Yesterday, I finished the first draft of my second book; now
for edits and rewrites. But while the
book is being edited for both content and my usual flagrant misuse of hyphens,
I have to get rolling on the cover. For the
first book, I lovingly tinkered with the cover for a couple of weeks, using
everything I have ever learned in Photoshop.
I ended up with a sort of comic-book looking depiction, and it turned
out a lot of people really hated it (see it still at Goodreads, along with
other nominees for “Worst Cover Art”).
So, about three weeks after publication, I did some alterations and that
is the current cover (Special Offers).
Since the new version went up, at least no one has said it’s the worst
cover they’ve ever seen - an improvement for sure.
Now, I am confronted with designing the cover for the
still-untitled sequel. Below are two early-stage versions of potential cover art. The first sort of depicts a scene from the book:
The other really doesn’t have much
to do with the book but I think it looks cool:
Such a dilemma. Plus, I keep
thinking that I should just cough up some money and get a “pro” to do it
instead. My only hesitation – well, not
really the only one, but the most pressing – is that the covers from artists I
can afford don’t look better than what I can come up with, and most of them
kind of look the same.
I really don’t want the ubiquitous kick-ass
heroine with midriff-baring /skin-tight black leather/ rear-view…you know what
I’m talking about (check out this U-Tube video; it sums up the problem better
than I can). A significant percent of
urban fantasy/paranormal romance books have pretty much the same image gracing
the covers. Hell, my first book's cover is a tame
variation on the theme.
I guess I'll continue trying to come up with a cover that I'm happy with, and if I can't, I'll bite the bullet and fork out some dough. Any feedback is appreciated!
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