One important thing to remember is the well used saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is blatantly untrue. It is a known fact that the decision to look at a book and perhaps read it is made in the first five seconds of picking it up. The most important factor in this process is the cover.
It has to have a hook to make the buyer want to read the back cover blurb. It must also reflect the content of the book as far as possible. There are several horror stories on the net where the cover has been totally inappropriate. My favourite is this one; When Right is Completely Wrong by Jane Lindskold. She had written a dark adult story. The publisher commissioned a cover that made it look like a children’s book!
The next important stage in the decision process is the back cover blurb. The publisher produced one for my book. It must be short, not give anything away but make the reader want to open the book. Not until the book is opened it is finally down to the quality of the story and the skill of the author.
I had in my mind an image of my characters. I had after all lived with them for many months! I searched the Internet and hit on the picture below. It was almost exactly what I had in mind for the main female alien warrior character
It was far more difficult finding a
male character (I wonder why that is?) I finally hit on the idea of
having him in his battle armour. Still very difficult to find what
I was looking for. I eventually found an illustration of a space
suit that would give the idea of what I wanted.
When the publisher asked if I had any suggestion for a cover I
joined the two pictures and sent them this.
I added that I did not want the cover
to look like cartoon. The alien female warrior character should
also be holding a staff not a sword. The publisher came back to me
and asked if I had a high definition version of the picture above
and the copyright. Unfortunately I had neither.
A couple of weeks later I received this suggestion from the
publisher’s art’s department.
I liked the idea in principle but had
reservations with the alien female character. She looked a bit
cartoon like. I hated the pink bra! Still it was a draft and the
artist said she had to do a lot more work to make it better. I did
not like the eye piece on the face in the background It looked like
a Borg! I sent them a picture of the Euro fighter helmet with an
integral display. I also mentioned that I wanted the female
character to hold a weapon, preferably a staff. She had to look
like she could take care of herself!
A couple of days later this arrived in my email.
Overall it looked great except for the
alien female character. I thought she looked more like a vampire
than an alien warrior. I liked the helmet display but it was not
obvious what it was. They had also managed to get my name wrong. I
made some changes in photoshop and sent it back. The female face
had to be darker. I wanted a green targeting icon on the helmet
display. I also asked if it were possible to make her hair white as
it was in the book.
This was the result
I was still not happy. The female
character did not match the quality of the rest of the cover. Her
face was drawn and pinched. I asked if it could be filled out a
little around the jaw line to make her face look softer.
I was worried about the quality. I knew how important the cover was
and it was not working for me at all.
As luck would have it a few days earlier I had put in a support
call to DC Design regarding an issue I had with the DC
Glasstastic web theme I am using. It turns out that the owner
of the company Dave Cantu was an artist. When he looked at my
website he mentioned that he would like to add a book cover to his
portfolio.
I explained the situation to him and asked if he would be prepared
to produce a picture of the female character for me that would fit
on the book cover.
The following day this arrived in my email inbox
This was the alien art I was looking
for! I asked the publisher’s art department if they would be
willing to replace the existing female figure with the one Dave had
produced. They agreed, I was sent the required picture
specifications and forwarded them on to Dave Cantu.
He adjusted the picture to the publisher’s requirements and sent it
to them. The following day I received the cover shown below. There
were still a couple of issues but overall I was pleased with the
result. The detail on the helmet display had disappeared and the
side of the large face that had been covered by the original female
character did not look right.
I requested that the display detail was
restored and that the right side of the face be put into shadow
removing the problem where the original character had been.
A few hours later I had the final cover in all its glory. As with
everything there is always an element of luck. The fact that I
needed help with some software produced by an artist who wanted to
add a book cover to his portfolio!
