Text Only Cover Design

J.K. Rowlings' new novel has only text (and a check mark) on the cover.  I won't bother posting the image because everyone is freaking about copyright though you'd think it would be publicity.  If you want to see it The Casual Vacancy.  And let me say that this book costs $19.99 for the kindle edition and $20.93 for the hardcover so I'm not buying it any time soon.

(I need to go off on a tangent.  If she's worth more as a writer than I am because she made a billion dollars, and my books are priced at $2.99, why stop at $20 for her book?  Why not charge what she's worth?  Price the book at $5000.  She's worth more than Picasso, right?)

This seems to be a popular way to go and I thought about it for a while then decided to see what it would do for a cover I didn't particularly like.  Ever.

I had to look at this for a while and came to the conclusion I liked it enough to abandon the headless torso of a doctor which I always hated.  I never liked the woman and the broom thing either.

Done properly, I think using text only is quite effective.  We'll assume you choose a readable font, something plain and bold.  It's clean and uncluttered.

The argument against is that it tells you nothing about the book itself.  And I'm at the point of "Who cares?"

What?!

I've seen the vector women with the shopping bags.  I've seen the prone female, legs in the air, with panties dangling off her high heels on at least 3 different books, I've seen the sweaty couples clutching each other.  It's a relief to just see the title.  For me.

Billboards are created so that if you drive past at 60 mph you still understand them.  That's an ebook cover.
People are scrolling past at speed.  These moody, dark, settings with designed fonts do not read well in thumbnail size.  (I'd love to hear the argument that they do read well and I'm wrong.)  As beautiful and as evocative as they might be, are they successful at 1) being easily understood in thumbnail size 2) different from 1500 other covers.

Being different is not always a good thing.  That's a choice one needs to make.  How different do you want to be and when does being so different stop helping and begin to hurt.

Sharing a Secret

I've been working on a book on and off from the beginning of the year.  There were a couple other projects that got sandwiched in so it took much longer than I expected.  And I had some questions about possibly using a pen name.  Do I need a reboot?  I've been thinking about the cover for about two months and had worked up a test background.  I liked it but it didn't seem right.  Nothing was coming together.  On one hand I wanted to do this book, but on the other I wanted to do a different one.  The book was full of surprises.  First off, it was about a boy not a girl.  Yeah sure there's a girl in it but it's his story.  The book is full of questionable activities--most illegal, and I wondered if they belonged in a YA.

So I took the advice of Robert Muchamore who said kids who read his books see the same thing on TV in the evening.  Too true.  Maybe I wish it wasn't true but it is.  How about the word bullshit.  Is that okay?  Bitch and bastard are standard on TV now.  I don't think they belong in a YA but heck, let them stay.  Who knows maybe one day I'll be dropping the F bomb as often as I do IRL.

Then we come to the sex part.  While very suggestive, nothing graphic but OTOH I think there were 3 movies on Lifetime TV yesterday that came very close to this topic, so I'm not pushing the envelope here.

Drugs.  Yes.  Drinking, mentioned.  Fist fight, yes.

This is all pretty far from Summer Horse.  Now you can see why I was wondering if a pen name wouldn't be good.  I don't necessarily want a 10 year old to have this come up in a search just because it has my name on it.  I couldn't come up with something.  My grandfather's name on my father's side, my greatgrandfather's name on my grandmother's side (too late, used that in Murder Is Exhausting).  Wait.  My father's middle name/my middle name.  Okay perfect. Make a decision, please!  (Libra Rising, great aversion to decision making.).

Background.  Took a photo of some batik fabric.  Yes, very true.  That's what that is.  And through the magic of Photoshop and many layers and colorings and use of brushes here's the cover

There we go and here's the blurb

From the first moment she saw him, she knew she loved him, would always love him, had always loved him.  They came from two worlds but he was as perfect for her as she was for him.  She loved music and he was a musician.  He had eyes so beautiful it made her catch her breath.  She longed to be caressed by his hands, to be touched by him, to be loved by him.  Her life became about one thing—making sure they were together forever.

