Continued from Part 1.
Hi again!
I’m sitting at a comfortable desk by my bedroom window, sipping on a freshly brewed black coffee. Cocooned in this cosy-chrysalis, I can almost delude myself that all is well with the world.
Now, where did we get to last time?
Last month, I told you about how I’m redesigning the covers for Seen in Silverbridge and there were three different styles that seemed to be very popular with mystery books. The illustrated type, the hand-drawn type, and the dark silhouetted type.
Which to choose?
Instinct told me that the first style fit the book’s feeling in my mind. The second one feels like how I think other people see the book. And the third option, though it’s great, felt way too dark.
And yet…
That style of cover does incredibly well with a certain type of reader. The cover says ‘I’m a bit gritty, I’m mysterious, but I’m also quite feminine because look, I have pink writing! 💅’
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. It’s a very tried-and-true style, and the series would look fantastic all together in that style.
Getting a cover from a cheap-ish Design Company
Now, the design company I chose are friendly and cheap-ish, but in terms of design aesthetic … you get what you pay for. The way it works is: you fill out a long form listing details about your book, the tone and story and characters, pay your money, and four days later, they send you a cover.
The initial design they turned over made me feel kinda sad.
It looks like a lovely emotional drama for teenagers, set over the course of a summer at a beach. Totally not what I was going for. I sent them a lengthy email detailing a laundry list of change requests. The main thing being: can it feel more like a mystery? I suggested we put them in a city.
I got this back:
Now, there’s a specific feeling you get when you’ve got high expectations about a book cover, and after waiting a further week for changes, you receive a draft that doesn’t come anywhere close to them. The cover of your book is a visual representation of the story and characters you’ve spent hours with. It’s close to your heart. And this attempt at a cover just … didn’t feel like my book.
The problem is: I’m not a professional designer. I’m not an aesthete. I don’t have the ‘eye’. When I see a design, I’m unable to articulate exactly what I like and don’t like about it, which makes me a bad feedback-giver.
Despite that, the good people at this design company stuck it out. Over the course of two months, we went back and forth, and the design slowly morphed into something I didn’t despise.
You can see the progression:
- Different city background
- Backlight the characters with light and mist + make the title more dynamic + change the author’s name to white
- Up the contrast
- Darken it and make it less steel-blue
It’s difficult because the overall layout simply wasn’t working. The characters still looked too big, but the designers were hamstrung by the stock image of the city and didn’t seem willing to adjust the image to make it smaller. And the mist just made it feel like a sci-fi film, no matter what colour it was.
I decided to power on myself, editing the image they provided me with.
Polishing a turd
I was limited on what I could change, but I’m happy with where I got to.
- The font
I love playing with typefaces and layouts, and I could’ve done this for hours. But I wanted to emulate the mystery covers that I’d used as a reference, so I stayed with the general shape, just changed the colour and the font choice.
2. The size of the characters
I made the entire image smaller, relying on a cheeky transform trick where you extend the outside area of the image to stretch to the edges. I think I got away with it.
3. The mist I cut the characters out and added some mist behind them, layering in different versions of smoke and giving it a slightly blue-ish hue.
4. The lights and contrast I made the top third and the lower part of the image completely black, making the title pop. And then I had some fun lightening the image around the lights on the bridge.
Overall, I’m reasonably happy with it. To me, it says mystery, and it says there are two characters — a male and female.
Biggest Lessons
If you can afford to get a very good designer, then I’m happy for you. Don’t expect a cheap designer to be able to turn out a cover that could stand up next to traditionally published books. If you need to go with this route, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Have a good idea of what you want before you order the cover. Things will move a lot faster if you have a layout in mind, or ideas for images.
- Your main image is important. My biggest mistake was saying yes to a city image that didn’t have a natural bright section that could backlight my characters, meaning I had to create my own with the mist.
- Be prepared to be patient. Multiple rounds of feedback and waiting for new drafts can be discouraging. Make sure you have other projects to keep you occupied while you wait. Hey, maybe start your next book!
- Use Photoshop (or Affinity Photo or even Canva) to make your own changes.
Luckily, the cover for You Should Have Said was easier
When it came time to get the second cover redesigned, I knew what I wanted.
- A light area in the background where the characters could stand out
- Luce and Huds on the cover
- Similar layout with the text
- A bridge and a cloudy sky
These are the iterations over the course of a few weeks back and forth:
Once we got to the blue and yellow version, I was happy enough to move onto adjusting the design myself, where I changed it to:
The new covers are complete!
And now, finally, the covers are done. I’ve uploaded them to the Amazon store (ebook version and paperback), and even though they’re not the most incredible covers I’ve ever seen in my life, I’m happy with how they look together.
Phew, now the covers are done, I can get back to focusing on writing the books…
👩🏫 What I’m Reading: The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley
Considering how much I love mystery, I’m not having a very good time with this book. It feels like it’s taking forever to read because the characters’ voices seem strangely juvenile and overly naïve. The connections between the characters are intriguing though and while I find the prose a little bit bloated, I’m excited to see how it all comes together.
Have you read it? What did you think?