Quantcast
Channel: Graham Storrs » self-publishing
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 3

Heaven Cover Reveal Redux

0
0

You know, self-publishing sucks in so many ways – mainly because you have to do all the boring bits yourself – but one of the ways it doesn’t suck is this: you get control over everything. Not that I’m a control freak or anything, it’s just that having control over everything absolutely beats the opposite hands down.

Take the cover for my upcoming novel, Heaven is a Place on Earth. A short while ago I did a big reveal of the cover I was going to use and asked for opinions. I not only got opinions, I also got advice, notably from fellow-writer Patty Jansen. Since I’m a Photoshop/GIMP ignoramus, hardly anything Patty said made sense. So we took it off-line and Patty, who also happens to be an artist (I know this because I’ve seen her stuff in exhibitions) rather than waste bandwidth trying to educate me, showed me what my cover could look like.

It was a real eye-opener. After just one tiny iteration, she’d produced something I thought was streets ahead of my original. In fact, I like it so much it now is the cover of my new book. And here it is!

Heaven is a Place on Earth Cover

Many people, when they saw the previous version, seemed to think the image was too “clean”. They wanted me to make it more “gritty”. As much as I’d have liked to oblige, I just didn’t understand what they meant – until I saw Patty’s version. If only they’d said, “Make it grungy,” I’d have understood! (Even if I still couldn’t achieve it.) Because it is, isn’t it? And grunge is just a perfect fit for the story. As well as the obvious changes, there are some subtleties that only an artistic mind might have come up with – like a tiny bit more cropping on the background that makes such a difference to the composition.

Patty tells me she is willing to take on some small cover design jobs if anyone is interested. She actually enjoys doing this stuff, whereas I tear my hair out and agonise over it and still suck. Takes all kinds, fortunately.

And while I’m on the subject of Heaven is a Place on Earth, I heard back today from an advanced reviewer who seemed to enjoy it. (He used the words “Wow!” “unputdownable” and “amazing”, so I’m taking that as a good sign.) Remember, release day is 3 Jan 2014.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 3

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images