Cover Evolution

In 2013, I made my first venture into cover design. Scary, and I didn't really know much about what I was doing, but I was happier with the results than I had been with the Createspace Cover Creator's results. I posted about that back then. I've learned a great deal since then, and figured out a few things about what I do and don't like about the covers I see online and in bookstores and WHY. I finally decided to redo the covers I'd done 3 years ago. Results?

The original covers:

The new covers:

The new covers are live as of last month. I also compiled those four novels into a Kindle e-book collection. I enjoyed doing the cover for that as well.

If you enjoy Christian romances with a suspense twist, check them out!

Matte Book Covers - Not Always User-Friendly

For years, I've enjoyed reading. Decades actually. Until about a year ago, when suddenly, I found myself feeling averse to reading some of the books I had bought. Every time I'd pick them up, my skin would crawl. Totally bizarre. I tried to ignore it, but the longer I handled them, the worse it got. Finally, I started avoiding my to-be-read (TBR) library altogether. A whole bookcase full of books collecting dust.

Then one day, I picked up a book in the local bookstore, and for the first time, I had an adverse reaction to one there. The same creepy-crawly skin response as I'd had to books in my TBR library. Ugh. Great. It was spreading. Then I noticed something about that particular book. It had a matte cover. Not just any matte. A rubbery one with a soft, greasy texture.

When I got home, I went through my TBR library. Sure enough. All the books I'd had an adverse reaction to had the same type cover. I'm not talking about the semi-glossy matte some publishers have been using for years, sometimes even in combination with glossy (Penguin and its subsidiaries like to use both together, as well as the semi-glossy matte, for example). I'm talking about the rubber-textured matte that has no glossy at all.

I've always preferred the look of glossy. I assumed visual preference was why most books in my normal library - fiction and non-fiction - are glossy-covered. The remainder are semi-glossy matte or a combination of glossy and semi-glossy matte. Most of the books I've read and loved were bought in local bookstores or were purchased on Amazon as published by indie authors who used Createspace (which until recently offered only glossy covers). As it turns out, it's not just personal preference that weighs into the equation for me.

I have vaccine-induced neurological issues. As a result, full-matte covers are seriously freaky to handle. The texture makes my skin crawl. I wish I was joking. I tried telling others that, but I think they're pretty well convinced it's all in my head. A dear friend emailed me today - for the first time, she's getting matte-covered books in the mail, too, and having the same adverse reaction. She'd never gotten one before, so she hadn't given it much thought, even when I mentioned having issues. Now she totally gets it! I feel vindicated, though I hate that anyone else has the same problem I do. (Our husbands aren't keen on them either. I won't relay what my hubby compared the texture to. It's gross.)

My solution? Other than never buying a book unless it has a glossy cover (yes, I seriously considered it), that is. I asked my mother to make a cloth book cover large enough to easily fit on any fiction novel (we used the largest one I could find in my TBR library to determine size). She's brilliant when it comes to that sort of stuff, and I don't sew. I love the cover she made.

Now I just have to get past a now-ingrained aversion so I can actually get my TBR books read. That's not going to be easy. I have to touch them to put them in the cloth cover. It's unlikely that they will remain in my library once I've read them (assuming I don't get rid of them without even reading them). I can guarantee I won't be reading them a second time, no matter how much I end up liking them. I don't want to need gloves anytime I rearrange my library. Know what I mean?

Anyway, for all you authors who have a say in what kind of cover your books have, you might consider this. If you don't, you may create an aversion to your books in the minds of some readers without them even understanding why. It took me a year to figure out why I reacted so badly to some books. I still can't make myself pick one up to read it, even with a cloth cover to protect my nervous system. I feel sick to my stomach when I reach for one, probably because I've reacted to the same books multiple times. (Given it's summer and hot, and handling fabric is icky, I'm not particularly inclined to conquer this right now either.)

For you publishers who are adding rubbery-matte covers, please reconsider. Readers like me will eventually stop buying matte-covered books. Cloth book covers available to me or not, I won't want to hassle with it, or handle such books even for a few minutes to put them inside the cloth cover. I buy a lot of books. I read a lot of books. I doubt I and my friend are the only readers who have medical issues causing difficulty with handling rubbery-matte covers. Please use either glossy or the semi-glossy matte. No bad reactions there that I've heard about. Side benefit - they don't smudge and fingerprint as badly as rubbery-matte covers do.