She would do anything to make it happen.

And if she was his high school English teacher, why should that matter?  This time they would get it right.  This was a love for the ages.

I don't know when I'll be done with postproduction.  Soon I hope since I have math to do I'm not looking forward to at all.

The Missed Wish

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,234 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > People & Places > Family Life > Marriage & Divorce
  • #6 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Children's Fiction > People & Places > Family Life

Freebie Weekend The Missed Wish

Yes, my novella is free this weekend.  So everyone go download it at the same time so Amazon's algorithm will be shocked into action and make it Number 1 with a bullet.  I'm kidding, I have no idea how the algorithm thing works but have heard speed and density has something to do with it.  The Missed Wish

Hopefully I can concentrate on my new book this weekend.  I don't know how many words is left to go but probably around 1000.  I'm at the last scene.  I need to get to one moment and then the finale.  All week I've been pretty much perched here.

What can I say that can be vaguely construed as digital publishing advice?  Since I will probably go against this advice this weekend--keep your covers simple.  I'm getting to be a big fan of text only if done right.  Or text and  key image that is central to the book.  Don't try to tell everything about the book on the cover.  (Or you can just have such a striking image that no one particularly cares what message you're sending.)

With this Wish cover.  He's great looking, right?  She's there snuggling sorta.  Isn't that all you need to know?

The introduction to your book will be a thumbnail.  Yes, on the page the cover will be nice and large and understandable, but in a thumbnail even the title can disappear into a busy background.  Sad but true.  You need to find a middle ground.

All this known and talked about I will spend most of the weekend adding layer upon layer to what's already a busy background and wind up frustrating myself and taking most of the elements out.  But right now, I don't know which ones those will be.  I don't know which ones I think will work.  I need to see it.  So you have to go through the process.  Some covers take 30 minutes, some take hours.  You don't know.

Questions With No Answers

Someone bought a copy of Sweets then immediately got a refund?  Was it not worth 99 cents?

Since the cover change on Bad Apple 1, 3 copies sold.  Does that mean guns sell better than apples?
That's a serious question regarding cover design.  I usually look for an image that suggests the story.  Schtupid Cupid--looks like an old Jewish woman to me.  Nothing Serious--summer colors, summer hat, the breeze is blowing, beautiful girl with a flowing dress, nothing serious there.  Sweets--a plate of candy.  Blue Raja--"out of the north an evil shall break forth" there you have Khryza Zentral, on the water, Northern Lights, foreboding castle.  NLM--lawsuit against Viva.

These are all central to the story.  Gun?  Yes, there are guns in the Bad Apple books.

Have you seen that movie with Jennifer Lopez?  I haven't.   I think it's called Enough.  She's abused and then learns how to fight back.  That's worthy of a gun.  Neal doesn't spend 200 pages learning to fight back.  She's trying to get away from Joe and the violence.  Is the book about violence?  Yes.  Was violence done to Neal?  It sure was.  Was there a murder?  You betcha.

I guess here's the bottom line for me.  I'm sorry if a gun on the cover is what it takes to get people to find this series.

Now I'm going to spend the rest of the morning making the gun bigger.

Old

New

At least font wise, the newer one is better because the name shows up better.  This was a problem with this image.  Half was light, half was dark.  It meant neither dark nor light would work across the image.  I did what I tell you not to do--use an outline (stroke in layer styles)  I used a barely darker color at 50 % opacity to make it as unobtrusive as possible while still defining the text against the background.  Totally my fault when I took the photo and I probably should have just gone out to reshoot.  But I was losing my light so I didn't and made the best of it.  It's still a good image.  A really good image.  It's just got that issue if I insist on having my name on the cover.

Update:  Amazon worked faster with this change.  Good for them.  The larger gun cover is the one on the page and it sold a copy.  So I'm not going to look at the numbers (they're numbers, come on people) for Jan. but there were 2 free days so there is no way I can do the math.  Let's just say it was freebie downloaded 500 times and sold 1 copy.  In Feb. with the old cover it sold 1 copy.  Since the gun cover, it's sold 4.

