The problem here was that I didn't know the readers-- which led directly to my next insight-- covers weren't working. *sigh* *angst* *bemoaning* *questioning* Hey, I thought they looked fine. Readers thought otherwise which led to fourth stage-- Rethink the process and temporarily put up symbolic covers while I figured out what to do.
Through that all I had learned some important things. Covers must fit not just the story but also the genre into which the book falls. To figure out what kind of look that is, go online, say at Amazon and find books in your genre-- ideally of those selling well. It doesn't work to look at them in bookstores either as expectations are different.
So first step in doing a cover is make sure your concept fits within the genre. Memoirs would be very different than paranormal or apocalyptic, etc.
I thought romances generally should have people on them-- one or both of the lovers. I suspect a well-known author does better with one symbol like say a red rose standing in mid air by itself. That sounds appealing but I decided to go for the protagonists.
One of the things that had gone wrong with my digital paintings was they weren't sufficiently complex, not layered, painted thin for wont of a better way to explain what I mean. They looked more cartoonish than painterly-- despite being painted. *sigh* My backgrounds didn't work either. Obviously a lot of denial and bemoaning was going on at this point before the light finally dawned, and I began to feel excited by what was happening. I had a chance to make something out of my covers that went beyond my original concepts.
For drawing or painting people, it's not like I could see someone's face in a grocery store, for a passing second, then go home and get it right. Staring at people in public doesn't work well either. As for using real models-- economics, i.e. business (got to have release forms etc.), precluded that. My friends weren't in the right age group (coming next old age romances). My kids would kill me if I used their faces, and I cannot imagine them agreeing to pose for a cover.
There is a lot of time required to do a good cover. It's no wonder the top graphics artists charge a lot of money. That cover basically lays out the premise of the story, gives a hint to the type of characters inside, even the era, and ideally provides clues to the emotional conflicts and rewards within. A cover is a story in images.
Besides the cost of hiring someone, for me there was another reason I still wanted to put them together. I am a sculptor and painter. I felt I could use those skills in balancing and creating a cover. Through doing it, I have learned a lot even if admittedly often through mistakes. The current covers have all gone through three cathartic shifts. I can't even say the current ones will be the last ones. Time will tell.
After I had a few dollars coming in from sales, I went looking for stock photos to buy and get the rights to use. Even for a digital painting later, I wanted that license to use the images. With a stock photo you can photo-shop the image into something more like your character if it's not quite right. You can crop and copy paste. Basically you are free to play. There is a limitation on how many times the image can be used in sales of a book. At 500,000, I will be a long ways from needing to worry about that.
Going through countless faces and poses made me feel like a casting director for a movie. My perspective changed for what I hoped to get and what I bought. I wanted features close to the character, the right energy, the right pose, the possibility of fitting in another model in case I wanted both figures, and they had to fit some scene from the book or its essence. So features, pose and energy were on the docket.
I found one site that I especially liked for quality and price. They enable (but don't require) you to buy a block of credits which makes the pictures inexpensive-- Can Stock Photos. You can also offer your own photos there for potential sales. Want to see your face on the cover of a book? You never know...
For my uses, I didn't choose the larger sizes but did get 300 dpi which cost 3 credits. They have set it up so that if you see a model you like, look below their image on the 'buy' page, you can see more images with the same model. That feature alone saves a lot of time and would also make possible a trailer if I later decide to do that.
This post is getting too long. Next blog will go into how I put together one of the covers. The article below is about how the covers have changed with time and readership.
