Thursday, March 10, 2011

Help me critique my cover

I'm reading Zoe Winter's book on being an indie author. It's great, by the way. Written well. Very conversational. It's like you are sitting in a room with her and she's just telling you how she's made a go of it.

Right now I'm on the chapter about cover design. She's talking about hiring a cover artist. She says it's not a necessity that someone be hired to do your book cover, but it's nice if you can afford it. I agree. It'd be nice to get a professional to do it for me, but I don't have the few hundred dollars it would cost. That means I'm doing it myself.

I've worked up something I like but wanted to see if I could get others' take on it. I was going for something bold and eye catching. I also wanted to get across the roughness of and grittiness of the story. So, others, tell me what you think. Did I succeed?
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5 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 10, 2011 at 9:29 AM

    First, I'm no expert. I had a hard time with my cover, but I think I'm learning a little. :-)

    I love the picture and I can see the style you're going for. I think it just needs a little tweeking. In postage stamp size, like a reader browsing Amazon would see it, the title is all jumbled and hard to read. Have you tried white font for the title? You change your name to black font, and I'd also suggest moving the title down a bit. You have some room to play with it with that empty band of red between the buildings and the words. If you bring it down, and make Lucre slightly bigger, it might pop.

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  2. Levi MontgomeryMarch 10, 2011 at 9:39 AM

    I think all you need to do is fix the kerning on FILTHY. I understand the attempt to make all three words the same width, but I don't think it's working. Go ahead and let FILTHY close up a little, let it be narrower than the other two, and see what that looks like.

    Colors and picture are fine, it's just that distracting white space (well, it's red, but it's white space, anyway) between the L and the T that makes it look jumbled.

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  3. Jarrett RushMarch 10, 2011 at 11:05 AM

    Thanks, you two. Very constructive.

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  4. UnknownMarch 10, 2011 at 12:23 PM

    I'd kern the space between the LT and the T in filthy and then enlarge it a tad. Then I'd enlarge your name a bit so that it justifies right and left with the rest of the type. I definitely like the colors and the contrast in the title. Nice work.

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  5. Jarrett RushMarch 10, 2011 at 1:03 PM

    Thanks, Kathleen. Looks like there's some type that needs to be played with tonight.

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