How many readers have that creepy-crawly, and possibly even sick, reaction and don't know why? It makes me wonder, especially in light of the increasing prevalence of neurological problems induced by vaccines, medications, and other environmental factors. Just something to keep in mind.


By the way, if you're a reader who has this sort of issue with full-matte-covered book - cloth book cover! Get yourself one! If you're crafty or know someone who is, find a fabric with a texture you like and make one or a dozen. At least you'll be able to read without your skin crawling or getting sick to your stomach. (Well, assuming the story itself doesn't cause that reaction. *G*)

I'm Having WAY Too Much Fun Here....

Have you ever procrastinated about doing something the Lord is nudging you to do? Thought "That's not really reasonable", "I doubt I'd like that", "I'd have to learn something new and don't really have the time", or some other similar, empty excuse?

Yeah, well, that was me in the very recent past. I'd felt the Lord poking me in the direction of doing my own book cover designs for several weeks (months actually - but we'll pretend it was only weeks *G*). With my first two books, Beyond Hope and Promises, I used Create Space's cover creator to design the covers. They have some great templates to work with, and you can use whatever photos you like. But they also are very restricted as far as fonts, text sizes, and colors (not to mention all text has to be the same color).

I just sucked it up and dealt with it. After all, doing the entire cover - front, spine, and back - from scratch - that's an unreasonable task to lay on my doorstep, Lord. I have NO idea what I'm doing!

Then it came time to work on cover design ideas for my new books to be released beginning this summer - the Donovan Legacy series. I played with the CS cover creator. Uh, workable, but... I didn't really like the results. So I did a combination of CS cover creator and Photoshop. Still not happy, but better. Mostly. Sort of. Great, my perfectionism and nit-picky side kicked in. Argh! Okay, so NOT what I really want. Deal with it. Accept it and move on. (Yeah, cause that was actually gonna happen.)

I ran across a how-to book I'd gotten a while back for Photoshop. Looked through it, played with a couple of things, and decided the book was written by someone who liked to hear themselves talk and tossed it aside. (Now, I can't find the thing to save my life - probably packed it. Doh!) Kind of reinforced the whole "too time-consuming" excuse. So I let it go.

Then, a friend wanted a cover design - front cover only for an e-book. She was telling me what she wanted. It couldn't have been more simple, and I basically said so. She asked if I could do it. She wasn't wanting anything fancy using techniques I didn't know and hadn't used for other types of projects. So, why not? By the time we got through playing, I'd completed 4 front cover designs for her, plus I'd learned a couple of new things about PS.

Well, that kind of blew part of my excuse for not doing my own cover designs. Yeah, I still had a lot to learn about PS, but I already knew enough to be dangerous by that point. he he

The nudges that had turned to pokes became jabs. Get your backside in gear. That first book will be ready for publication before you know it.

All right. All right. I'm going.

And thus I ended up going from this:

 

to this (PS work with the photos, changed font):

 

to this:

Finally, a result I was actually HAPPY with! And you know what? I learned some new stuff, and man, did I ever have fun! In fact, I got a bit addicted at that point. Since this series is 4 books, and I want some continuity to the cover designs (yeah, nice excuses, huh?), I decided to go ahead and re-design all 4. After all, the next one won't be out for months after this first one, so if I decide to change something, I've got PLENTY of time.  And thus I went from:

To these:

Only one problem. They're done. I've nit-picked them to my heart's content and worked myself to a standstill. Now what do I do?

Oh! That new series I'm currently writing.... Yeah!

So, fess up! What have you procrastinated on in the past and found yourself wondering after the fact why you did so? Or are you currently procrastinating about something you feel the Lord nudging you to do?

(BTW, as a side note - my cover designs involve a combination of my own photography and the work of other photographers. With regards to the latter, whether I get the photos for free or for a charge - and always with photographer notification in the mix - I provide credit on the copyright page of the each to the photographer(s).  Regardless of whether I pay for the copyright license or the photographer generously shares their work for free, I believe they deserve credit for their work.)