Thread: How does this cover look?

I designed it on Create space with their templates. It still needs editing as the back flap has a gap in the last paragraph but the cover editor is not available right now. Createspace makes it pretty easy with a lot of cover designs to choose from. Amazon gives you a suggested price range and I put it in the middle. But they changed the selling price to $8.99. I don't know why, maybe it's the word count. With 70% royalties it pays good if the book sells.

I downloaded open Office, it's free and pretty easy to format and change your Word files to a PDF file which is required by Amazon. I had to reformat the page size from letter to 8X5 inches, but it is coming along.

I like the partial jolly roger on the front cover. There is enough there for me to know what it is, but there is enough missing for me to use my imagination. I like the folds, flaps, and wrinkles in the flag. They create a sense of a 3D image - it's not just a flat, boring 2D. Did you go with the gray areas because it was difficult to put text over the alternating black and white? Did you consider staggering the text around in just the black areas? There's nothing in the rule book that says a title must always be centered, especially if you have a good reason for putting it off-center. Or, maybe making the text in a blood red would give you sufficient contrast with both the black and the white. Then you could go with a full cover jolly roger.

Shouldn't there be something after Vengeance? A comma, or colon or em dash? I'm thinking it should read "Vengeance: A Pirates Tale." And you might want to look at dropping the title out of the image. Otherwise, you've gone for simple, which is good -- and the partial jolly roger works for me. Oh, and you might want to lose the radiused or rounded corners and round pic on the back. Just my opinion -- but those look amateurish to me and don't really work with the cover.

I've got some problems with it, Ditch. I've worked with cover creator on a few books, by the way.

I disagree that the partial skull and crossbones. It shouldn't be centered, but the majority should be there. The eyepatch on the skull also seems out of place, since they didn't do that on any of the pirate pennants I've seen. And the smile makes it appear "impish." Have you looked at Jack Rackham's flag? It's a bit different and might make your cover stand out.

There's a gap in your book description on the back cover and, I agree, Vengeance: A Pirate's Tale.

Finally, I think "Episode One" would put me off as a reader, as I'd feel you're only giving me part of the story.

Hope that helps,

JohnB

The skull looks like it's peeking playfully into the front image area (when you look at only the front cover) which might not be the idea you're going for. For that reason I'd suggest moving more of the Jolly Roger into the front image area.


The title, subtitle, and author text sizes look turned around to me. You are a new author so you will not sell the book on the strength of your name yet. I would suggest making the title the largest typeface, your name the second-largest, and the 'Episode One' (if you keep that) would be the smallest of the three as I think it is much less important for the reader to notice right away. So something like this:

Vengeance:
A Pirate's Tale
Episode One
Filepe Fernandez

You might get away without the colon if you bold the main title or switch it to all caps as so:

VENGEANCE
A Pirate's Tale
Episode One
Filepe Fernandez

I like the colors you used overall.


On the back flap I don't mind the circle for your photo, it seems to follow the pirate theme (as though you're looking through a telescope) though the rectangle with the beveled edges would be a lot better if you could find more of a ragged map-type image for it.

The Jolly Roger teasing on the front cover looks really luring. I like it.

I can't same the same for the lower part, though. It looks too plain to me. Simplicity is the way to go, I know, but something is too plain with it, as if you decided to brush a space with two shades of blue and typed in the title. Perhaps adding some sort of border on the edges of blue? Thought I think what would fix it would be some lighting on the middle part of the darker shade of blue, make it look 3D-like.

Did you go with the gray areas because it was difficult to put text over the alternating black and white?

It's a template, when you choose a black cover they automatically use the gray area to make the text show up, they don't really give you a lot of choices but I'm new to it, maybe they do.

Shouldn't there be something after Vengeance? A comma, or colon or em dash? I'm thinking it should read "Vengeance: A Pirates Tale."

Yes, you are right, thank you.

