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| Man I hate it when this happens. |
For the past few weeks I've been trollin' around stock photo sites trying to pick a cover image for my upcoming novella release. (Eee! It's getting closer! CLOSER! Soon I'll be doing reveals!) It's been tough. At first I thought I found the perfect image somewhere. The models, with some hair color tweakin', more or less looked exactly like my MCs! Yay! But there were some...erm...~issuess~ with covering certain body parts up so Amazon and other retailers would not throw a fit over it. Then there was the other issue: "Oh, God, how am I going to find matching images for the sequels?" There was a whole shoot with these same models, but they were either butt-ass naked (which is actually what I DON'T want. Yeah, I had to take my temperature too!) or at an unworkable angle for a book cover. Finally, after seeing my graphic designer/editor-at-large/best-friend-forever came up with via a prototype...no, this original image HAS to happen! It just has to! And it will happen! As soon as I buy the rights! :P
Phew. Yes, that's been one of my biggest points of stress recently. The other is trying to come up with a series name to list on Amazon and other retailers so they'll show up nicely on search results. I have at least two more similar stories featuring the same characters planned (one of which I am in the midst of writing now) and have never considered naming them as a series until now. It wouldn't be something special or even "official", really. But at this rate it'll probably get named after a very specific flower.
Bah. Rambling! I'm sure most of you other writers know how it is. So tell me, especially you self-publishers, how did you go about picking the "perfect" cover image? And those who went trade, how did you find the cover making process? Did you get to have a lot of input let alone the final ok?
I'm on the road to publishing my novel - The Vrykolakas Deviation. I'm thinking about writing a sequel and so I'm curious about how you go about listing a series on Amazon like you mentioned. I may have to check back with you on that one! :)
ReplyDeleteI found an image for my novel on Fotolia. The girl fit the image in my mind for my MC. My daughter tweaked the photo a bit to give the girl's skin a glowing blue cast and put some lightning bolts in the skies in the background. I'm pleased with the outcome!
This is hearsay, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but when you upload to Amazon there's a field to input the name of your series and what number the book is in the series. It then shows up in the title on the book page. (You can see this with books in a series on Amazon.)
DeleteAnd good luck with your publishing!
Isn't it fun digging through images? I'm glad you found something you love! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's fun when you're not on any deadline =P Then it just enters "AAARGH" territory. But yes, I'm glad with what I've got now. At least that's taken care of!
DeleteOh man that has to be one of the hardest things about self-publishing. Your cover has to be perfect. Good for you for putting in the effort and not backing down from what you really want. Sounds like it's going to be epic :)
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