I dedicated the weekend to working on the cover for the first Evie Jones short story. For a book, I could commission an artist from school or something to do a nice oil painting, but for short stories, especially when I’ve got 8 ready to go and another 5 that will be after beta reads and edits.
No way in hell am I paying for a cover for 13 of them!
Maybe for a package of Evie Jones shorts so they’re like a short book, but not for each one.
My bf is a photographer and creative director. He’s done covers for his friends, but here’s the thing, you can’t just say make me a cover, you gotta do your research. You have to figure out what you need in a cover based on your genre and give those specs to the artist.
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance usually are an oil painting with the main character. She’s doing something with a weapon more likely if it’s UF, and she might have a guy on there with her or have her back to you if it’s PR. There’s usually an abstract background of one main color, and maybe a slight outline of whatever scene she’s in, like a graveyard or an abandoned street.
My characters are mostly professionals or students studying to be professionals so they’re on the covers in business casual or suits. I’m breaking the leather and jeans mold, that’s for sure. But other than that, I want my covers to look like other UF/PR ones so they don’t look homemade.
It’s harder than it looks. I messed with one picture all of Saturday to make it look like a painting, and it doesn’t quite look oil painty, more like acrylic. So it doesn’t work.
On top of that, can’t figure out how to photoshop in a good background. Bf is working on it, but there are technicalities I didn’t think of (and can’t begin to remember) that he says are getting in the way.
It’s a pain!
My advice? Do your research so you know what you want in a cover and then have about a hundred times more patience than us artistic types tend to have.
Happy Writing 🙂
Comments