Do it yourself cover art for ebook help

[BuckyDuckman]

I know quite a few of you fine folks self-publish at various sites around the web. For the DIY'ers out there, any tips you might offer about designing cover art? Is less more? Suggestive do better than obscure? Do you fret over it or just try to spell your name and the title right?

 

[SamScribble]

I think quality does have value. The more that you can make it look like a 'real' book the better. In my experience, good typography and simple photograph/illustration seems to press a lot of the right buttons.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You tell me...check out my covers on my erotic website and then tell me which drew your attention and which didn't. In my sig.

 

[TxRad]

Eye catching would be my first thought but from what I've read around here, too vulgar and some sites won't take it.

 

[MrFoxwood]

As an artist as well as a writer I like to think I'd be pretty good at designing a good cover when I get as far as publishing. I think an easential starting point would be to look at the covers of books that'll be shown alongside your own, eye-catching is obviously a must and requires a knowledge of what it must stand out from. If most covers are photographs then think about a different kind of graphic, if most are b&w then think about vibrant colour.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Eye catching would be my first thought but from what I've read around here, too vulgar and some sites won't take it.

I don't know, I have what I think are pretty good covers and only two were rejected by Smashwords. Not that Smashwords cared, but their channel partners, Sony and Apple objected, so I don't sell those there.

 

[lovecraft68]

Amazon has cracked down on not just blatant nudity, but asses in just skimpy thongs and "hand bras" also they no longer allow couples if they are in a sexual embrace.

other sites are not so fussy.

I don't use nudity I just think its begging for a problem

For designing covers as in taking a stock photo and jazzing it up or combining more than one image "gimp" is a free program that is along the lines of photo shop.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Amazon has cracked down on not just blatant nudity, but asses in just skimpy thongs and "hand bras" also they no longer allow couples if they are in a sexual embrace.

other sites are not so fussy.

I don't use nudity I just think its begging for a problem

For designing covers as in taking a stock photo and jazzing it up or combining more than one image "gimp" is a free program that is along the lines of photo shop.

The Amazon advice is helpful.

As for the stock photo photo advice - and this question is open to any one - are you buying rights to a photo from somewhere? Is there a good morgue of free images?

My wife's an artist and there's a lot of scuttlebutt in her online artist communities about imagine theft. During her commercial art training, they were taught to borrow from existing work as a fast and dirty way to generate finished product. However, now she works only from photographs she has taken.

 

[sr71plt]

As for the stock photo photo advice - and this question is open to any one - are you buying rights to a photo from somewhere? Is there a good morgue of free images?

One of my publishers prefers Depositphotos (http://depositphotos.com/) at the moment (another one prefers Dreamstime. http://www.dreamstime.com/). There's also 123RF (http://www.123rf.com/). A good many of the photos are accessible at one or more of the sites.

I think all of these have a free photo section--and these have been mined once or twice for cover images on my e-books. I had 31 e-books published last year, so the covers become a major undertaking.

Added later: Here's another one. Shutterstock: http://www.shutterstock.com/

 

[BuckyDuckman]

One of my publishers prefers Depositphotos (http://depositphotos.com/) at the moment (another one prefers Dreamstime. http://www.dreamstime.com/). There's also 123RF (http://www.123rf.com/). A good many of the photos are accessible at one or more of the sites.

I think all of these have a free photo section--and these have been mined once or twice for cover images on my e-books. I had 31 e-books published last year, so the covers become a major undertaking.

Added later: Here's another one. Shutterstock: http://www.shutterstock.com/

Good help. Thanks!

 

[Bramblethorn]

One thing to consider: how will your cover look at the SMALLEST display size used on the site? I've seen quite a few covers that look beautiful at full size but are just indistinct blobs in the thumbnail.

For my "Stringed Instrument" on Smashwords I went for a non-photo design: partly because it holds up well in thumbnail, also because I skimmed through the cover art for other stories in that category and saw a lot of same-y photo covers, and I wanted something that stood out. I don't know whether it helped, but that was the thought process!

 

[sr71plt]

I don't know if all of this do-it-yourselfing in cover design is breaking down the traditions, but, traditionally, several aspects of what was on a cover were determined by the genre of the book--the cover subtly projected the book genre, whether most potential buyers knew that or not.

