The Cover Debacle

A book's cover is crucial. When someone's browsing a store (real or virtual), the first thing that will grab their attention is the cover. This is particularly important as an unknown writer, as no one is going to be attracted to my book because I wrote it.

Since money was a factor, and I couldn't afford a professional cover artist, I found a girl on deviantart (TheAvies) who had a couple pictures that looked similar to my main characters. I commissioned her for four separate portraits, and as soon as I got the picture of the main character back from her I though it was perfect for the main character. The other portraits will still be used, but mostly to be on the back cover of the paper version.

I'd like to show you the original artwork here:

It's a pretty adorable picture. There is the tip of an extra finger that I erased in post, but really I was happy with her work and she was really excited to do it. And she worked for much less than a professional artist, so that was great. Then I had a friend help with the cover. She did some overlays, which really add some depth, and we added the title and my name.

We ran into an unusual debacle with my name. Originally I had it really tiny under the elbow. My friend said it should be much larger. The black background was an obvious place, so we placed it over the title. I went to Goodreads for some feedback. People seemed to love the cover but many felt my name should go on the bottom. So we tried it. Here's the side-by-side.

Both look really good, and I was torn which to use. The font color on the right was changed to make it easier to read on the new background. Both have advantages and disadvantages. My name's easier to read on the left, but my name at the bottom frames the picture better. But it also looks like a belt. The top is cleaner on the right, too, though. Since I couldn't decide, I put it to a vote on my Facebook. Top won, but barely. So that's what I went with. It's an ebook so I can change it if I want. Maybe I'll keep the ebook as is and do the one on the right for the paperback.

If you want to buy it just click the 'Buy the eBook' button at the top of the page! I will post the link for the POD as soon as it's available.