My last week has been spent creating book covers for both my new novel “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” and the teaching units from “The City Water Project”. That means nine covers.
Finding Images
There are online places to seek and purchase novel covers. I’ve looked at a couple and found the covers look nice, but don’t suit what I’ve written.
That leaves me deciding on images and drawing my cover designs. For nature books I can use photographs with the title etc. put on them using the computer. All other book covers must be drawn.
The image must reflect the book or teaching unit. The first water unit has two activities concerned with bottled waters and comparing tastes. The cover image is a water bottle.
For “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” the choice was more difficult. The book spans almost a month. The major storm takes four days yet sets everything else in motion. So, the image needed to reflect the storm.
Readers like seeing people on the covers. I don’t like drawing people. Having the main character, Mindy, standing holding an umbrella seemed so trite. The cover image I’m working with has Mindy fighting the wind and rain with her umbrella on her way to the barn.
Complications in Creating Book Covers
There is more on a book cover than the image. The title and author is on it too. The image may take center stage, but there must be room for the writing.
Another decision is whether or not I will write the title on the image or use the computer to add it to the image as I finish the cover later. With the teaching units I printed the titles on the covers. For my novel, I will use the computer.
Creating the Cover
Sketches are fine. I sketch all my covers and illustrations with pencil first. Then I clear table space and take out my watercolors.
Watercolor pictures look good to me. I like the quality of the colors.
Watercolor is unforgiving. Any mistake is permanent. That is a major reason most artists prefer painting with oils and acrylics.
Digital Art
I know a digital artist and love her work. I still prefer creating book covers and illustrations with watercolor. Then I scan them into my computer.
This lets me add writing, if I want to, crop the image to the size of the book and, most importantly, fix mistakes where lines got too thick and other flaws in my image. I can also add an all over background color instead of using a wash.
Does my method of creating book covers work for everyone? Definitely not. It does work for me.