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Yay for Sam!

Sam gets a giant YAY today for finishing the novel he's been working on for twenty years!!! YAY, Sam!

I met sam at my Yahoo group, JCP_update. Click the button below to join.

Click to join JCP_update

Cover Art

It's rare that I meet an author who unconditionally loves his or her cover art. Why is that? Don't writers control what the covers of their own books look like? Don't they have input into the process? Or veto power?

...no. Not usually.

If you're writing on a website or in a magazine, you may not get a cover at all. Maybe that's a good thing; your work can stand on its own.

When you're a fledgeling ebook author, especially if the story is short, or if you're doing it as part of a pre-existing line or collection, you may bet a stock cover. My PsyCop series had a stock cover in the beginning.
Among the Living Stock Cover

Once rights reverted to me and I could put it out at JCP Books, I gave it a cover that had a better indication of what was going on in the story. I also found a stock art model who I chose to represent my protagonist.

Among the Living Custom Cover

And when a big publisher scoops you up, they'll probably tell you to go focus on your writing and let the marketing team to the marketing!

Where do you find this stock art, you ask? Here are a couple of affordable stock art houses:
http://www.stockxpert.com
http://istockphoto.com

There are also higher-end stock houses where images cost several hundred dollars apiece. Usually, an e-publisher won't put that kind of money into your cover.

You may also need to fill out a cover art request. A few hours with a beginner's design book or a digital photography book can give you the vocabulary you need to ask for what you want. A basic digital photography book can also teach you about composition.


Most of all, it's important to go out and see what professionally published books catch your eye. Go to the library and grab an armoad of them, and especially focus on books released within the past couple of years, so you've got the current design trends represented. Got it? Okay, here's where your powers of observation come into play. How are they similar? What sort of tricks is the designer using? What does the font look like? How are things arranged?

Here's an interview in Elisa Rolle's blog that talks about the process of the Channeling Morpheus covers:
http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/491310.html

(I stole borrowed this little Channeling Morpheus strip from Clare London. She used it in a Live Journal post that I guested last week. Thanks, Clare!)