Creating Cover Love

What makes you decide to buy a book? For most people, it comes down to the book blurb, the opening pages, and recommendations from friends. But for the reader to pick up the book in the first place, the cover has to grab her attention. 

With self-published stories, it’s vital your cover is eye-catching (in a good way) if you hope to get the sales you covet. Unlike traditionally published books, the onus is on you to nail the cover so that people will want to check the book out, and hopefully buy it. To ensure your cover shines, here are some tips from a photographer’s point of view. Even if your book is being traditionally published, some of these tips will help you if your publisher asks for your input.

Theme and Symbolism

One of the best ways to ensure the cover best represents your story is to create a list of the story’s themes (if you only have one theme, that’s fine. Just make sure you know what it is). This will help you find the perfect picture for the cover. If your themes are dark, then you’ll want to skip on the light and breezy images. Or, you might find a picture you love, that’s perfect for the story, but a slight adjustment needs to be made for it to work for the cover. For example, the above picture was originally much lighter, sweeter, but it wasn’t quite right for the story, which is about a mother’s desperate attempt to find her daughter who went missing two years ago. The image fit what the author was looking for, but the picture needed to be darkened to fit the tone of the story. 

Do you have a symbolic object in the story that might work well on the cover? Or maybe the object doesn’t exist in your story, but it is symbolic of your theme or premise. The underlying subtext might entice a potential reader to pick up the book and check out the blurb. 

Genre

Are there any expectations within the genre as to cover design? The cover of a romantic suspense will be different to that of women’s fiction. The cover of a middle grade book will not be the same as one for erotic romance. 

Visit your local bookstore and study the covers within your genre. Make a list of the ones that appeal to you, and note if there is anything you find overdone. You want your cover to standout, not be one of several dozen lookalikes. Note what you like and what turns you off. Maybe you don’t like the overall design but there’s an element in it that you love. Write this down. All this information is important for creating the final product, especially if you’re hiring someone to design the cover. 

If someone were to look at your book, would she know what to expect? When the reader looks at the above cover, she anticipates the book is for middle graders and will contain elements of magic. Also, she expects the story will involve a lighter theme. 

Composition

 

When selecting a photo for your cover, or when layering several images, keep the following composition principles in mind:

• Keep things simple. If you try to put too much on the cover, it will become cluttered and confusing. Worse yet, the reader might assume your story has the same issue. This can easily happen when you layer too many images to make the final product. 

• Keep things consistent. If you have a dark theme, don’t mix light- and dark-themed images on the cover. The result will be jarring, and not in a good way.

• Allow for breathing room. This is important for the title and your name. It doesn’t mean you can’t put them over part of the image. It means you don’t want them to compete with the picture for the reader’s attention. The reader might forget the title of the story or your name because the images were too distracting.

 

• Use composition techniques, such as framing, to draw attention to the subject on the cover (as in the example below). For more information on different techniques, check out this post.

Hire a Professional

Because the cover is important, consider hiring professional help.  You might have something in mind but can’t find a stock photo you love, or you want something that is unique and won’t also end up on someone else’s cover. In both cases, you can hire a photographer. Some photographers are able to create magic when producing covers (read this post and this post to see how photographer Vania created her magic with Untraceable and On the Bright Side). These photographers love to do post-production work.  Others don't enjoy that side of photography, and lack the necessary photo-editing software to produce a font that will draw the reader’s attention to the title. One author I know experienced this issue. But then she sent the photo to a graphic designer and the results were spectacular.

If you decide to work with a professional, gave the individual a list of words that describe your story (i.e. theme words), the book blurb, the titles of covers you admire, ideas you might have, things you don’t want on your cover. Basically, anything that will make the individual’s job easier. But be realistic. Unless you’re hiring someone to take the photos, you might have to compromise on your want list. And be open to her suggestions. 

When selecting a professional, ask to see her previous work and make sure you’ll be able to have input in the final product. If you love someone’s cover, ask them who designed it. Ideally, select someone who is knowledgeable of your genre. If the individual usually designs covers for romances and has never stepped into the YA section of the bookstore, she might not be your best choice. She doesn’t understand the needs of the genre, especially if your target audience are teenage males.

Know Your Budget

This goes without saying. Unless you have a fairy godmother at your disposal, you don’t want to blow your entire budget on an amazing cover and have nothing left for professional editing. It doesn’t matter how great your cover is if the story behind it is flat and filled with typos and grammatical errors. The bad reviews will haunt you and your future books (unless you change your name). 

Feedback

Get honest feedback. It’s not enough to post it on your blog or show it to you friends, and ask what they think of it. They might lie to spare your feelings and you could end up with a cover that will do more damage than good. And make sure you get feedback from your target audience. Your husband, who only reads thrillers, is not the best person to ask for feedback on your romance cover. And remember, like everything else in this industry, cover love is subjective.

Any other suggestions?

(I would like to thank the above authors for sharing their covers with me. Some of the books are now available. Others will be out in the next two months.)

Stina Lindenblatt writes young adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and blogging addict, and can be found hanging out on her blog, Seeing Creative.  

The Art of Poetic Space

Before I was an active writer, I was a reader with a passion for fantasy art. I discovered Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series when I was in college and embarked on my own version of fangirl geekdom.

Fast forward a decade or two and you’ll still find me at the comic conventions. There is something wonderful about a comic book—it’s not just reading with pictures. It’s a story with art—and the two are inextricably connected.