Oh, and you might want to lose the radiused or rounded corners and round pic on the back. Just my opinion -- but those look amateurish to me and don't really work with the cover.

The only choices I saw was to rotate the image of the authors picture. They choose the round picture then wrap the text around it.

Have you looked at Jack Rackham's flag? It's a bit different and might make your cover stand out.

If you use any art other than one of their templates, and there are many, you must own all of the rights to that art. Even "free" clipart on the net may be pirated (no pun intended) and you can't actually say that you own the rights unless you draw it or someone grants you all rights to it.

Finally, I think "Episode One" would put me off as a reader, as I'd feel you're only giving me part of the story.

I want the readers to know this is a series. I have completed three of the books and the fourth is well under way. I'm following this family and their descendents through history. At 90,721 words, it is a complete book. Noting that it is episode one may make them keep looking for the sequel if they enjoy it. It actually started as a lark on another forum. I took some of the members and wrote them into a short story, then made a private forum so my work would be safe from anyone stealing it (like anyone would). I never intended it to be a series, but the members loved the characters so much that when the story was over, they complained that they felt like they had lost a group of good friends they followed every day.

I then wrote in other people, my daughter in law, mother in law and fellow firefighters. All of the main characters are based on people that I really know and that helps to shape their character. Like any series, you know how each character would react to any given situation, Spock would say, "Fascinating", Warf would say, "We must kill them!", Scotty would say, "She's giving it all she's got captain! If I push her any harder, she's going to blow!"

I do thank you all for the input, but as I said the templates are pre formed, the picture is round and The Jolly Rogers wraps around the book. I toyed with the sizes and couldn't make it any different.

Thanks Foxee, the sizing doesn't seem to react on the title though. You get a text box and have two choices, 100% or 200%, I have tried to increase the title size and decrease the subtitle size but it doesn't seem to make any difference. The same applies to the cover pitcure, if you tweak between 100 and 200% it stays the same size and wraps around the cover, it does not change.. The fact that the cover editor is down due to technical issues may indicate that I'm not the only one having an issue with it. It's not done by any means and I'll keep tweaking it but thanks for the great suggestions.

You're welcome! When the cover editor is back up hopefully you'll have more leeway. If not, though, I'd suggest that you seek a different way to do the cover. If Amazon wants a PDF anyway, that's easy enough to do without the templates and things, you just need to know what the overall size of the image should be.

Don't settle for something that you're not convinced is right. There's plenty of help here, we'll help you get through it.

Do you have to use their template? Doing simple graphics for a cover is not difficult, and it gives you something that's totally yours, unique. I do all the graphics in the Newsletter (except the Other Arts pages) and I'm sure you have a much better imagination than I have.

You have two choices, use their professional staff starting at $200.00 or use a template. Hopefully the sizing issue will be rectified when the sight comes back online. Personally i like the cover, just want to solve the sizing of the text and front/rear cover design.

I quite like it as it different with just the old Jolly Rodger, would personally prefer to see cutlasses, canon and the usual stereotypical 'Pirate' pieces, but that's cos I'm old! Also, if people don't like 'Episode One' why not just change it to 'The Beginning'. Would it work with an Olde English font perhaps?
Just my two-pennyworth.

It worked with Star Wars, I was way down in Mexico and saw a theater with a sign, Star Wars, Episodio Dos. I too wish I could add more to the art but when you are dealing with a pre designed template it just isn't possible. I do kind of like how the Jolly Roger wraps around the cover though, it's different.

I don't have a very good reference, just this goofy how to page, for this but I think when you use a colon in a title you only capitalize the first word after the colon. These guys say you always capitalize the last word of any title too. On all the books visible to me just now, they've all capitalized all the letters in all the words except of and the but none of them have colons.

This is how I'd do it --

Vengeance *dramatic pause* A Pirate's Tale

Or

Vengeance -- Arrrrr! -- A Pirate's Tale.