Cover Stories
I didn’t launch into self-publishing without doing plenty of research. When it comes to cover design the universal refrain is ‘make your cover fit your genre’. Scroll down a list of SF books on Amazon, or peruse the Romance shelves in Waterstones, and you’ll see this clearly demonstrated. Whether this is a good thing or not, is debatable (here’s one dissenting view—and lots of visual evidence. It’s colourful, at least).
In my own case, identifying 'my genre' is already a big problem, as I’ve noted in an earlier post. We’ll return to this issue below.
Almost equally universal is the advice to ‘use a professional designer’. Obviously this can be an expensive option. I fully support the principle of paying properly for professional work; I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t, having made my living as a professional photographer and non-fiction writer for many years. In the course of which I‘ve worked with many professional designers, and developed great admiration for their skills.
And yet… When it came to deciding what to do about covers for Three Kinds of North and, by extension, the rest of The Shattered Moon series, I didn’t follow either of these precepts. You’ve probably noticed and you may well have wondered why. So let me take you through some of the thought process that led to the results you see below.
Obviously cost is a factor. To do self-publishing properly, some outlay is pretty well unavoidable. There is a low-cost option which you might like to know about if you’re thinking of following in my footsteps; just search online for ‘pre-made book covers’ to see more. Typically, the covers available through these sites are concepts that designers have created as one of a sheaf of options for a client who has chosen a different one. These ‘rejects’ aren’t bad designs, they just didn’t suit the client as well as one of the alternatives. You can acquire one for a fee usually less than £100, say £50–75.
I looked at pages and pages of these designs, mostly for SF, and lots of them would work very well if I had written a regular space opera, but none of them even came close to a fit for Three Kinds of North. Well, of course; it’s hardly a regular space opera, or indeed any ‘normal’ kind of SF book. A generic cover clearly wasn’t going to work.
As I ruled out using a pre-made cover, I also saw that I might face a drawn-out process trying to convey my vision to a designer. I am sure it would be possible with the right designer, but even finding that person might take some time. I’m not getting any younger and I had been thinking about self-publishing long enough. I wanted to get cracking.
And so… well, I’ve been a professional photographer for many years, and I have enough faith in my own work to believe that I have some striking images in my Lightroom collection. I also have a fairly good skillset in Photoshop. I thought it was at least worth having a go myself. And if I could get it right, though I wouldn’t be flagging a clear-cut genre in the recommended way, I might at least convey something of the flavour of the book and the series.
For more about how I actually arrived at the cover design for Three Kinds of North (which of course sets the pattern for the rest of the series), read on.
In my own case, identifying 'my genre' is already a big problem, as I’ve noted in an earlier post. We’ll return to this issue below.
Almost equally universal is the advice to ‘use a professional designer’. Obviously this can be an expensive option. I fully support the principle of paying properly for professional work; I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t, having made my living as a professional photographer and non-fiction writer for many years. In the course of which I‘ve worked with many professional designers, and developed great admiration for their skills.
And yet… When it came to deciding what to do about covers for Three Kinds of North and, by extension, the rest of The Shattered Moon series, I didn’t follow either of these precepts. You’ve probably noticed and you may well have wondered why. So let me take you through some of the thought process that led to the results you see below.
Obviously cost is a factor. To do self-publishing properly, some outlay is pretty well unavoidable. There is a low-cost option which you might like to know about if you’re thinking of following in my footsteps; just search online for ‘pre-made book covers’ to see more. Typically, the covers available through these sites are concepts that designers have created as one of a sheaf of options for a client who has chosen a different one. These ‘rejects’ aren’t bad designs, they just didn’t suit the client as well as one of the alternatives. You can acquire one for a fee usually less than £100, say £50–75.
I looked at pages and pages of these designs, mostly for SF, and lots of them would work very well if I had written a regular space opera, but none of them even came close to a fit for Three Kinds of North. Well, of course; it’s hardly a regular space opera, or indeed any ‘normal’ kind of SF book. A generic cover clearly wasn’t going to work.
