When I was trying to think of a cover for the first book in The Mumtaz Chronicles series, I knew nothing about book covers. The series is about various women that lived during the Mughal Empire. What should appear on the cover?
I watched a series of videos I found online about how to pick a cover for a book. Apparently the best covers create some kind of emotion in the viewer, and that emotion will make you want to pick up the book (or click on the thumbnail) and read what the book is about. That is really all the cover is supposed to do.
The idea of putting actual pictures of Nur Jahan on the cover of my first book made me think of a non-fiction history book. I did not want to give that impression, as The Mumtaz Chronicles is a series of modernized historical fiction novellas.
The first book is about how Mehr al-Nesa meets Prince Salim. If you read her history, there was a rumor that they met when she was young, but it was never substantiated. I have fictionalized that the meeting did take place, but the conditions under which they met was not a love story as what was assumed.
I found this picture of this beautiful Muslim woman.
I love the way the image was decorated and decided to use it for the cover of my first book.