I initially intended to transcribe my collection of short stories published in print in 2000 (Rarely Well Behaved) and re-issue it as an eBook, but, of course, I had to tweak. I refreshed all the the stories and merged a couple of them into a novella length work and handed the file off to my proofreader. She had a wonderful idea–split the book up into two or more eBooks by type of story.
The result is Fences, which includes the literary short stories and some sci-fi/spec-fi/magical realism stories (See the cover in the right sidebar under “Update About the Update.”), and Blood Vengeance, which includes the espionage/thriller/suspense stories. The cover forFences is pretty logical and set, but I need a little help in deciding on a cover for Blood Vengeance.
Two of the stories in that volume involve the war in the Balkans in the 1990’s. The title story and another entitled “Giving the Dead Back Their Names” deal with the aftermath of ethnic cleansing events there. The latter story involves the forensic identification of the remains of the massacre at Srebrenica. The title story involves getting revenge for a massacre of men and boys in a small village.
Take a look at the possibilities below and leave a comment about which you prefer, or you can just leave the comment “Skull” or “Coffins,” per the captions, and I’ll know which one you mean. I’ll put all the names of commenters in a hat and let one of my grandkids pick a name to receive a signed postcard of one of my Friday Fictioneers’ stories. You have until April 22 to choose.
I know which one I’m leaning toward, but I think it will be fun to get some additional input. Thanks for helping out!
Coffins
Skull
unexpectedpaths.com 
They’re both good, but I think I’ll pick the “coffins” one. I think it gives a greater mental image of the horror and the number of lives lost. Heavy material. Sounds like an intriguing read.
My Mom and I looked them over and both pick the skull. It may be a little graphic, but it will be very clear in a thumbnail. It’s slightly chilling but then so is the basic concept and they seem to go well together.
As a horror writer, I am leaning toward the skull. Both are very nice. 🙂
Tough call. Given your story description, I would go for the skull.
Seems a no-brainer to me: the skull. I couldn’t tell what i was looking at in the other image. I don’t recognize those white things as coffins, and the peole are so tiny as to have no humanity about them; they may as well be little green army men.
I vote for the skull. I like the coffins better, in that it tells more story; but it’s likewise more complicated and, as pointed out earlier, would not come through clearly as a thumbnail. Also, because it seems to show a batch of conservative religious people at a church service — I say that because of what appears to be men and women separated into groups, with women wearing a traditional head garb — I automatically worry, “Oh, no, this isn’t going to be another tale of crazy Christians gone amok, is it?”
The skull is compelling, memorable, eye-catching, and leaves room for you to build the story without encouraging people to assume too much.
They’re actually Bosnian Muslims consecrating bodies identified after the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. However, I can’t get the rights to either one, so starting anew. 😦