The art of the book cover in my opinion is kind of the most important thing a writer should consider after finishing the complete draft of their work. Why? You might ask .
I’m not nearly ready to publish my novel quite yet . But I will be self-publishing some of my short stories connected to my work in progress novel sometime within the next couple of months. Besides finding an editor for my work it’s not too soon while I’m still in my 2nd draft to think about what type of book cover I want for my novel and short stories.
Well before there was Amazon to look for books to read and there were still places like Barns &noble who were king of the book world. A person could walk in and browse a book from the shelf and look at the cover . Just by the interest of the cover they would turned the book around and read the blurb. And if the blurb was good enough they would buy.
I should know . I did that very thing.
Who would have known the design of one little book cover could make a person buy a book. Amazing right? I know.
The way book covers are presented have changed over the years within 50 years or so. They went from just the title on a one color background to full blown out designs of book scenes usually drawn by artist to computer generated photos of scenes or characters with the title on the cover .
I kind of love the old style of the way book covers looked. Those ones that are hand drawn by the artist. It seems now a days and this is just my opinion but I feel every writer that publish a book in the modern day , the book covers look the same. Especially for those romance and fantasy sci-fi novels. They all look the same. Computer generated .
I wish I could hand draw myself but atlas I can’t . I can only edit and manipulate photo and videos . Which is call a photo /video editor. Which I do for a living. I have dabbled with images and designing my own short story book cover/ web cover in photoshop and after effects . However those are just place holders and when it comes to my actual novel and short stories I will be hiring another artist to hand draw all my book covers in the future.
My favorite type of book cover of all time was the original VC Andrew book covers .
- The Flowers in the Attic series .
- The Laundry Series
- Casteel series
And many of her other books .
All of her book covers were a specific kind of book cover called a keyhole step back book cover. It’s not really seen today because its time consuming and expensive but this type of book cover in the front of the book, you would see a key hole cut out with a face and then you open the book and see the face of the horrified character in a scene with her family or what not and on the back of the book which is called a step back you see a full blown out illustrated scene.
That was one of the best parts of reading a VC Andrews book as a teenager. Yes I still am a VC Andrews fan. And I still read her books.
And so this is the type of book cover I dream of having one day. And I know it is expensive . However I am willing to pay the cost whatever it might be for that type of book cover . Hand drawn by an actual artist of course.
If any artist is available and would like for me to see your work so you can possibly draw my book covers please comment down below and let me know. I’m starting to be on the search for an artist who is willing to design something close to the step back book covers that is similar to VC ANDREWS.
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WHAT’S YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT BOOK COVERS?
I want to know so let me know in the comments below.
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