genre
Crime, Fiction
Book description
At The National Press Archives for print and photos, an archive assistant Frank Morningside, disliked by many, is receiving poison pen letters and having practical jokes played on him. When the nature of the letters becomes less playful and more vulgar, things take a sinister turn.
Toby Lorn, head of the department, calls on his friends Sally and Johnny Helder, two amateur sleuths, to investigate. Sally and her husband Johnny scout out possible suspects by posing as researchers at the archive. But when Morningside is found dead, bludgeoned by a box of glass negatives, the Helders may be in over their heads.
Target audience
Women and Men +35 interested in Golden Age Detective Fiction and Classic Crime
Ebook details
First page
First ebook page details
We don't require a first page
Last page
Last ebook page details
We don't require a last page
Ebook publisher
Amazon Kindle
Visual style
Design inspiration
Colors to explore
Other color requirements
I've uploaded a few colour combos that we find interesting in the inspiration section, but please feel free to try others as well!
Creative vision
Style attributes
Design needs
We'd love to have a cover that is a bit of a nod to the style of the original cover. We love it's slight feminine quality, the colour combos, and the illustrative look.
Obviously, we don't want a complete copy in style but something that pays homage to this vintage cover.
I've uploaded some images below as inspiration on illustrative style as well as colour.
Some further info, quotes from the books, and a few image suggestions (though we always love seeing wildcards!):
Set in Fleet Street in 1959.
"carrying a stout wooden box, about twenty-four inches by nine, full of glass negatives stacked on edge. "
"It was a dark night, and a thin rain had begun to fall. They drove to within a hundred yards of Echo House, and walked from there along the wet pavement. "
"Sally remembered the shattered negatives, the stout wooden box, still disgorging them, lying upside down almost on top of the shattered head, the single negative gripped in the groping fingers."
"When the taxis came and they went out, Sally realised that it was raining hard now. Between the street-lamps the pavement was black and shining like a black slug. The lamps sank broken reflections into it."
Images of office buildings, interior or exterior, office doorways.
Images of pictures or negatives. Typewriters or letters.
What to avoid
Nothing violent or modern crime.
If you're using stock imagery, please link to the stock image website, not Wikipedia (unless it's CC).
If you could upload concepts as just the image (not mocked up on a book or kindle), that would be wonderful!
Files
Stock images
Client allowed the use of stock for this contest.
Stock images are licensed photos and vector files. Please declare stock when you submit designs so that clients can pay for licenses.
Attachments
Contest deliverables
Ebook cover
Final files
If you use fonts that require a license, confirm with the client they're ok with it. For licensing reasons, it is better to provide your client with information on how to acquire the font rather than providing the actual files.
This is the original cover which is quite fun, while also fitting perfectly into the detective genre.