A post from the Word Lovers group appeared on my Facebook feed this morning, directing me to a story which impressed me.
High school English teacher Ryan Buck deserves praise and the $2,000 grant he received from the Book Love foundation to purchase books for his classroom library.
https://www.d120.org/english-teacher-ryan-buck-earns-book-love-award/
I’ve chuntered on about designing book covers several times on this blog, including here and here.
I’ve recently been redesigning the covers of my crime novel series for launching them as eBooks this summer.
The importance of a book cover can’t be overstated, as it’s the first thing that a potential reader sees. Your story takes on an identity from the image on the cover, the colours used and the typography.
https://www.designhill.com/design-blog/role-of-book-cover-design-in-your-books-success/
Recently, I’ve seen several articles about Facebook’s 3D Photos software being adapted to use for book covers. It’s discussed here:
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/facebook-3d-photos-bring-your-book-covers-to-life/
I have mixed feelings about it. It would work well on Fantasy and Science Fiction stories, but less so for Crime tales. As for Erotica, I’m staying away from that area—after all, what ‘object’ would you choose to highlight in the foreground of the image…the mind boggles, as might the cover!
The movement of an image would certainly catch the eye, as it’s how we’re hardwired, but is it a bit naff, a gimmicky trick, a bit tasteless like black velvet paintings?
What do you think?
As part of building an online author platform this year, I’ve been coming up with different designs for the covers of my five Cornish Detective novels, as well as monkeying around with Celtic style fonts and producing banners to go across the top of significant pages.
I favour IrfanView to create images, as Gimp confuses me with its complexity.
I’ve been keeping an eye on trends in book cover design, mainly via the excellent The Book Designer website—site owner Joel Friedlander tackles more than just book design—his newsletter is worth subscribing to.
In the last year, there have been lots of covers with the title of the book in big capitals in separate blocks down the cover. It may just be a fad that passes, but it affected my design for the last novel I wrote. It opens with a murdered painter’s body being found encapsulated in a concrete statue in an underwater dive park. The statue resembles the Venus de Milo.
Trawling through copyright-free image libraries, I chanced upon a photograph that resembles the famous statue, so I used it as a basis for a cover. It needs finessing, as the face is obscured and I’ll try changing fonts and colours.
Researching book covers this morning, I stumbled upon a Latvian artist called Aniko Kolesnikova who produces book covers that are dazzlingly beautiful…collectible in their own right.
Fairytale Book Covers By Latvian Artist Aniko Kolesnikova
(click through Continue Reading to see all three pages)
Right! That’s put me in my place!
As part of building an online author platform this year, I’ve been coming up with different designs for the covers of my five Cornish Detective novels, as well as monkeying around with Celtic style fonts and producing banners to go across the top of significant pages.
I favour IrfanView to create images, as Gimp confuses me with its complexity.
I’ve been keeping an eye on trends in book cover design, mainly via the excellent The Book Designer website—site owner Joel Friedlander tackles more than just book design—his newsletter is worth subscribing to.
In the last year, there have been lots of covers with the title of the book in big capitals in separate blocks down the cover. It may just be a fad that passes, but it affected my design for the last novel I wrote. It opens with a murdered painter’s body being found encapsulated in a concrete statue in an underwater dive park. The statue resembles the Venus de Milo.
Trawling through copyright-free image libraries, I chanced upon a photograph that resembled the famous statue, so I used it as a basis for a cover. It needs finessing, as the face is obscured and I’ll try changing fonts and colours.
Researching book covers this morning, I stumbled upon a Latvian artist called Aniko Kolesnikova who produces book covers that are dazzlingly beautiful…collectible in their own right.
Fairytale Book Covers By Latvian Artist Aniko Kolesnikova
(click through Continue Reading to see all three pages)
