Well, I like a good challenge. I decided to start designing my own book covers, just to see if I could do it. If it was terrible, well, I could always fall back on indie cover designers.
So I downloaded GIMP and started to teach myself how to use it.
Several months later, I released IMMERSION, and the result was pretty much the same thing. This time, I'd figured how to use the airbrush and I really liked the man in the raincoat. It seemed to fit Cerberus' mysterious character well, although something in the back of my mind nagged me. Doesn't that look a little like a 1900s mystery story?
So I bookmarked a bunch of videos on YouTube that taught various features of GIMP, and I practiced the heck out of the program. Here are some of the cover designs I created, in order of creation (from left to right).
Important Cover Designing Tips
- Make it colorful. People expect covers in the fantasy and sci-fi genres to pop. If you notice, IMMERSION is extremely one-note. One color, lots of shadow... ick. Not exciting. REFLECTIONS is similar. I got in two colors (woohoo) but there's nothing attention-grabbing about the design. It's just kind of: "Look, I warped a picture of a golden angel and slapped it inside a frame." (Which is pretty much what I did.) So, you'll notice that there's a lot more color in my later covers. (Instead of various shades of blue. I didn't know I liked that color so much.)
- Identify the genre by the main graphic. Again, IMMERSION fails miserably in this respect, since the guy in the raincoat looks like some villain from a 1900s mystery story. Not quite the genre I was aiming for. PROJECT MINERVA is better at identifying its genre. The binary code and glowy green lettering is a giveaway that shouts: "Sci-fi, anyone?" I get a lot of my free graphics from Pixabay.com, Stocksnap.io, Morguefile.com, and Creative Commons sources. Occasionally, I'll buy stock images from Dreamstime or (my favorite) CanStockPhoto.
- Identify your genre by font. Just in case the picture ain't clear enough, make sure the font pulls its weight in categorizing your story. I get tons of free fonts from 1001freefonts.com. If you're going for fantasy, here's some favorites:
- Suggest action. Okay, break with form here and just scroll down to see my updated covers for REFLECTIONS and IMMERSION. I want you to view the difference. Notice that in both "before" covers, the main subject is just standing there like a blob. There is no suggested action. In both "after" covers, you feel like you snapped a frame of a movie at the point where something was happening. The sword-wielder is emerging from the mirror, and the mysterious figure is approaching in a hurricane of other-worldly essence. People love action. Don't you?
- Optimize the cover as a thumbnail. In other words: On Amazon.com or any other web seller, your cover is going to be small...just a quick flash of color as a potential buyer is scrolling down the page. So make the design simple enough and big enough to be recognizable.