New Novel coming, what do you think of the cover?

[dkersten]

My next novel will be out in about 2 weeks (edit, here it is! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018J54YGS).  I was hoping to get some feedback on the cover art.  I had to dig deep with my limited photoshop/illustrator skills... I almost gave up a few times to just hire an artist.  I had my daughter, who is in college for art right now (graphic design) working on it,  but she is just a Freshman and although she is fantastic with charcoal realism, her ability to take a description and turn it into something great is still not developed.  Her results were always a few steps behind what I was able to come up with on my own.


I found a photoshop brush I liked that someone created (DNA brush), created a repeating pattern from it, imported it into Illustrator as a brush and applied it to a path in the shape of the infinity symbol.  Then I set the perspective, created some masks for the back part of the strand, and then applied effects...  I also had to go through manually and create a mask to increase the contrast of the double helix to get it to stand out from the rest, which was a pain.  Overall I am happy with the result.  This is just a snap of the cover, I had to do the spine and back too for the paperback version.  It is based on my first cover so it matches nicely (same fonts, same backdrop with different masks, etc.)

[harveybirdman]

What about making the infinity symbol symmetrical and have it be still composed of DNA?

[dkersten]

It looked too generic.. I wanted something more dynamic.  Originally I was going to make it one long strand and have it laid out to twist into the symbol with the two other ends trailing off the back part of the symbol, wrapping around the back of the cover, but I just couldn't make it look like I wanted.  I'm definitely no artist, just a hack trying to pretend, lol. 

[CheffoJeffo]

Definitely don't straighten out the infinity symbol. I think you were wise not to wrap around the infinity symbol unless you want to do up distinct covers for Print and eBook.

It's a decent, clean cover that is a natural progression from the first book (I like the fact you kept the background and changed the colour).

Short of going with a professional cover designer, I think you have achieved what you set out to do. It's better-looking than 99% of the SP stuff out there and gives me strong indications of what to expect inside (now, if those clues are wrong, that's on you!).

[dkersten]

Thanks CheffoJeffo, I think it came out better than what the covers artists are charging $200-500 for, but certainly not professional level.  Same goes for the stuff inside, I would love to hire pro editors, artists, etc., but it would run well over $6,000 and I barely made over $5k on The Freezer so far...

gives me strong indications of what to expect inside (now, if those clues are wrong, that's on you!).

It's ALL on me, lol, but I'm OK with that.  I certainly hope the stuff inside is good.. I had one friend Beta/proof read it and he was only able to find one screwed up sentence and one place where a semicolon probably doesn't belong.  I'm pretty happy with that (no plot holes, no contradictions or mistakes, etc.) considering I haven't done a final pass and finished the editing.  Of course he liked the story and said it was a strong followup to my first, but his opinion is skewed since I'm a friend, so I can't rely too much on that, lol. I think the story will be a good read, I certainly enjoyed writing it.  This time around I got to add more fun action scenes since much of the world and many characters are developed already.  I was shooting for 100k words and ended at 152k!

[CheffoJeffo]

$5K is outstanding (particularly given the current state of advances and earn-outs on the trad side of the house) -- congratulations, good luck and keep it up!

[ark_ader]

I think the cover is visually very interesting and would catch my eye in a book store.

Well done! 

[Kier]

Compared to most Self-Pub books out there, the cover is great. Even the people who are paying $200 a cover are ending up with a photoshopped wreck.

Yours looks good. Simple and clean.

And 5k on a self-pub booked is so far beyond solid, I can't even tell you! Most sell just a couple copies to their friends and family.

Beta readers are great. Always nice to have few who have read your previous works, but strive for a couple who havent read anything prior as they fall too quickly into the "friend" zone. The good news is if the story flows and the reader is caught up in it then they don't care about the occasional sentence structure or comma or switching heads in POV as one might think(their self-editor is forgotten and they just enjoy the read). Its when the story itself lags that readers notice the issues.

