Cover Art

Hi,

Since we're comparing covers. This is my latest. It's a 123RF photo, tweaked with a few Photoscape filters and cost me the sum total of $17 kiwi. You can do a lot with very little if you're willing to practice a bit. (Photoscape's free by the way.)

Cheers, Greg.

 

I paint and design my own. I taught myself to paint through art classes by Jerry Yarnell on Public Broadcasting in the US. He's excellent. He paints with acrylic on canvas. With one of my books, a true story about the murders my brother committed, I used PhotoImpact to design a cover around a picture of my brother and me together on horseback when I was four and he was fourteen. I'd include a picture of that here, but I have no idea how to do that given the restrictions of the site. (I just joined the site and don't want to get myself in trouble.) The book is currently for sale. The rest of my covers are from my paintings on canvas and adapted through PhotoImpact.

These days it takes me about 30 hours to paint each of my works of art. So while I know in the above conversation there is mention of how expensive it is to get someone to design a cover, it takes the creator of the work time to do it. Now if they are just manipulating digital images, that does not take as much time. I'd decided I would never design covers for anyone because I would have to charge more than an author could afford, to make it worth my while. Plus you never know if the author is going to like what you do.

 

Moderator hat on here: We'd love to see your cover design. You've made it clear you're not (and won't be) selling your services as a cover designer, so yeah. Go ahead and let us see what you've done.

 

. In the Tater's Mater's book, three of the women are actually related to me. One is my grandmother and two of them are aunts.

 

My Avatar here is one of my paintings. It is my aunt Lottie and me - once upon a time. She is also one of the women in the Tater's Mater's picture above. Hers are the shoulders upon which I stand. This picture was taken in black and white and I colorized it. I painted it when I was first learning to paint. So some of it is a little off.

 

Hi,

It is worth investigating short graphic design courses. I have taken one a couple of years back with Birmingham City University (England). It cost £360 at the time and was well worth it. Not sure what you will find in your country or territory but it might be worth taking a look. Maybe they do courses for free!

It goes without saying, do your own research.

 

OOps. You've mis-spelled 'surviving' on your actual book cover. It's come out as 'Surving'....

 

Thanks. On the one I actually have on my cover, the error was fixed. I uploaded this one, forgetting that I had done that. I uploaded this copy of it because this copy of it was small. I don't know how to delete the one above or I'd do it. Oh, well. Such is the way of things. Since I am not allowed to put in a link here, I can't show you the real deal unless I put up another one here. I have no need to do that since I'm not here to sell anything.

 

Can you not just take a screen shot of the 'real deal' and put that up?

Actually, you can delete the wrong one yourself

Go to the post and choose the 'edit' option at the bottom of the post
Choose 'more options'
delete the individual photo you want deleted
choose 'upload a file' and add in the one you want instead
then save the changes

 

Also worth deciding how much due diligence you want to do regarding the free or royalty-free status of an image. There are sites that accumulate images and represent them as free or even public domain when they are not, and if you use such an image you could be liable to the copyright holder irrespective of the fact that the site where you downloaded it said it was free for all to use.

 

Jannert, I must be dense, but when I go to the post with the two cover art pictures in ti the edit button does not appear. I can't seem to find a way to get there.

 

Thank you big soft moose. That is very kind. I was beginning to wish I'd never uploaded my cover art. I'll up load a copy of the one with the correct spelling

 

I use the gig platform "Fiverr" to find cover artists (as well as narrators and beta readers). It works quite well, although you do have to select carefully. I've found a cover artist that I'll stick with now. I don't think I'm allowed to share work on here yet though, so I can't really link to the covers. But anyway, Fiverr is pretty useful - and you're protected in as much as the artist isn't paid until you approve the work.

 

Mod hat on: You're welcome to upload a picture of your book cover, as an example, here. In fact, I reckon we'd like to see it. Just don't do a link to the book, or where it might be for sale.

Try to keep the picture a reasonable size, though. Huge photos gobble up our forum bandwidth (I think is the term...)

 

Okay thanks. I'll share my favourite cover only. (this is a low res version, so I don't suck bandwidth)



A tip - you can find an image that you like, and buy the license yourself. There are heaps of image sites that folks are probably already familiar with. I use "Dreamstime". Then you can send your chosen artist the image and request that they make a cover from it. If they use a font that is already in the public domain, that also saves money. This cover maybe cost me about $50 all up. Which I thought was very reasonable... But is still more money than I've made from the book. LOL! It's a hobby right? And its nice to see your work with a cover. There's worse ways to spend fifty bucks.

 

That's quite an effective cover, in my opinion. It's not cluttered, and the monochrome colour scheme helps with the focus—and the images make us pretty certain this is a work of Fantasy. The girl's stare as she raises her bow to shoot me between the eyes is quite arresting. And it underlines the sarcasm in your book's title. A different kind of cover image ...pastel clouds, etc... might have signalled a sweet, nostalgic story. I reckon this ain't?

 

(Yes, the story is "transgressive" ) but those are the aspects I liked about it too. The colours are really nice. And while that image already existed, the designer did have to manipulate it somewhat and work the font into it smoothly. So they earned their money.

 

Also - depending on your psychology, getting the cover done early is a great way to force yourself to finish the book Because you've paid for a cover, it looks great. It needs to be seen, but won't be unless there's a book behind it. Worked for me anyway.

 

I enjoy designing covers as I brainstorm ideas. Somehow creating something visual like a cover for a story, even if it's just in the outline stage, grounds it and gives it a sense of legitimacy. Any thoughts on this?

 

Nice! My first quick thought - I love that blue (cyan?) colour. It seems just right.

 

Thanks, much appreciated. I was originally going to go for green or brown, but I think the cyan lends a certain ghostly ethereal quality to it which seems right for the story.

Edit: I may have to play with the opacity of the gate symbol though.