{"id":36,"date":"2023-04-06T04:40:32","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T04:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2023-04-06T04:40:32","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T04:40:32","slug":"picture-worth-1000-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/06\/picture-worth-1000-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Picture worth 1,000 words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m not a professional designer, but I see book covers all day for my job. I know what I don\u2019t want. But I don\u2019t necessarily know how to make something look how I want for my cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming up with a concept was my first step. Which wasn\u2019t easy. The first book I want to tackle is currently titled No One That Matters<\/strong>. It\u2019s a hockey-ish romance that follows a couple (one is a hockey player, the other works in an imagining lab), their friend (who is an interior designer), and the hockey player\u2019s defensive partner. So I was thinking hockey gear, painting supplies maybe\u2026 something to show who the characters are. I played around with some graphics, tried to use some of the team colors, maybe a little ice in the background to help place it in the hockey universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"

And, well, that\u2019s something, alright. I mean, is it professional? No. Would it work? I guess. Does it give you some idea of what you\u2019re getting? I think so. But I wasn\u2019t really happy with it. I played around with it a bit. I changed the font on the title and shrunk the paint can a bit to give it a little forced perspective. Is this any better? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cover

Another problem I have with this is that while, yes, there is a relationship that develops between the interior designer and the hockey player, it doesn\u2019t include the existing couple\u2019s relationship. I can\u2019t just keep throwing graphics in here to represent everyone. It would be confusing and cluttered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no plan to make this a series so I don\u2019t have to worry about that, at least. I didn\u2019t like using graphics that I was unsure of the provenance. It feels a little cartoonish. I finished messing with this and thought, \u201cWell, maybe I could give this to someone as an example of what I want.\u201d But, do I want to pay someone to make me a cover? I don\u2019t have a lot of money to spend. Quite frankly, I\u2019d rather spend it on an editor. But\u2026 we judge books by their covers. Will anyone pick up this book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I have learned is to leave things alone for a while before I judge it. So, it\u2019s here, but I was thinking about some other things. Such as, who am I? I hate to use the word \u201cbrand\u201d but it\u2019s something to consider. I really prefer something clean. I liked keeping the colors. I looked up the team\u2019s color codes. Helps that one color is white. But this way I got the blue right. And as I was thinking about what else I might want on a cover, I remembered a section of the story. My interior designer sits down to make some thank you cards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

She used the same dark blue for Zach and Derrick\u2019s cards, adding stripes of blue to the white card stock. For Derrick\u2019s she cut out a foam finger from a partial sheet of yellow foam. She added \u201c#1 Fan\u201d on it with a marker and glued it on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hmm. And then, I got into my car and there was, leftover from a hockey game earlier this year, a yellow foam finger. I don\u2019t know if I believe in signs. But I do believe in paying attention. Our minds put things together. So, I snapped a quick picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used some software to pull it out from the background, did a little editing to remove a logo and then slapped that sucker into Canva because the photo editor had a very limited font selection. I pulled up pictures of the team\u2019s jersey. I liked the font on there, looked it up and was able to find a similar font on Canva. So, now I have something right out of the book and it\u2019s a little less complicated. Do I like it? My immediate response is yes, but a couple more days of looking at it will help me decide. What do you think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cover<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not a professional designer, but I see book covers all day for my job. I know what I don\u2019t want. But I don\u2019t necessarily know how to make something look how I want for my cover. Coming up with a concept was my first step. Which wasn\u2019t easy. The first book I want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-art","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beaevansbooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}