I find this sort of disheartening.  Design-wise the apple cover is as strong a design as the gun.  And there's more of it in focus.  With the 40 mm lens, what is not directly precisely in focus falls off when you're that close.  There's no depth of field.  The barrel could be a pipe for all you can really tell.  Luckily I actually had a gun because I didn't have a pipe.  People are buying this because it's a gun on the cover.

I took a photo for my pal Chris and I was so close to the thing, it was actually under the lens hood.  I LOVE that 40 mm lens.  Way to go, Nikon!

Sweets Out of KDP Jail

Yes, Sweets For Your Sweet was finally released AND without an ankle bracelet.

I asked on my serious blog, the BAM blog, if the image on the new Bad Apple cover was recognizable and Angela kindly wrote that it was a gun but she liked the apple better.  I love being agreed with.

However.  Within hours of the change, a copy sold.  One might argue that 1 copy sold before the change.  I think that was Feb. 1.  But that 1 copy sold so soon after makes you feel that it was because of the cover.  Or was it because I've talked about it here for days?  No idea.

Sweets For Your Sweet

First off, the marshmallows are better the 2nd day.  Still not something I would make again but yeah, I can see why if stored in a large jar and aged somewhat they'd be attractive to some people.  A little firmer.  Not crunchy, but concentrated.  Not so fluffy.  Dryer.  They'd be more interesting with rose flavoring or something more pronounced than vanilla.

This was the first cover.

This was the second.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses.  And I am 51% for the 2nd.

I won't name names but I've seen covers obviously designed by the writer (far more famous than I) that I didn't think were all that strong graphically and they still sell.  So I say this to encourage you to give creating your own cover a whirl.  Don't set the bar so high you pre-fail.  You can buy a perfectly good image for a ridiculously small amount of money and use the basic design I've used with this cover.  Split the cover in 3rds.  Image in the middle.  Name on top, title on bottom.  Title on top, name on bottom.  Use a common font.  Don't be too creative.  Don't do drop shadows or outline.  Keep it simple.  You might be more successful than you imagine.

Mr. Mitnick's Harem or

Something overcame me yesterday, unfortunately, and I decided to revamp Mr. Mitnick's Harem.  Not rewrite it but change the title and cover and reformat.  So instead of doing the YA novella all day, I wound up struggling with the cover.  This is not to put you off of doing your own cover.  I want to do my own and want you to be able to do a good job on yours.

The set piece in Act 3 is a fiesta at the mission.  I thought okay cool, I'll quick get a photo of a fiesta.  No.  Okay, festival then.  No.  Okay, carnival?  No.  Okay.  Flamenco dancers.  No.  Are you kidding me????  I'm good at finding stuff, I can find anything.  Maybe I didn't look hard enough.  But I was looking at places I could pay for the image, not liberate it.

So kind of unfortunately I wound up exactly where I started--with an image of the mission.  Then I couldn't find a photo of the mission at night.  WHAT?  Fine.  I'll Photoshop it to night.  Then I couldn't get enough sky.  Sheesh.  It was overcast all day and I didn't want to search all my images from that delete incident a couple months back.  Finally the clouds move around a little, I rush outside and point the camera to the sky.  Solved.

I spend most of the afternoon turning day into night and trying to put lights on the mission--I'm sure Photoshop has a different/better way of doing it, but again, I couldn't find it even with a Google search.  I lift the mission off the original image and place it on the new sky background.  I'm going for dark, grim, foreboding and I start to realize, wait, this is a cozy.  This is a humorous, I hope, book.  I send it to Chris, the comedy writer.  He goes Yikes!  You have to lighten this up, put another element in it.  I write back "What, a clown?"

This cover is destined to be changed again.