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't know if all of this do-it-yourselfing in cover design is breaking down the traditions, but, traditionally, several aspects of what was on a cover were determined by the genre of the book--the cover subtly projected the book genre, whether most potential buyers knew that or not.

That is up to the do it your selfer.

Personally I try to make the person on the cover resemble the character and if I can the situation.

But I have noticed many who do not. I recently bought an e-book and was annoyed-in that ocd kind of way-that the cover featured this big breasted blonde, but the woman in the story was a redhead.

Its not hard to find a picture of a redhead.

http://www.123rf.com/search.php?word=redhead+lingerie&imgtype=0&t_word=&t_lang=en

I think a lot of the erotic e-books fall under the formula of just putting up a pic of a hot woman in lingerie.

Just as many GM titles I've seen are simply a pic of good looking guy with abs of steel.

quick and dirty is a common method.

 

[sr71plt]

Pulp fiction, even coming out of mainstream publishers, didn't bother to match the cover with the content. People were just buying a product; if the cover sold it, it didn't matter that much what was inside.

In working nonfiction with publishers, authors frequently come back with complaints on cover design not going with the point of their book--and often they've been correct. Professional cover designers often don't get the point of a nonfiction book even if they read it--it's often not really their discipline.

Best is to have the author involved before there's a cover design to look at. The downside of that is that most authors have no concept of cover design--they tend to want it to be too busy--to capture too much of their book content, and, as Brambleton has noted, they don't take into consideration that it has to view well in both full size and thumbnail (and the title and/or the author name, depending on which is more attention getting, need to stand out and be readable).

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I don't know if all of this do-it-yourselfing in cover design is breaking down the traditions, but, traditionally, several aspects of what was on a cover were determined by the genre of the book--the cover subtly projected the book genre, whether most potential buyers knew that or not.

I actually wondered the same thing. Traditionally, you'd never mistake the cover of a romance novel for the cover of a sci-fi or fantasy novel. Though my wife assures me that sci-fi and fantasy can both be part of a romance novel. God willing, I'll never find out.

 

[R. Richard]

I use Bigstock and letter my own covers. It seems to work well enough.

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/

 

[A_Little_Show]

[deleted]

 

[Bramblethorn]

But I have noticed many who do not. I recently bought an e-book and was annoyed-in that ocd kind of way-that the cover featured this big breasted blonde, but the woman in the story was a redhead.

Its not hard to find a picture of a redhead.

It's not just e-books. From one professional author:

...if you're with a major publishing house, the first you will hear about your new cover is probably an email with a JPEG attachment saying, "hi, Charlie! Here's your new cover! All of us here at the office think this is great! What do you think?"

(If you think this is just slightly passive-aggressive, you would not be wrong. It is a well-understood constant of the publishing world that authors frequently hate their book covers so much that they feel compelled to bring Western Civilization to a crashing halt until they can get a minor detail — the heroine's hair colour, for example — changed.)

It's not all bad, though. Christina Dodd was just another historical romance novelist until her cover artist accidentally gave her career a shot in the arms.

Pulp fiction, even coming out of mainstream publishers, didn't bother to match the cover with the content. People were just buying a product; if the cover sold it, it didn't matter that much what was inside.

From what I've heard, some publishers actually started with the cover and paid a writer (not very much) to come up with something that matched.

 

[sr71plt]

From what I've heard, some publishers actually started with the cover and paid a writer (not very much) to come up with something that matched.

I've never encountered that when working in a publishing house. I've written books myself based on an image that went on the cover, though. Habu's Cairo Surrender was one of those, and the cover went on to win a cover contest award.

I have seen books written from a topic/storyline publishers wanted in their listings, though, and went out and found an author to write it.

 

[TxRad]

I've never encountered that when working in a publishing house. I've written books myself based on an image that went on the cover, though. Habu's Cairo Surrender was one of those, and the cover went on to win a cover contest award.

I have seen books written from a topic/storyline publishers wanted in their listings, though, and went out and found an author to write it.

A lot of my stories come from a single picture so writing to a cover wouldn't be hard from my point of view. Whether they would want that is a whole other question.

Needing something for their listing is how I got my first book deal. Stock car racing is big and there are not many books out there that aren't autobiographies.