This article has been rewritten and expanded, and is now located here on The Wrong Way to Write Well: Articles for Writers.
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For all of you self-publishing indie authors out there, here is your chance to be a featured indie author on my blog. I’m looking to feature new and seasoned indie authors on my blog on a regular basis. If you are interested in becoming a featured indie author, please visit the “Become a Featured Indie Author” page by clicking on the link at the top of the page.
LinkXchange
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Creating Covers Part 2: Popping Artwork
After you have come up with the perfect title for your new novel, you are going to need to do some brainstorming to come up with a perfectly popping and polished cover art for the work.
Just like with a title, there really is no right or wrong. However, there are a few guidelines that you may want to keep in mind as you think of what your book cover should look like.
1. Simple verses complex. For the most part, a simple cover design looks good and professional. However, just like with the title, you want cover art that reaches out and draws your reader in before he/she ever picks up the book. Remember, your job as a writer isn’t just about getting them to turn the pages of your novel; you also have to get them to pick the novel up off the shelf in the first place.
An overly simple book cover may not catch the reader’s eye enough to make them want to pick the book up. Picking cover art that is too busy, however, can overwhelm the reader as well, turning them off from wanting to even find out what is between the cover pages.
2. Direct or indirect. Another thing to keep in mind is whether or not you want your book cover to portray something directly from your storyline, such as a recreation of a fight scene or lovers’ embrace, or if you want it to be something indirectly related to the storyline. Take, for instance, the apple holding hands of the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. While I cannot tell you what, exactly, Stephanie Meyer was trying to portray with that particular artwork, I can tell you what I got out of it as a reader. I took the apple as a representation of the temptation that Bella posed to Edward. As an author who is creating cover art, you must decide if you wish to represent something tangible from the storyline or if it will be more of an abstract representation.
For myself, when I created the cover art for the novel Vindictus, The Dark Lord, I wanted something that represented the magical element that was used throughout the storyline. There were a few references to a ceremonial dagger being used, so I wanted to create something that gave the feel of a magical altar. I created the art work out of things that I had sitting around my house. All in all, I was very pleased with the cover art.
Use indirect representations cautiously. After reading the novel, the reader should be able to look at the indirectly representative cover art and think, “Ah! NOW I get it!” However, if you use some trivial notion or idea, or even an inside joke, for the cover art, the readers may not “get it” even after reading the novel. Unless you intend to make such things a trend for your novels, your readers may soon forget your tongue-in-cheek cover as well as the novel that it misrepresented.
3. Medium. With today’s technology, it is easier than ever to create a top-notch cover art for your novel. The sky is the limit. But before you start reaching for the stars, you will need to decide what type of medium you will use to create your cover art. Will you use a hand-drawn image, a photo, a painting, a computer generated image? You may even discover yourself using more than one type of medium.
When I created the cover art for my last novel, I created the scene using digital photography. However, I used photo editing software to create the borders around the photograph.
4. Color or black and white. While everything is done primarily in color these days, with the advancements in technology, authors always have the option of creating cover art that is in black and white or even a combination of color and black and white.
In the end, there are only a few basic rules to remember when it comes to creating cover art for your novel. Your primary objective is to create art work that is so eye-catching that your readers are drawn in even before they pick up the book. Add to that popping piece of art work a fabulous title, and you will have won the first battle as an author: getting someone to notice your book and intrigue them enough to make them want to find out more about the storyline contained within the confines of that all-important cover.
Guess What Publishers? You Need US, Not the Other Way Around
In the old days, before becoming an indie author was possible, authors and publishers needed each other. Publishers liked to think that they didn’t really need authors, that we writers would fall all over ourselves and bend over backwards to conform our written works to whatever “hot ticket item” the publishers were pushing at that particular moment in time. Publishers not only believed they did not need us, but they actually had all of the writers convinced of this as well. It’s why writers would sit around silently while editors and agents ripped all of their hard work into shreds and then reassembled it not only into what the publishers believed would pass as a money-making book, but also into a shadow of the book’s formerly written glory.
Thanks to print-on-demand services and vanity presses, these days more than ever, publishers are waking up to the very real fact that authors no long need them for anything. Gone are the days when publishers sent us and our work through the shredder, allowing editors who had failed as writers to go through and reassemble our work into what the publisher thought the readers wanted to buy at the local Barnes and Noble. Gone are the days when authors were made to believe that even after they spent years of their lives hammering out every minor detail of a story, they would still be expected to advertise their own work. As an indie author, we may have to peddle our own wares, but at least we do not have to share in the spoils with anyone other than ourselves. Best of all, it is allowing us to tap into what readers really want to read about and ultimately giving them their hearts’ desire.
It’s a win-win situation for readers and writers alike. Writers are able to keep complete artistic control over their work. Sure they are having to work harder by learning to become better proofreaders, editors, learning how to format PDF documents, designing and creating book covers, coming up with advertising plans and implementing those plans. But in the end, our knowledge base is broadened and we can bask in the glow of having really accomplished something, making our success all the more sweeter for having done the whole project on our own.
In this day of technology, publishers are realizing that authors do not need them. In fact, it is the other way around. Publishing houses are becoming a thing of the past. Authors can now write, format, design book covers, print, market, sale, and implement their own ideas and plans for their novel. Publishers, however, simply cannot exist without authors. While authors can now do everything that publishers and editors are doing, publishing houses are not authors, and without authors submitting their written works, publishing houses may find themselves going the way of the 8-track tape.
The really sad part is that publishers have their heads buried so far in the sand that they are not going to realize that their very livelihoods are in jeopardy until it is too late. They are still demanding that authors allow them control over what storylines make it into print, demand that the novels get rewritten a dozen times, and keep insisting that they, not the authors’ themselves, know more about what the authors’ readers want to read about than the authors.
But that is all perfectly fine, because one day the ostriches will finally come up for air, and when they do, they will realize that books are still being printed and sold and read, only it will be the authors who are in control of the whole project, and it will be the authors, not the publishers, who are making the money and who still have a job at the end of the day.
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