By Michelle Lee
BWL Art Director
I know it’s been a while since my last post, and for that
all I can say is – GRAD SCHOOL. What,
you thought I was going to say I’m sorry?
LOL Did we miss the last post – I
am a Goddess. Goddesses do not
apologize.
Wait a minute. The
hubby is trying to get my attention.
* Five minutes later *
Ok, so I have been informed that while I am a Cover Goddess,
and the love and adoration of my husband’s life, (yeah, I added that in, sue
me), that I am still, in fact, a mere mortal. Whatever!
As such, I guess I can apologize for taking so long to get
to the next topic in my Behind the Cover series of posts. I know there are some readers eagerly
awaiting the X-Factor post that is quickly coming up. I believe slacker it a term I have heard
muttered under someone’s breath a time or two.
No, wait, that’s at my day job.
Never mind.
Anyways ...
Back to the topic at hand … just what else goes into
creating a cover.
So … After I put the images together to see how different
elements look together, I place the title and author name on the cover (often
not in the color or font that I will ultimately use, but rather just a generic
placeholder to start to formulate placement).
Then I start to play around with all the elements – the images, the font
(style, placement, color, and effects), shifting them around until I get
something that I am happy with.
Part of an effective cover is making sure the font matches
the theme.
Let’s look at Destiny’s Shadow by Rita Karnopp. Here, the font is of a western style, which is
appropriate for a historical set during the time of western expansion. Now what about a story set in the
orient? The font needs to have an asian
feel.
But what if it is a chilling story? Something a little dark … Then you have something like the font for
Into A Dangerous Mind. It kind of has a surreal
quality to it, which fits the theme of the story.
After I get everything placed, I start in on effects of the
font.
That could by anything from a beveling, back-shadowing, to
another layer of the same text in a different color. Whatever it takes to make the text stand out
from the images. Because you want
readers to be able to read what the cover says – and not just in a massive
size, but also the tiny sizes a lot of websites use. It has to stand out.
Once I get everything laid out so that it looks good, I
start adding in the extras – little things that just make the cover pop.
What do I mean?
Well … in some cases, it could be a border. You can see a hint of a border on Into A Dangerous Mind (above). But it blends in, adding a subtle effect to the cover rather than standing out. So how about some that stand out.
See how the pearls in Ann Cory’s cover make the pearls the
ladies are wearing kind of pop? How
about the rope around the edge of Ginger Simpson’s cover?
In others cases, it might be elements from the story; for
example the cover for
Impulsive. This is a collection of stories by Jamie
Hill, and I wanted to bring something from each into the cover. So there is a bottle for the genie, a trumpet
for another story, and snow for yet another.
We can also see elements of the story in Lee’s Killough’s
cover. This story involves a wolf, and a
gun in some form or another – that much is evident from the cover.
Its little things like that that assists a reader in knowing
a little more about the story at first glance.
Obviously, the book’s blurb is a major information source. But a lot of the times, a reader will see a
cover long before the blurb (especially if they are skimming websites for
something to read), so I have to make sure that I assist the author any way I
can in drawing the reader in. They’ve
worked hard on their story, put together a blurb, made sure the title fits the
books and is something that will catch attention, and then it falls on me to
wrap their hard work in a pretty package.
At the same time, I have to be true to the reader – creating
a cover that actually fits the book. I
know I would be very disappointed if I picked up a book with a smoking hot
embrace between a couple, only to find out that all the intimate scenes are
‘fade to black/closed door’. I would
feel like the cover did not depict the book in a true light. However, something with a soft fully-clothed embrace
in a park or something would fit.
Well, I guess that’s it for this issue of Behind the
Cover. I believe the next topic up will be series. And after that, the
X-factor. So stay tuned.
The
back door, I discover, is unlocked. I’m one hundred percent certain
I didn’t leave it that way. Carefully, keeping my body behind the
door, I scan the yard. The light filtering from the kitchen windows
is bright enough for me to see that there is no one in my little
square of turf. It also shows me crushed tomato plants and bean vines
torn from their trellises, clearly marking the intruder’s escape
route.
