{"id":184,"date":"2014-05-11T06:10:41","date_gmt":"2014-05-11T06:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/?p=184"},"modified":"2014-05-11T08:30:05","modified_gmt":"2014-05-11T08:30:05","slug":"what-i-learned-publishing-no-name-key-part-2-the-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/?p=184","title":{"rendered":"What I learned publishing No Name Key &#8211; part 2 &#8211; The Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t do the cover yourself!\u00a0 Get a <em><strong>Professional<\/strong><\/em>! Mike Dennis, one of Jessica&#8217;s writing-group cohorts, spent at least a half hour trying to discourage me from doing the cover.\u00a0 I think he&#8217;s got a point.\u00a0 The cover turned out to be a lot trickier than I thought it would be. I&#8217;d never really thought about the cover of a book.\u00a0 But if you give it a little thought, it&#8217;s the first thing that screams &#8220;Self Published&#8221;.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1iAvsL7\">So off to Google.<\/a>\u00a0 Lots to look at there. A couple of take aways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The cover is rarely a literal interpretation of the book content, rather it should provide a feel for what the book is about.<\/li>\n<li>Color is important.\u00a0 Warm is better than cold.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/bestsellers\/2014\/books\/ref=zg_bs_tab_t_bsar\"> Looking at the bestsellers page on Amazon was helpful.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Again, Amazon rules the world.\u00a0 See those book covers?\u00a0 They&#8217;re not book covers, they&#8217;re itty bitty thumbnails of book covers.\u00a0 That means your cover needs to be legible as a thumbnail.\u00a0 Neither simple, nor obvious that one.<\/li>\n<li>Oh crap.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a back too.\u00a0 And a spine.\u00a0 My head hurts now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Where to begin?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.createspace.com\/Help\/Book\/Artwork.do\"> Back to Createspace for a template.<\/a> Now off to Photoshop.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re not happy or comfortable using Photoshop, now is not the time to try.\u00a0 Pay someone, or use one of the online book cover generators.\u00a0 But before you do, try, at least, to have a bit of an idea of what you&#8217;d like the cover to look like. In our case, for <em>No Name Key<\/em> we&#8217;ve got a few elements that lend themselves to the cover:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-190 \" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/maplowerkeys.jpg\" alt=\"maplowerkeys\" width=\"438\" height=\"817\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s in No Name Key, a sometimes spooky, somewhat deserted part of the Florida Keys.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a really bad hurricane coming.<\/li>\n<li>The woman has red hair.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a murder.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So I started playing around with some photos I&#8217;d taken, a storm, a colorized pic of No Name Key&#8230;\u00a0 Remember, you want to have the rights to use any pictures you choose\u00a0 can&#8217;t just grab stuff off the net, so be a little careful here.\u00a0 But an old map of No Name Key was probably fair game.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-200\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover-small.jpg\" alt=\"NNK-cover-small\" width=\"185\" height=\"241\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-211\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nnk-bkg.png\" alt=\"nnk-bkg\" width=\"188\" height=\"233\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-201\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover1-small.jpg\" alt=\"NNK-cover1-small\" width=\"179\" height=\"233\" \/> <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover3-small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-205\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover3-small.jpg\" alt=\"NNK-cover3-small\" width=\"182\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover4-small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-204\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover4-small.jpg\" alt=\"NNK-cover4-small\" width=\"181\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when I made a mockup of a couple of versions and cut and pasted over Amazon&#8217;s book pages.\u00a0 To see how it might look in real life.\u00a0 Click on the picture below to see a larger version, and look for No Name Key amongst the competition. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-amazon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-186\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-amazon.jpg\" alt=\"NNK-amazon\" width=\"826\" height=\"411\" \/><\/a> The big questions were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Can I read the title and author when the cover is that small?<\/li>\n<li>Does the book stand out from\u00a0everything else, or at least not look like crap next to these other books?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By now, things had gone a little orange, and the bigger font looked better.\u00a0 But I still liked that old map. Then Jessica came to the rescue.\u00a0 Good thing seeing that it&#8217;s her book.\u00a0 She&#8217;s a painter, and had this painting lying around. That painting did a pretty good job evoking the main character, Elle. That plus the photo of No Name Key in the background, lightened up a bit, but translucent lettering, and I think we&#8217;ve got it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-211\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nnk-bkg.png\" alt=\"nnk-bkg\" width=\"212\" height=\"263\" \/>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lady-small1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-209\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lady-small1.jpg\" alt=\"SAMSUNG CSC\" width=\"175\" height=\"262\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-204\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-cover4-small.jpg\" alt=\"NNK-cover4-small\" width=\"202\" height=\"263\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-149\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/No_Name_Key_Cover_for_Kindle.jpg\" alt=\"No_Name_Key_Cover_for_Kindle\" width=\"165\" height=\"264\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The back? \u00a0And spine&#8230; What goes on the back of the book? \u00a0Go look at some books and see,<\/p>\n<p>Usually there are a few things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Some blurbs from a known author about your great book<\/li>\n<li>A summary of what&#8217;s in the book<\/li>\n<li>A bar code for payment scans<\/li>\n<li>Some sort of background<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nnkcover.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-197\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nnkcover.png\" alt=\"nnkcover\" width=\"322\" height=\"235\" \/><\/a>Immediately we&#8217;re presented with a problem. \u00a0You&#8217;re supposed to have a blurb about the book, but the book&#8217;s not out. \u00a0Not only is the book not out but you&#8217;ve got to find credible people to read it, and agree to give you a blurb. \u00a0More than a little daunting. \u00a0Get those blurbs.<\/p>\n<p>Plus the back of the book needs to fit with the front of the book&#8230; here&#8217;s what we came up with.<\/p>\n<p>Look carefully, you&#8217;ll see that old map, colorized as the background, and we made up a nice description to go with the blurbs. \u00a0The extra space at the bottom is to leave room for the barcode.<\/p>\n<p>Once that&#8217;s done, it&#8217;s time to login to CreateSpace and upload your interior PDF and your book cover. \u00a0They&#8217;ll get back to you in 24 hours with any issues. \u00a0Sometimes they don&#8217;t explain issues very well, I didn&#8217;t realize that CreateSpace adds the barcode; I&#8217;d added my own, but they didn&#8217;t say &#8211; &#8220;Hey You &#8211; Lose the Barcode&#8221;. \u00a0They just said the formatting was wrong&#8230; that cost a couple of days.<\/p>\n<p>Once you make it through their process you can order a few proof copies &#8211; we ordered 5 &#8211; just to make sure everything looks great before printing. \u00a0We ended up making some minor changes to the title &#8211; lowering the lettering, and lightening up the back a bit.<\/p>\n<p>A last thing was to have an image of book itself. \u00a0I cheated&#8230; took this and slapped the cover on it&#8230; ended up with this&#8230; like magic.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/3D-Book-Template.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-191\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/3D-Book-Template.jpg\" alt=\"Blank white book w\/path\" width=\"218\" height=\"258\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-COVER-3D-small1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-196\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NNK-COVER-3D-small1.png\" alt=\"NNK-COVER-3D-small\" width=\"172\" height=\"246\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">Don&#8217;t do the cover yourself!\u00a0 Get a Professional! Mike Dennis, one of Jessica&#8217;s writing-group cohorts, spent at least a half hour trying to discourage me from doing the cover.\u00a0 I think he&#8217;s got a point.\u00a0 The cover turned out to be a lot trickier than I thought it would be. I&#8217;d never really thought about&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/?p=184\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.maclawran.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}