It’s been a while! Editing is going well with 19,000 words left.
I made 3 book cover mock-ups.
This was the first. I like it, but it’s too busy and it doesn’t give many hints as to what the story is about.
This was book cover mock-up #2. You can tell which PicMonkey filters I like best. I’m proud of this edit because the original was total broad daylight. The barrel looks like crap - it should be darker (but still a feature) and stuck in the mud…
Anyway, even though this might be a cool piece of amateur image manipulation, no one I polled liked this as book art. In a bookstore, it wouldn’t stick out. You also can’t see the text from a distance. I think I may make a dark cover like this in the future, but not for this novel.
This cover won by a landslide. I’m still not sure that it’s what I’m going to go with. The text is hard to see at a distance. It doesn't say much about the content or subject of the book. I’m sure I will need to scale everything a bit to make this mock-up work if I decide to stick with it.
Ultimately, I may even go with a professional designer.
Creating these pretend book covers helped me understand what works and what doesn't. Even though I'm not using the designs right now, it wasn't time wasted.
What are your thoughts on what a good book cover looks like? Do you have any suggestions for me? Let me know in a comment.
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