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| a post about me thinking about things ... or more probably just some random ramblings... |
Book covers.
There are brilliant ones, good ones, not so good ones and well, let's face it, downright awful ones. And not just for DIY indie published books - I've come across some pretty bad mainstream covers as well ... a couple of them, to my embarrassment, my own books - I've always called this one 'The Purple Puke'
My apologies for the poor quality. Gwenhwyfar (Guenevere) in MY story is a feisty woman who stands no nonsense - she has a sword and knows how to use it. In this cover she's holding a bunch of flowers and if you look closely it appears that her leg is deformed. So not only is it nothing like the story it's poorly drawn.
This edition was published by William Heinemann back in 1994/5. On receiving a copy I yelled at my editor - and actually slammed the phone down on her because I was SO distressed.
Caveat warning to authors who sign contracts: insist on having the last say where covers are concerned, do not rely on that ambiguous word 'consultation'. All it means is you'll be sent the cover and be advised 'this is the one we're going with'.
This is where it is a huge advantage to be an indie DIY writer. The cover is OUR choice. I very strongly advise getting your cover designed and produced by a professional though (two suggestions below). It's the small things that can make the difference between 'good' and 'brilliant'. Blending for instance, shading colours, where to place the font - what font, come to that.
We are writers. We are not artists or qualified designers. As my designer (Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics) once said: "I don't really know how to construct a plot, expand on characterisation or even where a comma should or shouldn't go - in the same way I wouldn't expect an author to know what works for a cover or what doesn't."
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| Cover Critique |
Featured on Discovering Diamonds (my historical fiction review site) designers Cathy Helms of www.avalongraphics.org and Tamian Wood of http://www.beyonddesignbooks.com/ offer a free monthly cover critique.
These are two recent covers that they looked at and made some helpful suggestions.
Click the links to read their feedback (but maybe before you 'click' what suggestions would YOU make?)
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| Cover Critique |
If you would like your cover to have a critique (and therefore some additional free marketing!) contact
Cathy Helms on chelms@avalongraphics.org
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Fascinating - I had a look at the critiques and the revised covers were enlightening. It is very much a case of 'leave it to the professionals'. But I am not surprised by Helen's horror at what her publisher did to her cover. I've seen a few highly publicised mainstream where the the cover bears no relation to the story inside to the point of being completely misleading. I remember one Roman story with gladiators on the cover - but the story had nothing to do with gladiators, not even in passing.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are finding our cover critiques helpful! There are certainly plenty of poor examples of covers out there and those poor covers do not sell books.
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