[dkersten]

The good news is if the story flows and the reader is caught up in it then they don't care about the occasional sentence structure or comma or switching heads in POV as one might think(their self-editor is forgotten and they just enjoy the read). Its when the story itself lags that readers notice the issues.

I agree with this completely.  I know my style of writing is lacking, but so far I seem to be good enough at telling the story that nobody complains.

I never expected to sell more than a few dozen books, so to sell over 2500 in my first 10 months is pretty darn awesome.  It makes me seriously consider writing as a potential revenue stream that will get me one step closer to early retirement.  The only problem is that stream slows down fast when you don't keep feeding new content, lol.

[BorgDog]

Looks pretty good, I look forward to reading it as well.

The only thing I can say is the glow behind the title and the strand seems a bit strong/large maybe dense is the word I'm looking for in comparing it to your first one, and was the first thing I noticed.

[dkersten]

Looks pretty good, I look forward to reading it as well.

The only thing I can say is the glow behind the title and the strand seems a bit strong/large maybe dense is the word I'm looking for in comparing it to your first one, and was the first thing I noticed.

Thanks.  I think I will tone the glow around the letters down just a hair for the screen version.  I think since there are more letters the glow looks more intense than it did on the first book cover.  The printed version comes out muted quite a bit because it doesn't have a back light like a monitor.  I'm happy with the glow around the strand, especially as the image shrinks down.. The ads I run on Amazon are tiny little thumbnails and the glow helps the symbol pop at that size. 

[vwalbridge]

Did I miss something? Why is only the letter "T" black?

[harveybirdman]

maybe because if you leave it out it's Immoral?

[dkersten]

maybe because if you leave it out it's Immoral?

You, sir, get a gold star.   

[Howard_Casto]

I really like it, but something is rubbing me the wrong way.  I think it's the font.  Is there a more, for lack of a better term "sciencey" font you could use?  Times is a bit old school for such a cutting edge subject.

[dkersten]

I really like it, but something is rubbing me the wrong way.  I think it's the font.  Is there a more, for lack of a better term "sciencey" font you could use?  Times is a bit old school for such a cutting edge subject.

I'm sure there is a better font, but I am hesitant to change from the font used on The Freezer.  It's a tough call..

[opt2not]

I think it came out better than what the covers artists are charging $200-500 for, but certainly not professional level. 

huh??  it looks better than what a pro would do, but it's not pro looking?  

When I first saw this, my initial reaction was that it's got too many glow effects to the point where it's looking a bit tacky. Like, someone just did a youtube photoshop tutorial on glow effects. Then my second thought was what does Immortal have to do with a rope lasso?  But then reading further it was mentioned that this is supposed to be a DNA infinity sign, which wasn't clear to me from the get-go. Perhaps because it's deformed/skewed.

Howard is absolutely right on the font. Times isn't really the best font to be using as an eye catching title.  Historically, Times was created for function rather than form. It was started in London Times newspaper, and became the default for standard print media because of it's thin profiling ability to fit more letters on the page, as well as the ease of reading because of the serifs (your eye naturally follows the serif lines horizontally).  Typically you would use Times for large blocks of text, in a more legal/sterile fashion, not for throwing lighting effects on and letting it hang out there in the open by itself. Definitely not "science'y" if that's what you're going for.

You could use Hel­vetica, it's a much more solid looking font, but still commands a professional look. It's also the font that is normally used for Periodic Tables, it's clean, bold and not dainty looking.

But, one thing a professional cover artist would do is not just stick to one font for the whole thing. That's a clear indication of someone who is an untrained artist. Most print media these days mix-and-match fonts all the time for different effects. It's not willy-nilly though, they choose fonts that fit well together visually, but strategically for standing out on their own.
For example, you *could* use Helvetica for the main title, being bold and clean as it is, perhaps a fancier but not flamboyant serif thin-style font for the sub-header "A Genesis Endeavour book" (since it is descriptor line) -- not Times, anything but Times.  Then for your name you could go with clean and bold again, but changing the font from Helvetica to something else. This way all three lines stand out on their own, but still work together in making it read more interestingly. 
I'm not sure why the T is inverted from the rest of the title...that looks strange to me.