What we would also like to determine is what, if any, effect there has been from the freebie weekend.  And surprisingly, there have been a few sales of Schtupid Cupid and Verrines.  I can't honestly say if SC lead to the sales of Not Low Maintenance.  It certainly wouldn't have lead to the sales of the Flashes but I sure was happy to see anything happening there.  Maybe Bad Apple1 probably did lead to the sales for BA2, so I am hopeful that's a trend.  Dream Horse is still going strong while the kids are home.  It's selling about 60 copies a day which I think I great for a middle reader book.  And got this terrific review on the Verrine book, thanks Serene.

5.0 out of 5 stars I can't wait to start making Verrines, January 2, 2012

By 

Serene (Marina, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Verrines: Sweet and Savory Parfaits Made Easy (Kindle Edition)

I picked this one up as a kindle freebie, and I really had no idea what a Verrine was- however this book soon educated me! And what an education! Verrines are actually tiny parfaits which can be made in a glass, and which contain different discernable layers. They can be sweet (such as chocolate and fruit), or savory such as salad. The writer did a great job of educating the reader, and including recipes that were both practical and easy to make.

Recipes look and sound good... And I really liked the inclusion of pastry cream which is something everyone is going to want to make.

This is hands down one of the better kindle books out there. Sample and see for yourself.

New Fling Cover

I woke up and a deep need to change the cover was upon me.  I blame Joe Konrath.  It was only days earlier that he stated he had changed some covers 40 times.  What a slacker I am!  I can't even remember what the original cover was to Fling.  Then I got that cute vector art girl.  What could be next?  A nude guy.  But it had to be a nude doctor guy because Jay is a doctor.  Actually so is Jem's mother but I don't want to see Penny without her clothes.  I found a workable image quite easily (and too expensively so I definitely will not recommend the site to you, but I bought 5 images last year and only used 2 so the money is gone and should be used) and put it together quickly because really how much is there to do with a nude torso.  I did tweak it in Lightroom.

I know Lightroom is Photoshop real light.  Anything PS can do, Lightroom can do.  I don't know that there's anything Lightroom does that PS can't but the reverse is very true.  LR only does the image itself, no layers no text no filters.  The strength for me with LR is my lack of expertise in PS.  Sure all these functions are there but where, how and can I understand them (no).  LR just streamlines the processing of an image so beautifully. 

I warmed up the skin tone because the original had a slight blue cast to it.  The story takes place in the heat of the summer so I went with that.

Would Jay be happy on the cover?  No!  Would Jem mind?  Not at all.  Especially when there was a scene where he strips to his shorts, jumps in a pond and swims out to a dock to rescue a woman having overdosed on grass cookies  (no, real grass, not "grass") while Jem and her psychiatrist mother discuss how Jay is so well built.

Am I happy with this semi-nude guy on my cover?  Not particularly.  Altho I did a good job of tweaking the image.  That I'm happy with.  But it's a test and with 6 million more kindles being fired up tomorrow morning, we'll see if that's eye catching at all.  The problem I can't do anything about at the moment is the cover images inside NLM and probably Fling itself.  They should be changed.  I was busy on the cover for the novella yesterday--gorgeous--so I didn't do Fling.  Sorry for the discordance.

Does This Work? 2

I have no idea what these books are, they can be in the Top 10.  All we're looking at is design elements.

The first thing I think is--can you explain this to me?  I'm sure there's a reason why you would combine a curly font and a scriptish font but I don't know what it is.  Then I don't understand why you would combine brown and black on white.  I am being serious when I say I'm confused by this.

Normally I don't do black and white.  Hey I have a blog.  The background is white and the text is in dark blue.  Black and white is stark and dramatic.  It's serious.  Look at the cover to Rise.  2 colors.  Black and white.  That is not a book filled with humor, light-hearted incidents and happy-go-lucky people.  Neal is trying to avoid being killed.  Yes, she's in love with Tru and Tru is in love with her.  That is also very serious.  It's not about teen puppy love.

