Here is my latest
attempt at a cover for Beneath the Lanterns, “Caravan to Traefara.”
I think this one is better than the last, if only because it
represents, more or less, an actual scene in the book – unlike the
last one. I still have time to try something else, so this may not be
the final version. Stay tuned.
As I no doubt said
before, I’m not an illustrator, and my talents in both art and
writing are rather narrow. In art, with this type of thick acrylic
paint, I’m pretty much an impressionist landscape painter, and that
is pretty much what this painting is – an impressionist landscape enhanced in Gimp with a
filter to add the black outlines.
This is something like my fifth or six
attempt to produce a suitable cover. I run into a number problems making my covers. The first being that I can’t really
picture a scene in my head, at least as a complete scene. Hopefully
you can from my words. The second is that I have a lot of trouble
with “camera angles,” which is to say, how to frame a scene into something that
I might be able to paint. The third is, as I said, I don’t paint
realistically, though I’m better at that type of painting with
watercolors, but even then… And well, it would be too inconsistent with
my other covers. (And these days, I probably lack the patience for detailed
work anyway.)
They say that covers
are a very important part of selling a book. Maybe.
With my covers, my first priority is
“branding.” All my covers have the same design – just like
those old Penguin paperbacks with the orange color and one standard
design.
My second priority
is legibility as a thumbnail. I’m not selling books on bookstore
shelves, so it is important to have the book title and author
legible in a small format. I see many books were the title and author are lost in the art.
My third priority is
that they should look, if not professional, at least neat and
original, and not too amateurish. I am not a graphic artist, and know just enough of Gimp to produce my covers. You can buy covers or hire designers, but not on my limited
budget ($0), so I have to work within my skill level and resources.
The result is a book cover stands out from the great mass of books in
their categories. Whether people try them because of the covers or in spite of them is an open
question.