As I ruled out using a pre-made cover, I also saw that I might face a drawn-out process trying to convey my vision to a designer. I am sure it would be possible with the right designer, but even finding that person might take some time. I’m not getting any younger and I had been thinking about self-publishing long enough. I wanted to get cracking.
And so… well, I’ve been a professional photographer for many years, and I have enough faith in my own work to believe that I have some striking images in my Lightroom collection. I also have a fairly good skillset in Photoshop. I thought it was at least worth having a go myself. And if I could get it right, though I wouldn’t be flagging a clear-cut genre in the recommended way, I might at least convey something of the flavour of the book and the series.
For more about how I actually arrived at the cover design for Three Kinds of North (which of course sets the pattern for the rest of the series), read on.
The first step was a trawl through my image collection: 30,000-plus photos to look at, though nearly all could be dismissed in a fraction of a second. The gestation of The Shattered Moon goes back nearly as far as my photographic career, but it had never occurred to me to create a collection of potential cover images as I went along. Eventually I had a reasonably compact selection to consider.
There was one I kept coming back, and this became my final choice. I took it in 2005, quite early in the digital phase of my career, on Moelwyn Bach in Eryri (Snowdonia). I’d always liked the way the light made something out of such simple subject matter. And for me there’s a sneaky satisfaction in its non-compliance with the so-called 'rule' of thirds (I had a rant about this years ago on my photography website).
I played around with this and a few other contenders; should I use the photo straight, or tweak the colours for a more ‘other-worldly’ feel, or even do something a bit more extreme? In the end the version that grabbed me uses Photoshop’s ‘Find Edges’ filter. This can give really messy and indecipherable results with some images but with the right raw material it can be very striking.
There was one I kept coming back, and this became my final choice. I took it in 2005, quite early in the digital phase of my career, on Moelwyn Bach in Eryri (Snowdonia). I’d always liked the way the light made something out of such simple subject matter. And for me there’s a sneaky satisfaction in its non-compliance with the so-called 'rule' of thirds (I had a rant about this years ago on my photography website).
I played around with this and a few other contenders; should I use the photo straight, or tweak the colours for a more ‘other-worldly’ feel, or even do something a bit more extreme? In the end the version that grabbed me uses Photoshop’s ‘Find Edges’ filter. This can give really messy and indecipherable results with some images but with the right raw material it can be very striking.
The other element that was added is the direction arrow marked on the rock. This was all happening not long after my partner and I had decided that Three Kinds of North was the title for the first book, reserving The Shattered Moon for the series as a whole, so the idea of having some kind of map/compass reference was fresh in my mind. The arrow was easily drawn using the Line tool, but it took a fair amount of work with Layer Masks and other tools to get it looking reasonably convincing as having been carved into the stone. I spent a lot of time looking at it at 300% magnification, which no one else will ever see.
The remaining question was the typography, and specifically the font. I tried lots of alternatives, some a lot more fancy, but in the end we liked the simplicity of Big Caslon.
Having done this for Three Kinds of North, I had of course committed myself to following the basic pattern for all the books and bonus stories. Since then I’ve been through the same process for six more published novels, as well as other pieces like Three Kinds of Now (as pieces like this currently only exist as ebooks or online reads, they only require the equivalent of a front cover and the process is much simpler).
Of course there’s a lot more to cover design than just picking an image and running it through a Photoshop filter, but I appreciate it gets more technical and is probably of limited interest if you’re not interested in designing your own covers. However, my experience may be of interest to some and may be helpful for anyone considering tackling cover design for themselves. If this might be you, read on…
As I’ve said, I’m lucky in having a modicum of design experience and a decent set of Photoshop skills, plus a lot of my own photos to draw on, but it still took a lot of time and experimentation to come up with a formula that works for me. The concept is one thing, and as the previous post indicated it took a while to get this right—or should I say, to arrive at something I was happy with. But even when the concept is clear, there are plenty of challenges in the execution.