Solution.  Stick with 1 bold, easy-to-read font in a single color.  I want to say stay away from white as a background but since I do it myself it's hard for me to say no.  The drawback to white is that it is demanding and uncompromising.  It gives you no place to hide.  If you are off, boy, it's going to show.  If you are confident that all your choices are spot-on, go with the white.

1914

New Cover For Sweeps

I don't remember what my initial idea was.  Probably it was the version with a girl in a bathtub.  I contacted a very competent artist in Holland to do the drawing but I guess language was a barrier.  I couldn't find a photo nor a vector graphic.  I came up with one with bubbles.   That didn't work.   Then I found a stock illustration.  Settled.  Not thrilled with it  but these things are only temporary anyway.  For me.  Geez, if I paid $300 I'd keep the thing forever.

Then I was going through some old postcards and found a girl in a bathtub.  It doesn't scream vintage to me even if it is so I thought I'd give it a whirl for a couple weeks or until the end of the year.  I'm going to put it on BN for now, Amazon later or never.  I don't have to make up my mind this afternoon.

Technical explanation--

I had a vintage postage image.  I tweaked it in Lightroom, brightened it, clarified it and hit it with the luminance function to remove all the noise that had accumulated in the last 100 years.  I suppose I could have attempted to tint her pink or something.  It always looks so phony.

In Photoshop, I lifted the girl and tub off the original background and turned it into a PNG file (no background).

For the background I used a gradient fill I had made for something else, then hit that with a mild Gaussian blur.

I made a new layer and placed the PNG on that.

I made new layer for the background bubbles.  (Best not to work on the original image.  Use layers in case you screw up.)  The bubbles are a Photoshop brush I got from somewhere on the net.  Google Photoshop bubbles brushes.  You'll find them.  Download the file then click to open.  Photoshop will do the rest for you.

I made a new layer for the title.  In Blending Options, I hit that with a small stroke using a gradient I had made for something else.   This is how you get the bubbles behind the text.

I made a new layer for the foreground bubbles.  This is how you get the bubbles on top of the text.

I made a new layer for my name.

Easy, huh?

Cover Art Again, Yours Not Mine

This issue of cover art is never far from my mind.  It shouldn't be from yours either unless you're just going to contract it out and have someone you trust already lined up.  If you're going it on your own, this is something you should be thinking about a lot because it's important.  

We've talked about bargain stock photos--haven't we?--but I have to admit even though a good number of my covers do have photos on them, I'm not convinced it's the best way to go.

Some months ago I saw the cover Carl Graves did for Konrath's Trapped.  It's just the title but the text effect is exciting and eye-catching.  I'm sure it would work for a paper book but I know it works for digital.

I'm trying to think where I was yesterday and  saw a website with a background image that impressed me.  It had great juxtaposition between dark and color, and the text was strong.  Maybe it wasn't that strong since I don't remember the words, but, visually,  it was a grabber.  Every time I see something like that, I learn, I take some information away.

Look at the covers other people have done or have had done and learn.  What works for you?  What doesn't? How can you, at whatever skill level you're at, approach that same effect?  What are you trying to convey about your book with the cover?

Back to the Flash title/technique, what I felt was lacking as I worked along was the capability of multicolor.  There are often a number of ways to get to the same place with Photoshop.  When I googled the question, I got back a number of solutions that were off the mark.  Then I saw one I thought was also off since it was about turning a black & white photo into something with a couple of different colors.  When I read the steps I was unconvinced but when I tried it out, I was pleased.  I don't think this is the only way to get there, tho, and now I have a couple other ideas to try on my own.

New Cover For Flash

I'm sure I would be very reluctant to change covers if I paid for one.  I think the only cover I haven't changed is Not Low Maintenance.  No wait, I haven't changed Just Kate either.  Nor the Mitnicks.  Let's stop there before my memory kicks in.  The point is I've changed most of them at least once and some quite a few times like Nothing Serious which yes, is selling now better than before.

Other than financial, there's no point not to change.  It's not as if anyone is going to recognize the cover.  Everyone is new all the time.  It's not like a bookstore (yeah you're lucky if the book will be there long enough to have a cover change) where they could see you one week and miss you the next because they don't see the same artwork.

