A Division of Souls book cover, Take 1

[jon_chaisson]

After a slight bump in the road, in which I had to call Shutterstock to get them to process my payment correctly, I purchased a package of 5 downloads (which is good, considering I can use the others for books 2 and 3) and commenced playing with both Photoshop and PicMonkey to get what I wanted. I also consulted A. for her input on the visuals, asking what seemed to work best for a reader like herself.

The picture was taken by Tommy Zhang. :)

The funny thing is that I'd used Photoshop only for the cropping, as I was less than happy with the fonts they had available. And since I needed to work within the submission parameters most want, I had to make sure I had the right ratio. Which meant eyeing it because I can't do ratio math to save my life, measuring the picture using an actual ruler against my monitor (LIKE A BOSS) and considering it done. It's as close to the 1:1.33 ratio as I could get it.

As for the fonts, I used PicMonkey.com (thanks to Meagan for the suggestion!), which is what I'd used for the original outtakes. Goddess knows I did not want to use the Papyrus font (aka the pseudo-Celtic Wiccan font you see on all the New Age books), nor did I want to use the same science fiction fonts everywhere else. Something just that bit unique, but not overly so. The title is Geo Sans Light (bolded), and the subtitle and author name are both De Walpergen Pica.

So, total cost today? Just $41 for the five download credits on Shutterstock. I already own Photoshop, and used the free level of PicMonkey. Not bad at all.


Next up: Continuing the work on the final line edit, and uploading. :)

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I love your cover. I think it's awesome.

I certainly wish I had the skills to make my own covers. You are so versatile!

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

It's one of those things that gets pretty easy once you wade in.
But if you'd like, I could do the covers for you.

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

I'm finding the process a hell of a lot more fun than I expected. Maybe this could be a freelance career for me sometime down the line. ;)

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

Thanks! As soon as I saw that picture on Shutterstock I fell in love with it and knew that was the one. So much so that I wasted a good half hour on hold with them trying to get my payment to go through! Now THAT is dedication. ;)

I'm debating the font for the title, but I keep coming back to this one. It's unexpected, because it looks like it's going to be litfic (which it's not, obviously), but I also wanted to avoid the stereotypical flourishy fantasy fonts, or the Manly Hard SF font as well.

The tricky balance here is that I want the image to be just this side of unique--not so over the top that it's ridiculous, but not so typical of all the other books that it gets lost in the mix. Just enough so that passive browsers will stop on it for a few seconds and say 'hmm, this looks interesting'. If that happens, I've done my job.

One thing I did was look at the picture on my phone and shrink the picture to about an inch square...I was still able to read the title (and just about make out my name), and you could still tell it's a cityscape, so I think I did good. :)

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Is that the font you don't like?

Okay, it's a bit of trouble,
but you can put the picture in a single-page document,
add the title in a text box,
save the whole thing as a screenshot,
then use that as the cover picture.

Wups. I may be jabbering...

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Looking at it a little longer,
I think it might look better with two lines on the upper half.

A Division
of Souls

And the top line beneath your name instead?

But my advice ~is~ suspect...

Re: Wups. I may be jabbering...

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

Heh, no worries! I did in fact try that, and it didn't quite work for me. Like my previous attempt, bannering the title up top left a lot of empty space in the middle. Sure, the buildings are there and they're ominous, but they're not physically active. This is precisely why the Book 2 cover would work with a banner title...there are people in the image and they're moving. :)