Do As I Say

Do as I say, and not as I do. This post is somewhat difficult to write, for reasons that shall become apparent. Remember some of my previous posts concerning cover art for your book? And how adamant I was about using a professional to do the design so that your book looks as good as possible? Well, I’ve ignored my own advice with the first release of The Drop series. You can see the cover on the front page of this site and form your own opinion on how it turned out. Why? Why???? I know, I’m a bad example. You probably don’t want to hear my rationalizations, but this is my blog, so I’m going to give them to you anyway. The first is that for First and Next Time, I provided my ideas to the publisher. First for an astronaut floating in space, with a color theme of black, purple, and blue, and Next Time a park bench in front of an old-style university building with four trees in various stages of growth to represent the four seasons. I had the concepts but not the ability to make those covers. For The Drop I also had a concept, but this time the ability. I wanted something more abstract that would define the series and provide the branding people can recognize. I experimented in Canva and quickly came up with the design you see. Which leads to the second reason I did this instead of contracting it out: cost. My concept involves a design that will stay the same with each book, but the color will change. My publisher charges $600 for a cover. Do I want to pay that ten times over the course of the series just to change the color of an identical design? No, thank you. The final reason is that these books are going solely on Amazon. How does that make a difference? Publishing on Amazon is a DYI project and making my own covers fell right in line with that. So, where does that leave us? I still feel passionate about having book covers designed by a professional. When I publish First Step and Assignment Day, that’s exactly what I’ll do. For now, though, I’m going to say that sometimes I’m just not the best of examples.