art

Book Cover Musings

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

As I edit A Bridge To The Quiet Planet (Motto: “Sorcery, Science, Sarcasm”), I’m back to practicing book covers. I’ve been doing more of my fake book covers, with attempts at colorful kitch and e-book pulp action. I’ve realized I want to get better because I’ve got more books coming out – though my “tentpole” books are best with professional art.

I also realized some of my other books desperately need a cover update, so if you start seeing some of my older or smaller stuff look different, you know why. This has led me to get all philosophical about book covers, and you get to read about it.

Actually, this is pretty good stuff if you’re an author.

Royalty Free Art Grows Over Time

CanStockPhoto and Shutterstock are great resources for royalty-free art cheap, but even free sites like Pixabay have good resources – and think how more and more is being made over time. Every artist who joins, every upload of that “thing in the portfolio I haven’t used,” every additional piece, is another resource to be used. Over time, there will be more art available to users.

That would mean that in time it may take more searching but *the perfect piece of cover art will be more likely to be out there over time.* Also this means the perfect piece is just going to run you $8-$15 (as of 2018 numbers). even in my experiments, which use free sites, I’ve been surprised how I could find close or near-perfect art to my vision.

Cover Art Resources Keep Growing

I tend not to use stuff like Canva, etc. that let you build book covers I like the control of learning and of building my own templates. But these resources are out there and there’s more and they’re getting better. It’s going to be easier to make a good book cover over time.

Combine that with the above truth of more and more art being available and it’s going to be easier to have a half-decent cover for your book – at least an ebook.

Cover Art Ages

It’s weird to think how some of my books that looked appropriate for the time look a little aged or just poor right now. I can also see which styles may last versus which may become outdated.

For instance, now the trend of covers for fantasy and sf that are abstract or minimalist or symbolic is kinda wearing thin on me. I miss the covers that looked like they should be posters on your wall.

Also, some trend-jumping is going to be problematic. Remember how many things looked like Twilight Covers? Have those aged well? How many trendy things won’t work a few years down the road?

Cover Art May Matter More

When you see how people can make their own covers, how there’s more resources, and how art ages, I think good book covers matter more and more. At some point the market changes, the competitors ramp up, or your style is outdated.

Maybe authors need to consider swapping out cover art every two years or so. Of course if we do that then the value of art changes and it becomes far more a disposable commodity.

This Changes The Market For Cover Art

At this point I see that the market for cover art is changing and may change more rapidly. This is going to affect artists.

A good piece of cover art can run you $300-$1000 right now. Meanwhile a premade cover like you see at GoOnWrite might be $30-50. Something from CanStock Photo applied to an existing template may cost you $8.00.

If art becomes a variable commodity, the value changes – as is what people will pay for it.

Going Forward

Not sure if I found some massive magical trend (or if I’m seeing something everyone else has seen), but it’s something I’ll be keeping in mind. All we authors have to live with what’s happening – and decide where to invest our time.

 

– Steve

A Writer’s Life: Cover Me III – Electric Fantasy

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Remember how I was practicing making book covers? How I was posting them on tumblr and elsewhere?

I got my first “professional” assignment.

Now this isn’t professional in the paid way, but in the “on an actual book someone publishes” way. I’m helping out an ambitious co-worker with a love of pulp SF to put out his e-book. I of course volunteered to do the cover. He gets it for free, I get practice, and it probably won’t suck.

This turns out to have been a bit stressful. You never quite appreciate your talents, or question them, until you’re doing something for someone else.  Kinda in the “questioning” stage right now.

At the same time, this is also fantastic for learning.

I realized first and foremost that the book covers I was making were suffering a bit because I knew they were basically practice. I didn’t polish them, I didn’t tweak them, I didn’t revise them as much because it was “just practice.” There’s all sorts of things you don’t do in practice that you do when it’s real.

It’s real because I’m not gonna give this guy some crap. He’s my co-worker, he’s a fellow writer, he’s a good guy – I’m not going to let him down.

This means that now I’m pushing myself even farther. Exploring techniques. Considering layout precision. Learning all the things I wouldn’t learn when I just do a one-off bit of practice.

There’s a few takeaways from this that are good for you artists and writers.

  1. First, practice is good. Don’t get me wrong, it got me here. In fact practice is needed to get good enough.
  2. “Projects” work for learning skills. My practice projects gave me a hell of a lot of experience.
  3. Doing something “for real” exposes you to all sorts of things you may not get in practice – details, feedback, market issues, etc.
  4. Doing something for someone is a great motivator.

Let’s see how this book cover goes. I’ve got one mockup and a vision in my head that, hopefully, I can bring into reality. I’m sure I have plenty more to learn – but everything I learn here can help me and others later . . .

– Steve

A Writer’s Life: Cover Me II: Electric Boogaloo

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Sorry for all the delays in actually posting on writing.  been a weird few weeks.  So I want to talk about Book Covers again – with an interesting exercise.

I was thinking about my future writing plans.

First, the covers for the new Way With Worlds books were OK, but I realized I didn’t have the skills/intuition to have made them jazzier.  In fact, I wasn’t sure they needed to be jazzier, and realized I lacked artistic insights.

Secondly, I’ve considered revising and updating some past books, and that would mean covers.  For some I didn’t want to go purchase new art, especially for more niche works.

Third, my “Big Books” usually have paid art.  But what of smaller books, or less “eventful” books?  Sure I could buy a cover, but I had some skills, so why couldn’t I make better covers?

Thus, I set myself a project – to build 30 covers in gimp (because I am cheap) before the end of the year if not earlier.  This way I’d at least have the skills to make a decent book cover, and more than enough skills for books that might not need something jazzier.

I did this by:

  1. Using the free photos at pixabay.com when I need them.
  2. Looking at various book covers and seeing what I could learn from them about what made them “work” – from classic sci-fi to cheese romance.
  3. Finding new gimp techniques and trying them out.
  4. Trying to duplicate different genres and feels.

You can see the results at my tumblr, and I think I’ve definitely gotten better.  In fact, the improvement rate has been pretty remarkable.

This is a great technique to improve anything – build a project with no “critical deliverable” but a goal and try it out.  It could be used for more than just covers – it could be for writing, cooking, and so on.  Take what you want to learn and make a fun project out of it.

However for you indie artists, this may be worth trying yourself.  All you need is the gimp and some photos.  If you build enough skills, then you’re just some time and maybe a royalty-free (or self-taken) photo away from a book cover.

 

– Steve