Yesterday morning I figured I would invest an hour or two into the new cover and be done.  I had an idea what I wanted to achieve and all I had to do was get the right Photoshop tutorial and I'd be back to Flash 2.  About 3 tutes later I realized, again, anything having to do with the Pen Tool and pathways was still a stumbling block for me.  I probably need to do Pen Tool 101 before moving onto things requiring a real skillset.

I googled Photoshop light effects text again and this time turned up with a different approach--3D.  So I went with that.   The tute was good.  My very fine, tho older, computer was pushed to its limit and past once with a crash so I probably need a new video card and maybe more memory if I wanted to continue doing 3D.

My results weren't enough like the ones in the tute to leave things well enough alone.  I added an outerglow to the text and a little bevel otherwise the light didn't impact the text enough.  Then I merged all layers otherwise the lens flare filter doesn't work.  That has to be done on the working layer, it can't be on its own layer and you can overlay it like in you know a layer.  I saved the work before doing the lens flare because once you save merged layers that's the end, you don't unmerge them.

Hours invested--all afternoon.

I'm happy enough with this cover.  It's a little static, a little less colorful than I had in mind.  The original cover was very static and even though the idea of it was right--beautiful woman shielding herself from the paparazzi, it was very posed and she was stiff.  There was no sense of immediacy, movement or drama.  I'm glad I only paid $3 for the photo.

I suppose there is no real debate except in my mind about how large the author's name should be.  If a vast number of fans gave two hoots and a holler about me, then I suppose I would want my name larger.  The reason it is not larger is that I prefer to see the artwork.  Text on art is a necessary evil or at least to me a drawback.  That's why I try to keep the two elements separated.  Other people have different opinions.

Thinking About Cover Design

I created the cover for my new book but while I'm not ready to post it yet I will talk about the road to it.

I decided to get a stock photo of a young model.  Unfortunately that was a lot harder than I expected because all the photos were wholesome young things and I wanted someone edgier.  I finally found this at www.shutterstock.com

I wasn't crazy about it and while I did want a city, I wanted it at night.  I figured I could just lift her off the background and put her someplace night.

No I didn't bother to clean the edges up for these purposes.  I just wanted to see if I could do what I was thinking of.  So I put her on a dark background--I suppose I could have looked for a city at night street scene but I have to admit, finding anything at these stock sites is hard enough for me that it didn't cross my mind.

So I thought that worked pretty well.  The problem I felt was that readers would get the idea that this is the main character and it's not.  Then I finished the book and different search terms came to me.  I found a couple pictures that were close.  Changing sites, I found the same set but with an additional photo that was more accurate.  I went back to the first site and searching through that photographer's gallery found the same photo for less.  Yay me, it's a sin to buy retail etc.

I still think people who look at the second cover will initially (or maybe always) think the woman in the image is the main character.  Of course it's not, the main character is a teen.   I couldn't find an image that specific. So either way I'm a little bit off.

So $2.99 for the image and some of my time with Photoshop or what $600 for a designer.  Um even with my math skills I can see that  making concessions is the financially viable thing to do.  Unless you can take the photo yourself or you can draw, try to make life as simple for yourself as possible.  Don't fall in love with an idea so complicated that it'll drive you nuts trying to make it happen.

I Deserve SO Much More Respect Than I Get

Who among you can have their $9.99 paperback priced at

New

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And I can even top myself.  The used one is selling for $2000.  All I can say is If Only.  Ten of those used books a year and I'm in really good shape.

This is for Impossible Charlie, (Dream Horse in digital format) the first book I self-published and it was through Lightning Source.  I chose LSI because they had a relationship with Amazon.  The book has always been available at Amazon up until now.

Do I have to end the relationship with LSI now and redo the process at CreateSpace?  Where is the support for this question?  I don't know.  From the beginning of Amazon, they have been very shy about broadcasting how to contact them.