Let’s start by considering ebook covers, as these are relatively (stress relatively) straightforward. Essentially a standard ebook cover is a rectangle with a 2x3 aspect ratio, same as 35mm film and most DSLR and many mirrorless camera images. Some cover designs (including many from traditional publishers) involve montages of more than one image. This is where a lot of inexperienced people come unstuck. Blending two or more images requires matching several elements, notably lighting and perspective. Get these wrong and it will stick out like a sore thumb for many people. To me, with half a century of experience in photography, including thirty years as a professional, it’s absolutely glaring. Clearly some people can’t see anything wrong with such results, or they wouldn’t proceed with such designs, but even those who might struggle to articulate what’s wrong will often see that something is. An amateurish cover is going to suggest that the writing is likely to be equally weak. (I hope that, whatever else they may be, my covers aren’t amateurish.)
All of my covers are based on a single image, and apart from the Find Edges filter I mentioned in my first post, the only major modification to any of them has been cropping. In several cases, like Three Kinds of North and The Sundering Wall, the original is landscape format and I’ve extracted a portrait format image. With others (Vows and Watersheds, The Skilthorn Congress, Stones and Secrets) cropping is very slight or non-existent.
Besides the base image, all that most ebook covers need is some text. Typically it’s no more than the title and the author’s name. I’ve also included a line giving each book’s place in the series.
The remaining question was the typography, and specifically the font. I tried lots of alternatives, some a lot more fancy, but in the end we liked the simplicity of Big Caslon.
Having done this for Three Kinds of North, I had of course committed myself to following the basic pattern for all the books and bonus stories. Since then I’ve been through the same process for six more published novels, as well as other pieces like Three Kinds of Now (as pieces like this currently only exist as ebooks or online reads, they only require the equivalent of a front cover and the process is much simpler).
Of course there’s a lot more to cover design than just picking an image and running it through a Photoshop filter, but I appreciate it gets more technical and is probably of limited interest if you’re not interested in designing your own covers. However, my experience may be of interest to some and may be helpful for anyone considering tackling cover design for themselves. If this might be you, read on…
As I’ve said, I’m lucky in having a modicum of design experience and a decent set of Photoshop skills, plus a lot of my own photos to draw on, but it still took a lot of time and experimentation to come up with a formula that works for me. The concept is one thing, and as the previous post indicated it took a while to get this right—or should I say, to arrive at something I was happy with. But even when the concept is clear, there are plenty of challenges in the execution.
Let’s start by considering ebook covers, as these are relatively (stress relatively) straightforward. Essentially a standard ebook cover is a rectangle with a 2x3 aspect ratio, same as 35mm film and most DSLR and many mirrorless camera images. Some cover designs (including many from traditional publishers) involve montages of more than one image. This is where a lot of inexperienced people come unstuck. Blending two or more images requires matching several elements, notably lighting and perspective. Get these wrong and it will stick out like a sore thumb for many people. To me, with half a century of experience in photography, including thirty years as a professional, it’s absolutely glaring. Clearly some people can’t see anything wrong with such results, or they wouldn’t proceed with such designs, but even those who might struggle to articulate what’s wrong will often see that something is. An amateurish cover is going to suggest that the writing is likely to be equally weak. (I hope that, whatever else they may be, my covers aren’t amateurish.)
All of my covers are based on a single image, and apart from the Find Edges filter I mentioned in my first post, the only major modification to any of them has been cropping. In several cases, like Three Kinds of North and The Sundering Wall, the original is landscape format and I’ve extracted a portrait format image. With others (Vows and Watersheds, The Skilthorn Congress, Stones and Secrets) cropping is very slight or non-existent.
Besides the base image, all that most ebook covers need is some text. Typically it’s no more than the title and the author’s name. I’ve also included a line giving each book’s place in the series.
Another common mistake is making the text, particularly the title, too small. Unless it’s pure self-effacement, this usually happens because someone doesn’t want to obscure important areas of the image. But what this actually tells us is that the selected image doesn’t include enough space. This is something I learned early in my professional career. An image that works brilliantly as a framed print or full-page illustration may not work so well as a cover if it doesn’t allow some relatively neutral space for text. This can be even more true of magazine covers, where there’s often considerably more text on the cover.
