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Hello, Dear Reader, and welcome to the Cover Wreck post. I’ve created a cover as our original. It isn’t wonderful, but it isn’t the worst cover out there. I’ve used low resolution pictures, so please excuse the quality. I could have done more with it. I could have chosen different fonts. I could have… But for the purposes of this editorial, it will have to do. I added a fake publisher banner for authenticity, ugly as it may be.
After creating the original, I added different fonts, colors, filters, and banners to show you how a reasonable cover can be ruined. I’d like to say covers like these don’t exist, but sadly, they do.
Hopefully, this post will show you what NOT to expect or accept. I don’t care if your book is a short story and will be going on sale for 99 cents, you deserve a nice cover. I don’t care if it’s ‘only an e-book’ as some would say, you deserve a nice cover.
So, without further ado, I’ll introduce the covers (Oh, God! Please stop it!).
# 1 . The original
# 2. An added banner and font placed elsewhere
It isn’t the best of changes, but it isn’t too bad.
#3. Bad fonts and banner
This is a hideous addition. The colors draw the attention, as do the fonts. Awful.
#4. Redness!
The fonts are wrong, the color is wrong. Horrible.
#5. Purple Mess!
GROSS!
#6. Fireworks!
Insane Artist decided to add fireworks and picture filters with startling results!
#7. Secondary Characters
Let’s add Grandma, Grandpa, a nasty colour wash, and some hateful fonts!
#8. And the byline says…?
#9. Uh…
Well, uh…
#10. Painful!
#11. Dear Lord… Jeez…
STOP! STOP THE PAIN!
By the way, if anyone likes the original cover and feels it fits with a story they have written, are writing, or plan to write, it’s yours. Rules of getting a free cover are:
1. You’re required to purchase the high resolution photographs.
2. First email arrival gets my attention.
3. If no photographs arrive from the first person to send and request the cover after two days, I’ll go down the emails in the order they arrived until someone produces them, giving a couple of days to buy and send the pictures each time.
4. Requests must be sent to editorfanny@gmail.com
5. You get to keep the cover royalties and may use my name as the artist.
If you’re fine with those rules, get emailing! I’ll create free covers from time to time and offer them to you, Dear Reader, in the same manner.
And that concludes the editorial for today.
Don’t have nightmares now!
Best wishes,
Fanny
Wow, Fanny, this is great! VERY educational. I am especially transfixed (I don’t know if “impressed” would be quite the word) with number 7 “Secondary Characters” where the woman seems to be gnawing on an Ace of Spades with another one placed on her nose!
It’s starting to look like simplicity is the watchword for covers, especially because there isn’t all that much room to begin with, and there is a lot of info that needs to get placed such as author, title, publisher names. How funny that the orginal does contain a generic man-chest (that seems to be mandatory on all covers).
What can your typical author DO, though, once the contract is signed and the cover art starts looking like #3 through #11? Can she refuse the art? Forgive my ignorance — I’ve never been through the publication process.
Your original looks attractive, and your offer to do occasional free cover art from provided photos is so generous! This is another outstanding post!
Val Kovalin´s last blog ..Review – China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh
Let’s add grandma and grandpa and a baby!
I have seen so many of those.
Teddypig´s last blog ..Frank Kozik ~ The Green Lady
[...] over at Cerebral Reviews shows a neat cover and then mucks it all up with the most common mistakes seen in ePublishing. [...]
Val!
I didn’t even notice Grandma gnawing on the spade. I hope it doesn’t break her dentures.
What I would suggest is that if an author’s book has been accepted by a publisher that has a smattering of covers like these, ask who created the covers you DO like on their site and see if you can have that artist.
Another option is to find a cover or two on the Web and use them as examples of what you’d like…basically, you’ll be saying what you EXPECT.
What you could also do, before you sign a contract, is ask about their cover policy. If what you get is what you keep, and they are already displaying horrible covers, ask if you can supply your own.
What I find is that many of the ugly covers are done by authors or their friends. What I DON’T understand is why the publishers allow them on their sites when they so obviously clash with the good covers their site displays.
If an author gets a nasty cover (say the author is dealing directly with the artist at first), the author could ask the artist to try again, showing an example of what is required. If the artist still doesn’t get anywhere near that vision, the author could send the nasty cover to the EIC and explain how unhappy they are.
If the EIC finds the cover low standard, then the matter should be dealt with for the author (probably by having a new artist on the project), but if the EIC sees nothing wrong with it…author is stuck with it.
TeddyPig!
Darn it! I forgot the baby.
A couple of those were just plain painful. Amazing how some minor changes make some major differences. Thanks for the great lesson.
You’re welcome, Sandy.
Thanks, Fanny, for elaborating on the good advice! I’m going to keep this in mind.
Val Kovalin´s last blog ..Review – China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh
Thanks for the great lesson, Fanny. Simplicity seems the way to go in a lot of cases.
Kara
Val, Kara
You’re welcome.