The Cover of Your Book

[The Tourist]

I designed my cover years ago. It's just three figures.

The central figure is priest or other nondescript shaman, armed to the teeth. Next to one side of him is an ethereal being of light. To his other side is a tall woman of some royal background, attired all in red.

The cover also has a three simple declarative sentences. "He'll fly. He'll die. You'll cry."

[David Gordon Burke]

I think it'll be someone else's job, and all I hope is that they do it well.

Very smart words. Delegate the responsibility for the cover to someone else. The only way to fly. If you've been doing your job, that is learning the art of writing a story with all the elements needed to captivate your chosen audience, you definitely haven't had time to learn everything that goes into designing a book cover - graphic arts, marketing, high end photoshop type programs, branding etc. etc.

I am hoping to post the cover for my book on my blog today - have to resize it. Will announce if I get it done. Personally, I think my graphics guy did a great job.

David Gordon Burke

Ok...I'm back. It worked. I have debuted my cover at my blog. (while this may seem like blatant self promotion.....oh hell, who am I kidding? it's blatant self promotion but....) if you are interested take a look.

The link is in my signature.

D.G.B.

[shadowwalker]

Book cover design is not just a grab-picture-off-internet-and-photoshop proposition. For one thing, there's copyright involved - just because it's on the internet doesn't mean anyone can use it for any reason. For another thing, personal esthetics aside, and as David noted, there's a marketing issue. Just because the author likes something does not mean it's going to appeal to a large audience - and that's the purpose of the book cover, to get a lot of people to pick up the book.

There's a reason trade publishers have professional cover designers and it's the same reason I urge self-publishers to pay for a professional cover designer - they know what they're doing.

[Apple Ice]

I have at no point suggested otherwise, Shadowwalker. I think using an already existing picture for inspiration is no bad thing. There are obvious copyright laws and procedures if you do want to use a picture that isn't your own.

However, this was not what I was asking, everyone seems to be getting bogged down in the mechanics. What I asked, or at least thought I did (perhaps I wasn't very clear at all, sorry if that's the case) is IF you have thought about your cover, how much detail have you gone in to with it. The Tourist's response is the sort of answer I was looking for.

[shadowwalker]

My response was mainly to the suggestion that one could just google a picture and rework it. That's where the copyright issue comes into play and I felt that needed to be addressed. As to me personally, I've done "covers" for my fanfic but otherwise, I intend to let the professionals do their thing, only opening my mouth if I really don't like the result.

[Tettsuo]

I agree with Shadowwalker here. Cover design is not simply finding an image that you think will be "good enough". The image has to speak to your book and promote the ideas within very clearly. There's also how to image will look small and large, at a distance, up close, how the colors need to play off of one another to properly reflect the mood of the book, etc. It's not a simple process.

Here's my cover


I had a whole different image in my head, that didn't look anything like this. But, a close friend of mine who read the book, offered the cover for me. I must say, it's way cleaner and clearer than the image I had in mind. Far better than anything I would have come up with. This was all I needed to then create the entire full sized cover (spine and all), but without this initial idea, it wouldn't have been as good. The text was my idea but the image with the map and guy was all him.

Of course, if you feel confident if your ability to DIY, go for it. I remember when I on another message board and talked about doing page layouts myself, I was told repeated I couldn't/shouldn't do it because it has to be done by a professional typesetter. Yet, with a few months of work and research, I was able to put it together myself. So, it's all possible. I suggest you take the time to learn some design concepts before risking cover creation by yourself.