Sholm Pearly

Cover design has been on my mind a lot recently.

My long time novel is finished, in the process of being professionally edited. And of course, once I have reviewed all the corrections, it will be time to advertise and publish.

Like everyone I want a beautiful cover that creates emotions, evokes mysteries and make readers gush. I want people to feel all the fun and shock and palpitations they’ll find in the book with just one quick glance.

So obviously I was at a lost. Where in the world can I find the talented artist I need to help me?

There are so many talented artists out there, but finding them is quite a challenge. Living in Japan I thought a mangaka would be perfect, after all they are pro of character design and love fantasy costuming.  I’m always looking for a good anime and I’m not the only one. Mangas are growing in popularity all over the glob, stepping out of the shadows. They are not exotic in English speaking countries anymore. American, British, Australian teens read them, buy them, are familiar with their imagery.

The problem is I have no idea where to find such a wonderful mangaka. One could be living right across from me that I would still have no clue on where to find them… and then, once I would have a drawing I would still need a cover design around it.

So I put the idea on hold. Maybe when I have a little more budget to kindle my project. Once I actually know the ropes of the business and not as I’m now fumbling in the dark.

There actually is companies that specialise in cover design. But I will admit that I have often been very underwhelmed by most English fantasy novel cover that I’ve owned. The idea of slapping on the typical sword baring sexy person on my book kind of hurts. I never liked those covers myself as a reader, finding them always a little embarrassing and ugly.

At the same time I get it, the covers fill in a role: fonts and image types tell prospective readers what to expect. With just one look you should be able to tell the genre, sub genre and tone. I’m not even talking about the quality of the cover, of course it should look pro to even deserve a look, but it should also fit into the norms of the genre or suffer from attracting the wrong crowd, and when they read a blurb they are not interested in, they will not buy.

So I’ve been investigating.

And I got hooked on the videos of Derek Murphy who explains the whole of what to do and what not to do on a book cover

And I’ve discovered canva.com to make covers by myself.

And, of course I’ve tried my hand at it. What do you think about my cover for my short story, Execution Under the Midday Moon? You like it?