Now, I'm going to be pushing Alpha Slip for traditional publication as hard as I can (once I have a final draft in place), but if I reach the point where all the trad publishing options are exhausted I'm probably gonna go the self-published ebook route and sell the sucker for $2 a pop. And, in that case, I'll need to design a cover.
This was a photo I took for a photography class last year which I think turned out pretty okay. Yeah, the lights under that bridge are naturally like that. Soooo rad.
I'm no professional artist, but I've noticed a couple trends from my years in the bookshop as to which covers sell and which don't. These are my theories:
1) Unified colour scheme, if possible. One major colour and one minor, max. Neither can be brown.
2) If you MUST have a number of colours, like the cover I put together for Alpha Slip, they must be tempered with 1/3 pure black or white.
3) In scifi, bold colour and design always wins over desaturated wishy-washyness. Bump up that contrast!
4) Text must always stand out on its own. Simple, single colours for text, if possible (no rainbow fills). The colour must pop - if you need to use a drop shadow to make the words stand out, pick a different colour. If there's no way to make a single colour stand out, get a new cover designer.
5) Identifiable faces must, of course, be beautiful. In scifi, identifiable faces must be female. Male faces are only allowed on fantasy covers. If you're writing romance, no faces are allowed at all.
But hey, they're only theories.
What about you? Designed any of your own covers for ePub purposes, or just for fun?
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Just as important for a book cover (to me at least) is the spine of the book. I like a book that will look nice, an interior designer sort of nice, sitting on the book shelf. One of my all time favorite book covers is this C&P cover: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=7-9780679734505-0
In someways I'll actually buy a book solely for its cover, kind of like someone would buy art.
Very nice, gotta love those neon lights, bump that contrast, bitch!
I'm not a huge fan of the text though, neither the colour or the font, really. But yeah, looks good.
Do you usually have Christopher Ruz or your real name?
Thanks for the comment - yeah, I admit, I'm no text-expert (should that be textpert?) Glad you liked the photo, though. I've been wanting to head back to that spot for ages and do a proper tripod long-exposure, because my hands just aren't steady enough for a half-second shot.
Apparently blue covers sell better than others. So you are on the right track?
Yeah, if you have a decent camera and a tripod then it should look awesome.
And I actually thought that you'd said textpert anyway (and approved)
reckon chris ruzkin has a better ring to it.
Liking both the name and the cover option.