Comics intrigue me because of their brevity—so much story and action packed into tiny frames. One has to really get into the story to fully appreciate the nuances of each angle, each line, each visual. Eventually, I came across the work of Charles Vess, who illustrated my favorite issue of Sandman.

Charles Vess

I met him at the Baltimore Comic Con in August, where he spoke about the concept of poetic space.

Images and Words

I’m not surprised to hear such a term coming from this artist. You know the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words?” His pictures actually are: entire volumes have the power to spring from a single illustrated page.

Vess said poetic space leaves room for the reader to fill in the details and participate in the experience. When asked how much poetic space an artist should use, he replied: “As much as possible!”

As a writer, I was intrigued by his notions of poetic space and, with it in mind, I examined my style of writing. Did it exist in my work? Should it exist in my work? After all, writing is not drawing. A painting may invoke emotion and meditation but a book—well, a reader would only know what we told them.

However, there’s a point where enough is enough, already. Endless lines of description begin to sound more like a shopping list. Yeah, you get a picture, but is it fun reading? Meh. Not really.

Poetic Space Equals Wiggle Room

The balancing point is a thin line. Trouble is, everyone places that line differently.

I’m a contest junkie. I can honestly say my first pages have been read, shred, scoured, devoured, chewed up, spit out, praised, razed and a slew of other critiquing verbs by at least a hundred different judges. They all had individual ideas of how much—or how little—description my opening pages should have.

We’ve heard it time and time again—action should predominate those early pages. Hook the reader. Draw them in. Backstory and narrative summary can come later. Or…can it?

My story has a first person point of view so it’s not like the narrator is going to spend a ton of time talking about her own appearance in the first pages. Yet, I had more than a handful of people wanting for more—I can’t count all the times I got “I don’t even know what she looks like.”

However, I got far more compliments on the intrigue and the hook. If the contest only gave the first few pages, I can let the crits slid.

Why? Because of poetic space.

If someone is only going to read the first five pages, their minds can fill in those missing details, if they need to. The rest of the story has plenty of space to flush out those details later.

If, on the other hand, those first five pages don’t have anything else to grab onto, all the poetic space in the world won’t redeem them. There’s the balance: poetic space is a tool to be used along with every other device writers use to create our stories.

Engaging the Reader

Vess’s remarks backed up a small conversation I had with my editor, Rose Mambert of Pink Narcissus Press. We were discussing some cover sketches and she said she didn’t have a clear idea of what the protagonist looked like but knew the hero looked nothing like the sketches. The part about my main character concerned me. Did I need to go back and revise?

“No,” Rose said. “A physical description of Sophie is not so important. Readers will fill in all those missing details, anyway. Though if there's a picture of her on the cover, that will probably stick in the readers' mind, so we do want it to match up with how you envision her.”

Whew. Poetic space to the rescue.

In a splendid interview, Vess spoke more on the topic of poetic space in his discussion of artist Frantisek Kupka. He said there’s a trend in fantasy art to show every detail, and light the subject in such a way that it eliminates all the mysterious shadows. No room left for the reader’s interpretation.

Poetic Space Enhances Our Stories

As writers, we, too, need to incorporate those mysterious shadows into our characters. If you lay everything out on the line in high definition perfection, then there is no subtle nuance to develop later. No place for a telling quirk. No room for a surprising flaw.

That would be an affront to our writers’ sensibilities. It’s our need to peer into the shadows and come up with our own interpretations that makes us writers in the first place. We look into the vague and the subtle and we pull a story out of it.

Out of the poetic space.

It’s a service, as well, according to Vess. When we have to supply our own imagination to fill in that poetic space, we train ourselves to continue the story. We become more proficient in telling the stories running through our brains.

We develop our creative senses. We become better writers.

So. Poetic space. Who knows? It just might be our redemption.




Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who resides in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal region, where she keeps the book jacket for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" in a frame over her desk. Visit the Spec Fic Website at www.ashkrafton.com for updates on the release of her debut novel, Bleeding Hearts, forthcoming in early 2012 through Pink Narcissus Press.

Publishing Pulse, March 25th, 2011

New at QueryTracker.net:


Congratulations to our newest success story, Beth Cato!


Also, four agent profiles have been updated this week. Most notably, Deborah Grosvenor has started her own agency, and Wendy Schirmer is no longer working as an agent. We wish the best of luck to both of them in their new endeavors.


Publishing News


Simon and Schuster has started a new online, interactive book club for tweens through Everloop. 


A federal judge rejected the Google Book settlement, stipulating that in order to be fair it has to be an opt-in rather than opt-out process. 


No one wants to buy Barnes & Noble, and they may call off the search for a buyer. No word on whether you could get 10% off the entire company if you have a B&N preferred membership card.


Self-published author Amanda Hocking, who has sold a million books on her own, has signed a four-book deal with St. Martin's Press. 


Around The Blogosphere:


What to do when your agent doesn't want to represent your next book.


Want to boost your writing prowess? Maybe the way you're sitting can affect the way you're writing. (And here's the nice thing: if it doesn't, there were no negative side-effects to trying.)

Author Gina Holmes talks about why the best novels don't always sell well   

An author writes an open letter to his French publisher about why their cover will ensure his good novel doesn't sell well. 

Literary Quote Of The Week:

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.  ~E.L. Doctorow

Until next week, then, keep those words flying.

---

Jane Lebak is the author of The Guardian (Thomas Nelson, 1994), Seven Archangels: Annihilation (Double-Edged Publishing, 2008) and The Boys Upstairs (MuseItUp, 2010). At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four children. She is represented by the unrivaled Roseanne Wells of the Marianne Strong Literary Agency.