Book Covers

Discussion in 'Cover Design' started by Sam Webb, Mar 12, 2017.

  1. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    That's even worse, I lost my red somehow.

    Red/green colorblind, I hate playing with the wheel, but I seem to have done so somehow. Shoot.
     
  2. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Right, I'm going to move this mess to its own thread rather than hogging this one.
     
  3. rincewind31

    rincewind31 Active Member

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    Good covers sell books, while bad covers consign your book to the depths of hell.

    Amazon is probably littered with literary masterpieces that nobody has bothered to even look at because of a poor cover.
     
  4. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    my spelling and grammar are impeccable
    you are quibbling because i use speech to text software instead of writing formally
     
  5. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    We don't care what kind of software you use. We are quibbling because your posts look barely literate. This is a writing site, and that kind of thing is frowned upon here.

    Everyone else makes an effort to write posts well. Why can't you?
     
  6. Elven Candy

    Elven Candy Pay no attention to the foot in my mouth Contributor

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    No one is quibbling because you use speech to text--I'm not even sure any of us knew you were using that. We're asking you to use proper grammar in regards to capitalizing the first letter of a sentence and ending them with a period (or other proper sentence ending punctuation). That would make it easier to read your posts.
     
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  7. sprirj

    sprirj Senior Member

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    I think all these posts are completely correct. Don't be fooled into thinking you can design a half decent cover, you need an eye for detail, and a encyclopaedic knowledge of design, layout, colour palettes and pantones, hierarchy, spacing, keening, leading, typography, print methods and processes, copyright, I have 5 years of education in the subject, a degree from the UKs top art college and 12 years working in the industry, and I am still no expert. :)

    Yes you can spot a self done cover. If you are an amateur, my advice is keep it simple and appreciate white space.
    If anyone is itching for a book cover, I'll offer my services for free, just because I have a passion for it, and am looking to build my portfolio in this area. Just pm me and I'll ask a few questions, to get a feel of what you are after, and if I think I can help, I will. :)
     
  8. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    A progression of covers, if you will.

    [​IMG]
    The first is a cover I made myself, just for posting the first draft of UTK online as a WIP.

    The second is a fanart cover designed by someone who is not a professional graphic artist, but a skilled hobbyist.

    The third is the official cover of UTK, commissioned by my publisher and created by professional graphic artist and author Kirby Crow. She actually created four different covers for me to choose from, and this was the one I liked the best.
     
  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    And to emphasize the importance of the typography...

    The first is a cover with art I commissioned for the purpose, years ago. I chose the artist because I loved his landscapes, but he obviously wasn't great with human characters and he didn't know anything about fonts. The second cover cost maybe a quarter of the amount but was done by someone who specializes in making covers. The first one suits the book much better, to be honest, but the second one looks way more professional (and cost way less).



    smaller dh1.jpg smaller dh2.jpg
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2017
  10. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @BayView your second cover looks like the light is competing with the subject in the picture.
    While it is a photo versus your first which was hand done, at least the first doesn't look like
    the sun is trying to eat the scenery or the subjects in it. Unless there is a fog running through
    the forest in the second, causing the light to be off-staging the background in a fiery haze.
     
  11. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Isn't that that "bokeh" thing? Which I've never fully understood, but I think that blurring the scenery is a deliberate artistic effect.
     
  12. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    bo·keh
    bōˈkā/
    noun
    Photography
    noun: bokeh
    1. the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens.
      "a quick, visual survey of the foreground and background bokeh of a variety of lenses"
    Origin
    View attachment 9530
    from Japanese.
    Translate bokeh to
    Use over time for: bokeh

    I don't know, the trees are not blurred, the lighting is misty or milky. Blur would imply depth or motion I would think.
    Not a photography expert, but from an artists perspective the lighting seems to be acting more 'solid' than usual.
     
  13. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I don't know what bokeh is, but, yeah, this was meant to be a deliberate effect. The artist contacted me and asked whether it was possible there'd be fog or a mist of magic in the backdrop and I said sure, there wouldn't be magic but there could be fog... so it was deliberate.
     
  14. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Write, the thumbnail is basically illegible, and that is the size you will see on Amazon, some unreadable red words on black background. I would suggest more contrast and better color mix. That said, the overall effect is spooking and intriguing, but make it readable.
     
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  15. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    rotflmao

    literary masterpieces would be extremely rare on amazon
    if they were they would have tonne of good reviews
    and the cover would not matter

    has anybody said they liked the cover when they reviewed a book
    or do they say they liked the content
     
  16. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    When I look at a book with the intent to buy, I think the first thing that attracts my attention is the title... is it catchy, does it make me want to know more?

    The cover may be the first or second thing, that catches my eye. The cover should be simple and eyecatching... if you don't want to go to art work, just use a plain cover, but with good readable type. If you to art, don't overdo it. I am an engineer, and I give a lot of powerpoint presentations. I try to keep a high signal (message I am trying to convey) to noise (distracting stuff on the slide). If artwork supports the message, then it is signal; if it is unnecessary, it is noise.

    Then I look at the blurb. Does it amplify the message of the cover and title? If so, I will look inside and scan a few lines of text. Is it neatly and professionally laid out, proper paragraphing, justified margins, typo-free? Does the writing style attract me?