Over this week, I helped someone tweak their cover design for a short story.  He sent me two attempts.  I chose the version without the text over the photo of a person.

This is the original.  Not bad at all.

I made the blue a bit darker, changed the font to something simple and bold and made it the color of the mist instead of white.   Why?  White can be fairly harsh and the photo is "soft".

Vik had done it all to 98% and I'll bet if he had let it sit for a couple days and come at it with fresh eyes, he would have simplified his choices just the way I did.  Now it's clear and crisp and can be read in thumbnail size.  I don't know what Dreamstime charges (which is stupid because I actually sell stock photos with them) but I'm sure it's under $20.

Give it a whirl.  Try to do your own cover.  Then if you're not pleased with the results, you can always pay someone, but at least it's an experience.  Unless of course you're pressed for time, and I understand how you feel you just don't have the time to do it.

I did get a mailing from Adobe and they are having a price decrease of Photoshop Elements which is a simpler and much less expensive version of Photoshop Creative Suite.  So you can download a trial of that and see if you can make it work.

Where Do You Get Images For Covers

I have a novelette I'm in the processing of finishing and knew what I wanted for a cover but thought it would be very difficult to find.

Actually, it turned out to be quite easy.  I found a very simple cartoon figure at a stock image site and it cost all of $2.99.  I could have stopped there but I decided to change the colors and add  a background so there was quite a bit of time investing in Photoshopping to get it where it needed to be.

But I could have stopped there.  So that's the advice of the day.  Go to the stock photo sites and look around.  If you find something that's close, you can look for something similar.  Read the tags for the photos and see what words are used by the photographer or illustrator to describe the image.  It'll give you hints as to what search terms to use.

There are hundreds of thousands of images out there and it can be tricky to find something usable but tags can be your friend.  Try to be specific but broad when you search.  Think of what are the qualities of the image and how you would describe it to someone else. 

A Google or Bing search will give you a long list of sites like Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, istockphoto.  Getty is going to be too expensive but most of them charge under $20 for a single image.

It's always good to have a image with a sizable area of negative space.  That means where there's not much going on.  You can put your text there.  I'm not against putting text on the image but there's the chance it won't show up very well.

This works pretty well.  Of course it's the wrong orientation, you need an image that's vertical not horizontal, but it shows how you can put the text in a blank space and how it balances the heavy foreground image on the right side.

If you keep these points in mind, choosing an image will become much easier and will require less work on your part to get a nice cover for your book.

Nothing Serious

I just did a new cover for my novel, Nothing Serious, so that's quite exciting.

The book was originally, and rightfully so, titled Disconnected.  I think it should still be called Disconnected but that word is too long for me to design onto a space 1000 x 1500 pixels and be understood in thumbnail size.  That's the issue.  There's lots of creative things you *can* do but whether they work in a bookstore or on the net are two very different things.

I did what I could.  It was cute.   It didn't sell.  I did a new cover with a vintage postcard.  The sales picked up but I still think it's laboring under that "dated" perception.

So here's the new cover.  I would have liked the hat to be purple but  after getting halfway there I decided I'd had enough for one afternoon and packed it in.  It's something for the future.

Cover Art Disasters

I was checking some of my books at BN yesterday and they now have the same kind of ribbon that Amazon does "Readers also bought" or whatever it says.  There were a couple books there, obviously self-published.  How am I so sure?  Because they looked like someone who didn't have a clue about anatomy drew the people used in the artwork.

Years ago I knew 2 people who claimed to be psychics.  I won't challenge them on that claim.  Okay.  Whatever.  But he was a "professional artist".  He also didn't know anything about anatomy.  I suppose if being an artist these days is draping orange fabric over everything in sight, you don't need to know about anatomy the way artists of old did.  He illustrated all their books, did all their cover art.  Disaster.  Worse than prawn chips.

I can only say one thing--Don't do this.  Spend $15 and buy a photo.