There are still decisions to be made, notably font, size and placement of title and author name. Getting them placed and aligned should really be done with great precision. This is, I won’t say easy, but a routine operation in professional apps like Photoshop or InDesign (which most professional designers use). I haven’t used Canva (a very popular choice) enough to know if the same is true, but I’d expect it’s catered for in Canva Pro if not the free version. But if you have a decent eye you might be able to do a 'good enough' job purely by eyeballing it. (A word of warning; it seems many of the stock images available in the free version of Canva aren't licensed for use on book covers. Not a problem if you're using your own images, but otherwise, beware.)
Ebooks are one thing; paperbacks and hardbacks are considerably more complicated. Point 1, you can’t do anything until you know your final page count, which obviously depends on a lot of decisions you make once the text is complete: font, size, formatting, and book specs including page size and paper choice. In my case, once I’ve completed interior formatting (using Atticus), and chosen the finished size and choice of paper, I can get a template file from my paperback publishing platform, IngramSpark.
This has the correct spine width and also includes 'bleed marks'. You don’t want to allow any text to creep beyond these marks. In my case, using Photoshop, my first step is to set Guides. A tedious job (four Guides each are needed for front, back, and spine) but once done, I can see where the bleed limits are at any moment. (They’re the faint turquoise lines in the screenshot, which don’t show when printed or saved for other uses.) I think with Three Kinds of North I still got a bit too close to the edge and I also made a mistake using black for some of the text on the spine. I’ve learned a few things with each succeeding book.
The Photoshop screenshot shows the completed cover for The Sundering Wall. Take note of the Layers window on the right; 19 Layers in total. The Background layer is the original template from IngramSpark; every other Layer is a specific element I’ve added. For instance, just for the spine there’s the block of colour for the background, three separate text elements, and a logo. The use of Layers allows me to move or otherwise modify each element individually at any point.
Once the design is complete in Photoshop it’s exported to a pdf, which is what I’ll send to IngramSpark, along with another pdf file for the interior. For ebooks, you need a jpeg image (front cover only) and an epub file for the rest (again, in my case, exported from Atticus).
And that’s about it; but if anyone has any further questions, feel free to ask.
There are still decisions to be made, notably font, size and placement of title and author name. Getting them placed and aligned should really be done with great precision. This is, I won’t say easy, but a routine operation in professional apps like Photoshop or InDesign (which most professional designers use). I haven’t used Canva (a very popular choice) enough to know if the same is true, but I’d expect it’s catered for in Canva Pro if not the free version. But if you have a decent eye you might be able to do a 'good enough' job purely by eyeballing it. (A word of warning; it seems many of the stock images available in the free version of Canva aren't licensed for use on book covers. Not a problem if you're using your own images, but otherwise, beware.)
Ebooks are one thing; paperbacks and hardbacks are considerably more complicated. Point 1, you can’t do anything until you know your final page count, which obviously depends on a lot of decisions you make once the text is complete: font, size, formatting, and book specs including page size and paper choice. In my case, once I’ve completed interior formatting (using Atticus), and chosen the finished size and choice of paper, I can get a template file from my paperback publishing platform, IngramSpark.
This has the correct spine width and also includes 'bleed marks'. You don’t want to allow any text to creep beyond these marks. In my case, using Photoshop, my first step is to set Guides. A tedious job (four Guides each are needed for front, back, and spine) but once done, I can see where the bleed limits are at any moment. (They’re the faint turquoise lines in the screenshot, which don’t show when printed or saved for other uses.) I think with Three Kinds of North I still got a bit too close to the edge and I also made a mistake using black for some of the text on the spine. I’ve learned a few things with each succeeding book.
The Photoshop screenshot shows the completed cover for The Sundering Wall. Take note of the Layers window on the right; 19 Layers in total. The Background layer is the original template from IngramSpark; every other Layer is a specific element I’ve added. For instance, just for the spine there’s the block of colour for the background, three separate text elements, and a logo. The use of Layers allows me to move or otherwise modify each element individually at any point.
Once the design is complete in Photoshop it’s exported to a pdf, which is what I’ll send to IngramSpark, along with another pdf file for the interior. For ebooks, you need a jpeg image (front cover only) and an epub file for the rest (again, in my case, exported from Atticus).
And that’s about it; but if anyone has any further questions, feel free to ask.
