Book Covers – Really.
A great cover for a book is at the forefront of any publishers’ sales plan. The professional design is produced with the aim to hit the market in the correct genre with author’s name, sometimes, highlighted more than the title.
Readers know what they want, and what authors they enjoy reading most, in which case it is the celebrity author’s name that is given prominence on the cover. Just a brief preamble leading to a question below.
Independent authors are advised to get professional work done in both editing and cover design that they can afford. Great advice – but stubborn old me just didn’t listen in this case.
I have had my short story collection, ‘The Listener” gone over by the edit process and ‘oh boy’, what a process. I am told it is very much better than the 2014 version.
I stuck with the cover with a small change – on the front cover font and back cover blurb.
I have done all this as an exercise in procrastination, if there was a medal or a university course for procrastination I would probably have gone for the PhD. I should be writing my novel instead, keep laughing.
The original camera shot.
Photo by James McEwan
I took the source photograph while on holiday in Dresden, Germany. I found it fascinating that someone or some people went to a lot of effort to paint the picture. I never found out who or why. I had not started to write back then and the idea of a book cover came to me many years later.
This is one part of the advice I did follow, make your cover unique. (I missed the effective part).
An advantage over using stock photographs is that I own the picture.
My first cover.
The latest cover – matte -done in MS Word. 1.6Mb version – Printed copy is 11.5Mb
Here are my questions:
Is the MS word cover good enough?
I am considering using GIMP and or Adobe professional for future covers.
Of the two covers above, which is better; to give prominence to the title or author’s name?
James McEwan 
The trouble with such a busy background (great picture by the way) I think is that it is always going to be a challenge to make the text stand out. I wonder if you have considered making a plain text box for the title and author name. Of the two I think the first one is slightly easier to read the title etc. Hope this helps
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I agree, getting the text to stand out was an issue, I tried different colours but it was still not very effective. My very first cover on this book was a blue background (see Book – Listener). I think my trouble is that I like the photo too much.
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I like the last picture the best, but they really are all very good. Great that you took that awesome picture.
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As is often the case I’m nodding along to the wise words and advice of Diane!
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Congrats!!! 🙂 I like the first title with the splashes of color and name; the font is what i’m seeing as needing to be worked with. I know a lot of artists use fiverr.com to do freelance work for small projects like this at a cost of only (about) $5 — my husband recently chose a logo created by hundreds of artists competing for his approval, but that cost several hundred dollars. Super happy for you either way — good luck!
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Thanks for looking at this = I agree I have things to learn.
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I’m trying to figure out how to read your book for free without Kindle Unlimited {I’ve already used my free trial and we found it full of mostly romance novels, so we’re not eligible for another free trial!}. Congratulations!!
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I could send you a PDF Copy, if you want.
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Sure! Private message me through my website 😊 Thank you for the offer!
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