Now my other issue with this cover-art is that you're colour palette consists of mainly red white and black, while the Gaussian blurred whites are becoming more grey than white.  Personally I'd tone down the whole photoshop filter look, meaning, cut back on the glowing by at least 40%, but also I'd play with the colour choice here so that you don't get that greyed out look. I'd also play with the layer blending style so that some of the background texture comes through in the glows. Try messing with the layers using Lighten, or Overlay.
If you can, avoid using black for the font outlines - in fact I wouldn't even outline the title. Just look at your name, it stands out cleaner than the title even though it's a smaller size.  If you're absolutely married to the outline, I'd suggest using a darker red or maybe a more complementary darker colour.  I realize you put the outline there because of the glow effect, which is why I mentioned the glows should be toned down or perhaps veering away from just stark white/grey.

As for the background, I like that you're thinking about depth here, but the BG image could scaled down and tiled a bit more. This would add a bit more texture to the image, and fit better with the details of the Lasso DNA Infinity thingy since that element has a lot of visual noise due to the details. For the dark fading out along the edges, try putting some colour into it like a smidgenof dark blue. This would contrast the colour value better and would make it less drab and dirty looking.

You are probably going to get offended by this feedback, especially since you already invested a lot of your time into putting it together, but this is just my honest opinion and suggestions to making it look less generic and more interesting at a glance.  Good luck.

[Howard_Casto]

Sheesh don't hold anything back man. 

I agree with the reds as well, but I figured one suggestion at a time.  The DNA helix is kind of hard to make out because the background is red and it's a pinkish hue.  I don't know what source image you are using, but if you could put some color in the helix, preferably a contrasting color like green, it would really pop. 

Ditto with the text.... usually the title is one color, typically the brightest on the image and the sub text is another, slightly dimmer color.  The author is usually the same as the title though to give the page some balance. 

Just remember that the content of the book is the most important thing and I'm sure you've done a great job on that. 

[opt2not]

Sheesh don't hold anything back man. 

LOL, I'm sorry, I thought it was more tempered than my usual feedback. But reading it back, the first few sentences might be a bit harsh.
Tough love? 

[Howard_Casto]

Sheesh don't hold anything back man. 

LOL, I'm sorry, I thought it was more tempered than my usual feedback. But reading it back, the first few sentences might be a bit harsh.
Tough love? 

It just reminded me of something I would have typed back in the day... you know.... before all the meds. 

[dkersten]

I'm not offended by the feedback at all, it's why I posted this.  I like hearing other's opinions, especially the critical ones.  Some of it might influence my decisions, some won't at all. 

The font isn't Times, it's Trajan Pro.  It's a roman font that's a bit more stylish than TNR, and I liked the small caps (without having to apply a small caps text effect).  Like I said earlier, I was shooting for uniformity between the two books.  I'm not opposed to changing it, for the title only, but it would have to fit the subtitle and not be too bold.  The word IMMORTAL contains two m's, the widest letter in the alphabet, and the others are all wide letters too, so a lot of fonts end up either squished together or too short.  The last thing I want here is to end up with a title font that has a totally different scale than my first book.  Plus, anything too bold ends up looking horrible when considering the thumbnail that Amazon uses for advertising.  This font comes across pretty well in those ads, and those ads sell my books, so it's an important consideration.  If I could find a better font that looks as good or better when shrunk down to a thumbnail, I would consider it.  I will look because I always consider feedback and want to improve this as much as I can.  I'm not a huge fan of sans serif type fonts because they are kind of boring to me.  Helvetica or Arial is just too generic looking, IMHO.  I kind of like Papyrus in a small cap form for this one though.. the ragged edges of the font kind of say "aged" and that fits the word nicely.  Kind of generic but not horrible and it seems to scale well with the rest of the cover.

