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Tag Archives: cover art

Book Covers and the Importance of November

This past week I have spent a considerable amount of time staring at three versions of the book cover art which are exactly the same except for slight changes to color balance.  I have also been spending a lot of time making a red radio flyer wagon into a ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine, but that’s a whole other story.  One which involves a small person’s strong opinions, Halloween and quite possibly selling my soul to Pinterest.

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Decision, decisions…

I will admit to being a perfectionist so there was a lot of time spent trying to choose between the options.  The first printing (left in the above image) appeared lost a lot of the sharpness of the digital image and dulled a lot of the colors.  The second print (right), in an attempt to correct the colors, went too far the other way and all the colors became too bright.  So in the third attempt (middle) something I did, which I’m entirely sure how I did it nor if I could ever replicate it, managed to be a good compromise between the two.  The image resolution, however, remained stubbornly the same much to my frustration.  This appears to be the limitations in using Createspace, which is designed for the sort of stock photo covers flooding the market in self-publishing today and perhaps not able to handle the demands of rendering high-quality artwork.

But a decision was made, and now my print book is back up for sale.  Now I can attempt to get it into bookshops if at all possible, or carry around a few dozen copies in the trunk of my car to try to sell on street corners.  Whatever works.

Tonight is Halloween, as previously mentioned in light of my Pinterest exploits, but what that also means for me and many other writers is that at midnight tonight the clock will start on NaNoWriMo and a typing frenzy will begin as idealistic hopefuls try to reach, or surpass, writing 50,000 words in 30 days.  I’ve taken part nearly every year since 2009.  I honestly think that this is one of the best ways to try to get out a first draft, when all that matters is words on the page and the realistic expectation that it’ll be at least 88% drivel.  Finding and developing the other 12% is something you can worry about in December.  For me the use of its convenient and accusing chart, visualizing your pitiful progress in graphic form, is one of its key features.

This was not a great year for me.

This was not a great year for me.

The addition of forums to peruse during moments of procrastination is also helpful because there’s always one asshat out there who’s decided to set their goal at 100,000 words instead of 50,000 and wants to make sure you know how well he’s doing.  When you really need to wallow, however, there’s also the boards specifically aimed towards those in need of encouragement, so you could go there for some words of wisdom, or see if anyone else got any good advice or just plain celebrate the fact that you’re not doing quite as badly as those poor bastards, at least.

So, in conclusion, NaNoWriMo is helpful.  Maybe you should try it.

Judging a Book by its Cover

I do it.  All the time.  I look at a book cover with the same kind of instant appraisal as I do when choosing a bottle of wine based on its label art – which is to say, I already have formed an opinion of its quality while also being fully aware that what’s inside probably bears no relation.  But I still do it, and that snap judgement still colors my decision-making process despite my rational acknowledgement of its unfairness.  I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

So when I set myself to the task of deciding what my book cover would be I knew it would be an important decision.  In many ways the actual book makes little difference if the cover art or book summary or any other of a number of promotional materials don’t inspire readers to actually read it in the first place.

I thought about the books I love reading now and loved reading as a child.  Many of them were written in the heyday of paperback fiction, fantasy in particular, when unique hand-painted cover art was the norm.  The cover art was truly art on its own, a visual expression of the book, its message, characters and the general feeling of it all.  I wanted a cover that did all of this but I felt uncertain how to go about it, who to ask and how to commission one.

Then, by chance, I met Amelia Royce Leonards in her shop in Rockport.  Turns out the way to commission a book cover is as simple as not being a self-entitled douchebag when approaching the artist you want to work with – who knew??  Apparently not everyone knows this one weird trick, so I thought I’d share my gems of wisdom.

Through the course of roughly a thousand emails and text messages we hashed out the details of the cover design.  I knew from the beginning that I wanted to show my Beast in both her bestial and human forms as the focal point of the cover, so deciding how they would be portrayed was the hardest part.  Turns out my inconvenient imagination which provided two characters of such extreme differences in size meant that having them share a relatively small space was going to be … challenging.  I’ve promised Amelia that my next book will be the story of the unlikely friendship between a mountain and a fly, just to keep her from resting on her laurels.

After that was finally settled everything else kind of just came together easily.  The cover tells the story, moving from right to left – seasons change from spring/summer to autumn/winter, Yvaine transforms from Beast to Mortal, and Beau walks towards his fate.

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Anyone wishing to get in touch with Amelia, or see more of her fantastic artwork (in both senses of the word “fantastic!”) can visit her Facebook page or Etsy page.