Fellow novelist, Jeff Bauer, author
of Cavern Kings and Wakulla Bones, is a perfect example of a person writing
what they know. His years of working as a scuba instructor, specializing in underwater
cave diving, led him to the creation of his mystery novels. My favorite thing
about his writing is that when his character is swimming through the reefs, it
feels so authentic that I feel like I am scuba diving alongside him.
One of the things that attracted me to his book, was his cover.
He tells us a little about how and why he choose his cover artist. (Same one I
went with.)
“I chose Elizabeth (of Babski Creative Solutions) for
my cover art for several factors:
* I knew her from Outcasts (a diverse and talented group of
writers that have a writing critique group is linked to the Tallahassee Writing
Association) and have built a level of trust with her. After talking to her and
looking at her portfolio, I knew that she’d be able to do the work.
*Her price was competitive with
other book cover services, like Create Space.
*I much prefer having a person I can
physically talk to about the ideas for the cover and, in this case, even show
them physical props (the line arrow and line) rather than hoping that an email
or phone discussion gets the correct point across.
*Being an Outcast, she has read some
of my work and therefore has an advantage in being able to help design a cover.
*I found out after hiring her that
she was very easy to work with and didn't mind tweaking designs to get the
results I wanted.
*Elizabeth clearly has experience
with all of the minutiae of designing covers (the file format, front &
back, spine, etc., etc., etc.) that I do not have. For the record, to date the
cover art has been the most expensive part of publishing that book (but well
worth it).
*As far as sales and the cover, it's too early to
tell. I think the cover is much, much, much better than the one I did for
my first book (using the free canned templates in CreateSpace) and have gotten
much more favorable comments about it.”
Thanks Jeff!
Well, I’m stirring in my seat and
can’t wait to see my first peeks of my cover for the soon to be released
southern comedy, Dog Breath by Jolene Fine.
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