    Any failure in any of the four initial tests, I will likely go on to something else. If the author didn't care to put his best foot forward on the initial package, then guess what, he probably didn't with the story either. And any typo anywhere in that ... nope. Unforgivable. You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. So no, the cover is certainly not the book, and a good cover will not mask a poorly-written story. But a bad cover may result in the book never being examined. Like fishing with a fancy rod and reel, but no bait on the hook. Better stop by the market on the way home, if you were expecting fish for dinner.
     
  17. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Well said, Lew.
     
  18. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I could see you in your whites dressing down some ate-up sailor when you said that :)
     
  19. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Please tell me that I am not the only one that looks inside a book.

    There have been back blurbs (or just blurbs in the case of e-books),
    where you can't exactly say some of the more raw elements of the
    story. Take horror for example, the blurb is this soft summery, and
    then when I look on the first page and : "Oh shit run!" is the first bit
    I see. Where was that sense of (oh shit run) in the blurb? I jumped
    from this mildly clever dance around to try and convey the tension,
    but it just doesn't have the same impact as that first line in story.

    Back to the original topic of thread.

    While I have never seen a book cover where I needed a gungho fan
    had to decode the title for me (this seems to be a bigger deal in the
    Metal music genre). While you can have some lovely piece that looks
    like it should be hanging up in the Louvre, it might not be much more
    than the equivalent of click-bait. Or those edgy people who think use
    big block plain font on a dark field, insert some random horror title
    here. Eye catching yes, but it says I am trying too hard to look like
    some cheesy prop for a classified document in a b-movie. That is
    about each end of the spectrum, we all know the middle.

    Pretty much my final thoughts on this whole mess of all types of opinion,
    is that there are those who judge a book by it's cover, and those who
    judge a book by it's story. Thus pretty does not mean good, and ugly/plain
    does not equal bad. If the cover is the reason you buy books, then perhaps
    you should invest in the picture ones with little to no words. Clearly your
    ability to appreciate a novel, is the same as mine is when I look at a million
    dollar canvas with paint shot on it from a guy's ass.
     
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  20. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    So without the random hostility... how do you choose which books to read if you can only judge them by reading them?
     
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  21. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    No hostility here, just moderate frustration. I spend a fair amount of time looking through the available
    content in a given genre, and then try and find something that sparks my intrigue by what it has to offer
    from the peek inside. It is much like trying a sample at a market before going out and buying the product.

    Apologies for the soapbox earlier.
     
  22. blueshogun96

    blueshogun96 Member

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    This I do not necessarily agree with. Let's say you wrote a novel of great quality, the next "Lord of the Rings" or so. Three things:
    1. What if your book hasn't had any readers (or not even a significant amount of people who bought it)? If your book gets little to no exposure, then it's a bit hard to get the reviews it deserves (of course, the marketing and peer review part is primarily your job, not Amazon's). Even then, how many people actually bother writing reviews? I do not know what the ratio of buyers to reviewers that bought the book would be though.
    2. While I do agree that your cover art doesn't guarantee a success or failure of your book, as Lew said, your first impression is everything. You have to use every resource possible to convince the potential reader to select your book among thousands if not millions of others. Why not have both a great story AND cover art? It only works in your favour if both are executed perfectly. One exception to this covert art discussion: Mega Man. Now, I know Mega Man is not a book (it's a video game for NES from 1987), but even though the game's box art was considered poorly done it was still a major success because it was really good. The box art put some people off, but after hearing good things about it, some of those doubters were converted.
    3. The opinion of the cover art may go unspoken, but that doesn't mean it does not matter at all. Aesthetically pleasing images are VERY powerful and should not be overlooked.
    That's just my two cents. While cover art is a priority for me, I am mostly focused on writing a great story, perfecting it, and finding out whether it's worth publishing or not. Once the levels of satisfactory have been met or exceeded, then I can move forward.

    Shogun.
     
  23. rincewind31

    rincewind31 Active Member

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    To be fair to you though you haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

    I was in such a hurry to publish my first book on Amazon I didn't really give the cover a second thought. The first two months it sold half a dozen copies because nobody was even looking at it. What I failed to grasp is your cover is basically click bait. Unless you give people a reason to click on it, and read your blurb, nobody is going to bother.
    After that I had a decent cover made and in the next two months I'd sold three thousand copies and two years on, it's still selling today. If I hadn't changed the cover, it wouldn't be. It really is that simple.
     
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  24. sprirj

    sprirj Senior Member

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    It is great to see the examples, my personal preference is the middle one, in terms of style, it looks a bit more contemporary, where the professional shines, is that they know the real important information is the authors name, this is your biggest selling point for future books, the middle design fails because I can not even see a name, and ultimately it shouts amateur.

    The second is so much better. The first looks like a quaint story, self published, the second looks like an epic along the lines of the hunger games.


    This is such a great point. The book cover won't get reviews, but it is all about creating a tone and impact to assure people what they have just clicked on or picked up is quality.

    Books and food products are similar in this sense. When I shop I don't know what the product will taste like, so I have to make a decision based on what product appeals to me. I judge it on looks, I can factor in other things like price, and producer (publisher) but at the end of the day I'm probably going to pick the best looking label.
     

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