One of my plans this week is to get a short story out called "Casting Call". I've never done a Kindle book as myself, so it is an experiment but also a chance to do something fun. I think the writing is pretty solid, though I keep fussing with the last line, but stories need a good cover. I posted two covers on Twitter and got some good feedback from Melanie Nilles (she also has some enjoyable books) and my coworkers (who are supportive in general). After various ideas, I realized that the two covers I came up with were less than amazing and a bit busy to boot. So, I came up with two different covers that were completely different in design. And, since I'm a fragile little beast, I thought I would ask those who read my blog if they were willing to give me some opinions on them.

This is the blurb I wrote for Casting Call:

For the last six years, Marla was a fixture of the wildly successful Donna's Teddy Clubhouse, a show aimed for competitive Caucasian Northern American Girls 14 market. But, age betrayed her and she was fired for not having a profitable enough body according to the exacting standards of the production company. Eighteen years old and alone, she has no future in the holographic markets and no skills to find new employment. Does she abandoned her love of acting? Or are there shows out that don't belong to the standard, cut-throat markets?

Casting Call is a short story set in a cyberpunk world of ubiquitous computers, razor-thin profitability, constant advertising, and microsecond management.

On Sunday, the first cover I came up was this.

It was fairly dark, which I think computer interfaces will eventually lead to, but also rather plain. After talking to Greg Sohl about the piece, I came up with one inspired by the Windows 8 Metro UI.

This one had a busier background mainly because I thought it was plain. I'm good either way.

The above two images were the ones that I posted on Twitter. I got some snarky feedback (:P) and Melanie's about not really getting a feel for the story. So, I pondered it during my lunch, did a few quick searched, picked up *gasp* a stock picture, and came up with these two versions.

The above one was basically inspired some of the cyberpunk covers I have in my library. It is plain and stark, but that is how I kind of see the future. Now, the bottom one was inspired by Wayne Dorrington. I thought they were adorable and came up with this:

Given that, opinions of which cover you like, what parts you like or don't like, and just ideas would be greatly appreciated. If not, that's okay too, I had a lot of fun coming up with these covers over the last few days.