Do Judge a Book by its Cover: Development on photoshop

I want to use photoshop to create my final book cover as I think that it would give the clean and simple layout I want  - in order to reflect the books non-fictional and academic content. 

To start constructing my book cover I scanned my two favourite images I had created experimenting in my sketchbook, and then used levels and erasing tools in order to refine the edges and create greater contrast. I think creating these images by hand and scanning them gives a quality of line and texture to the image that personally I would not be able to achieve in photoshop. 

As I started to experiment with constructing these different book jacket designs I started to feel like the white background was too bland, whilst I did not want to use an all black background as this was too dark and morbid for the ideas I am trying to convey. Creating the grey background in the top image gave me the idea of using a strip all across the book cover. I feel like this is a really effective compositionally, as it breaks up the image and text, and also enables me to add colour without distracting from the black and white divide within the illustration.   

I associate warm colours with home and feeling a sense of belonging - therefore I started to think of using reds, oranges and purples for the background. I finally decided on this dark mauve colour shown above as I felt like it seemed professional, and not garish (unlike some of the other colours I tested) yet still communicated this sense of warmth I wanted for the book cover.  

I want to use digital type, as apposed to handmade, as I feel like this would best suit the professional and formal tone to the book jacket. I did some experimentation with type in order to find the most suitable for my title. I decided to use sans serif types such as Helvetica or Myriad as they portray a neutral and professional tone. 

I did not want to overcomplicate the book jacket, or distract from the main image on the front cover. I therefore have decided to use small drawings of trees and people to use on the spine and back of the book. I think this will add charm and interest to the jacket, without taking away from any of the imagery.