IMHO, Most of the time when I see 2 or 3 different fonts on a cover page my first thought is the artist is an amateur trying to jazz up a boring cover with different bottled fonts.  If done right, it can make a major difference, if done poorly it ends up looking like a 6 year old discovered the fonts menu.  Nothing sets a cover apart like a mix of fonts that looks like the author's grandkid showed them how to do it in MS Paint.

The glows, as I said before, come out around 50% less on the printed paperback.  No need to dull them down for that.  The screen version will get toned down, at least in the title.  With the larger letters of this title, the glow is too much and I never changed it, just left the layer style from The Freezer.  The glow on the strand works well to grab attention, especially on smaller representations (like the "similar products" and the smaller thumbnail ads on Amazon).  More colors or less contrast would only jumble up the image and make it blend with the other covers I compete against.  Again, my opinion, but that's a big consideration for me.

[dkersten]

I agree with the reds as well, but I figured one suggestion at a time.  The DNA helix is kind of hard to make out because the background is red and it's a pinkish hue.  I don't know what source image you are using, but if you could put some color in the helix, preferably a contrasting color like green, it would really pop. 

I played with other colors, and nothing seems to contrast well against dark red without looking gaudy.  I added some blue to the glow to give it a brighter pop, but greens just make it look like a virus (biohazard, lol) against the red, and blue just looks gaudy.. oranges and yellows make it look drab.

The image I used is actually a brush and I formed it using Illustrator initially then warped it a little in PS.  It is grayscale and initially was very opaque, so I dropped it on a black background, cut it out, then created a repeating pattern and placed it in Illustrator, then applied it to my path as a brush there, then moved it back to PS.  From there I applied some various colorizations after hand painting a darker mask over the helix strands to define it better.  Any color I apply will come out a little washed out.

I played a bit with some of the things mentioned here and here is where it is at with those changes.. the font to the Papyrus font for the title, and some adjustments to the glows and color tweaks to the strand.  I would do more but I am heading home and don't have Adobe CC installed there, so I will have to come in over the holiday to finalize it.  Publishing really soon now, and need to focus on the final editing.  So much to do, lol. 
 

[Vigo]

Please Please Please DON'T use papyrus!! It is a standard shelf font in MS and highly recognizable as being the same font used by every spa/yoga joint for all their local flyers. Like Comic Sans, you can't unsee Papyrus the minute you use it once. Head to Dafont.com and find a 100% free font that you dont see every day. 

[dkersten]

Please Please Please DON'T use papyrus!! It is a standard shelf font in MS and highly recognizable as being the same font used by every spa/yoga joint for all their local flyers. Like Comic Sans, you can't unsee Papyrus the minute you use it once. Head to Dafont.com and find a 100% free font that you dont see every day. 

lol that was my hesitation, but aside from the overuse, it actually fits nicely. 

[Howard_Casto]

There is a trap with using a highly recognizable font associated with something else though. 

I was watching Into the Badlands last week and all through the show's ads something just looked off and it was distracting me.  It turns out they were using a font for their text extremely similar to the one used on Knight Rider.  So I guess I was subconsciously waiting for a car with a snarky attitude to roll onto the screen.

[Vigo]

Maybe something like this roman antique? 




http://www.dafont.com/roman-antique.font?l[]=10&l[]=1

[dkersten]

Final version.  Font is called Maiandra GD Regular.  I like the flow of the letters and the scale fits.  I looked over about 5000 different fonts and ended up settling on this one that I already had. 


Book is done with editing, I am formatting it now in preparation for publishing on Amazon.  Might even get it done today.  Just have to review 152,000 thousand words, make sure they are all properly formatted, lol.