Publishing Operations Director at Press Books (a HarperCollins UK division), Louise, has been writing a series of pieces for us here on authonomy about the nuts and bolts of producing and publishing a book. Her latest blog looks at one of the most important (and lengthy) parts of the process: the cover. Check it out here

Louise’s other pieces are well worth a read too….her first one’s here then we have
the acquisitions process and the all important MS delivery


Posted: 21/05/2009 14:01:01
Last Edit: 21/05/2009 16:13:33 by authonomy

Many thanks!!!



Posted: 21/05/2009 14:04:18

Freebies still being shelled out to any takers by me. Not that I'd want to compete with the adorable Inky but...

A sampling:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bwind3/

and I'd love it if this site would allow for clicking on book covers to see the images at a larger size.

Posted: 21/05/2009 14:14:41
Last Edit: 21/05/2009 14:15:39 by bwind3

Publishing Operations Director at Press Books (a HarperCollins UK division), Louise, has been writing a series of pieces for us here on authonomy about the nuts and bolts of producing and publishing a book. Her latest blog looks at one of the most important (and lengthy) parts of the process: the cover. Check it out here

Louise’s other pieces are well worth a read too….her first one’s here then we have
the acquisitions process and the all important MS delivery

A cover is important. If I see a generic cover on a book I always advise them to get a new one. Yesterday I reviewed 3 books with the same generic cover. It confuses people and does nothing to interest people in picking up the book.

Posted: 21/05/2009 17:40:17

I've just read the piece about cover design - one bit amazed me - their designers get SIX MONTHS from brief to proofing stage?
I sometimes have to turn round a cover from concept to proof in less than three. The joys of being freelance.

Posted: 21/05/2009 17:43:10

Before you join this place, one of the hardest things to do is the cover (I actually found it more difficult than the pitch). You want something with meaning, that actually says something and will grab people's attention.

My girlfriend didn't like mine (actually she didn't like any of the 20 or so designs I did), but I went with it in the end because I thought it would stand out. Plus, one of the themes of my book is perception and the way you judge and get judged based on the way you look, dress, style your hair etc. so I liked that my cover looks pretty garish (my girlfriend didn't like the yellow at all) because the book isn't as aggressive as the cover or the title suggests.

That's probably a bad thing but in the end you have to go with your gut instinct.

I read a great blog the other week from some guy who has just had his first book published and he talks about the cover designs, and even posts a few of the early ones. The one that was finally chosen is fantastic, but the earlier ones were pretty good too. It's interesting reading to see how the final design came about. I'll try and find the link.

Posted: 21/05/2009 17:44:14

Here it is:

http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/03/judging-a-cover-by-its-book/

Posted: 21/05/2009 17:47:03

I tried my best without a scanner or a good graphics program like Photoshop ... all my covers were done in MS Paint, and they seem to have turned out pretty well. The two I'm proudest of:

The Advance Guard is the only one that used any kind of content not generated in MS Paint, for the sword, the CIA seal and the depiction of Durga. Particularly proud of this one because I tried to make it look more like the cover to a typical espionage novel, with a solid color and maybe a few pictures with mysterious connection to the plot.

Damnation's Hour has the most complex Paint cover I've done to date. The cover's supposed to look like a textured front cover to a Bible, but the "texture" of the book resembles the top half of a human skull face. (If you could see it in higher resolution, you could see that it takes the "Bible" theme further by labelling the novel as a "King James Version.")

Posted: 21/05/2009 17:51:16

Personally I love mine, my son did it for me off a pic we found on the net, altered it enough so couldn't be sued lol. I also think Water Magic's is fantastic, love the colour and the simplicity.

Nobody's Perfect

Posted: 21/05/2009 18:23:04