I'm not sure at all about the thinking that goes into this decision.  Do they actually believe that's good artwork?  Do they not care?  Have they no ability to discriminate?  I think it's a hard sell to have an amateurish cover.  Even if you were Hemingway, I don't think it would work.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Why risk it? 

New Cover for Fling

I loved the original cover, the Russian postcard, but I suspect people perceived it as "dated".  So then I got the photo of the wild geranium and I loved that but changing was more for me than thinking it would actually improve sales.  Why?  Because it was too soft.

As I was looking at photos in one of the stock image sites, I happened on a couple vector graphics that I thought could be made to work.  I bought one and I've probably put 20 hours in on it to get it right for my purposes.  The original had a horrible grey sort of background so I needed to lift the girl off that.  Then her skin tone needed to be adjusted, change her hair color and you get the picture.  It was very labor intensive.

Now I can go back to my novel.

Change of Cover Already

Yes.  I was working on the cookbook and had taken a shot of a dessert this morning when I noticed how much I liked the colors, so I turned it into a new cover for Unspeakably Desirable.  I wasn't crazy about the banana tart to begin with so this will be a good if perhaps temporary change.

I think here's the funny part to this.  I had that Nikon D70 for years and hated it because I couldn't get it to be knife edge sharp.  I get the D7K and all I can talk about is how sharp it is, right?  So I take this photo and blow it up past being sharp and use that.  Aside from the fact that it's shot through glass that's fogged over and that's what I love about it.

It's remarkable to me that even given those 2 elements, glass fogging and the blowing up past sharp, how sharp the cake part still is.  I do wonder if that will bother some people.  The drunk trolls I suppose will be really annoyed.

The white is mascarpone which is ridiculously expensive and you can make it at home.  It's really just about reducing the liquid in the cream.  I used to do it in a double boiler but yesterday I did it in the microwave.  Use a large bowl because it will boil up.  Heat on high in 1 minute increments, stirring between, until the cream has thickened.  Then you can try draining it with a coffee filter, I did but the only thing that happened was the coffee filter got wet and I had trouble scrapping the cream off it.  I left it uncovered in the refrigerator and this morning it was the exact correct thickness.  I  saved like $5 or more and it took about 15 min while I was doing other stuff.

Now I'm going to make some polenta for the book.  You can make that in the microwave, too. 

Covers 101

And Blogger is down again.  Whee! 

I won't even bother trying to post a photo.

I was somewhere--nevermind where, it's not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings--and saw a cover that committed 2 of the main sins.

1) Don't use sunsets.  (or sunrises for that matter). 

2) Let's at least be able to READ the title and the author's name.  

I don't know what else to say.

#1 is a matter of personal preference.  You like the sunset, you want the sunset, you haven't looked at 1200 other covers on wherever also using a sunset and if you did see them you don't care because you want the sunset even if it has nothing to do with the theme or plot or any peripheral information that may possibly be contained in your book.  Oh well then go for it.  Use it as your desktop image, too.

#2.  The color of the text is the same color as the sky in the sunset except with a thin outline (to make it stand out from the background undoubtedly).  I don't understand this choice.  I know people think things look good when I don't.  I've been to enough auctions and craft fairs to know that.  I can't explain it. 

Be objective.  I know it's very exciting to write your book and be able to publish it on your own.  Don't be so excited you're in a rush.  Go look at the covers of books in that category.  Read the descriptions.  Read the samples.  Compare everything to yours being unemotional and professional.

Is there anything you can do more efficiently?  Does your book stand out from the million other books on Amazon?  Is the cover eye-catching and readable?  Is the description entertaining, interesting and to the point?

Are the pages of your sample likely to make the reader want to buy the book?  Be objective.

If someone is scrolling through the Top 100 Books in whatever category it is, is there ANYTHING about your cover that would make a reader slow down?  Because at some point, all your friends and relatives will have bought the book and you have to rely on strangers who don't know you and don't care about your feelings and only want a 2 hour mini-vacation from the hard reality of the world to spend their money on your work.

How are you going to convince them to do this?