Been having a play...

[Jake E]

i actually LOVE this design!! my only recommendation is my personal preference for the blue-and-yellow color scheme from one of the previous designs. but this is a very friendly cover that lots of MG-age readers would pick up eagerly

Ah, damn lol.
This is definitely not an MG story lol.
It's for adults. The jokes and subject matter and such are definitely not kid friendly haha. We're not talking R rated or 18+, but it's certainly unsuitable for children.

 

[Jonny]

I think, although your latest is good, I just think it looks a bit too young for the intended readership.

 

[Jake E]

I think, although your latest is good, I just think it looks a bit too young for the intended readership.

I feared as much

 

[Jake E]

Does a colour change make a difference?

 

[Brooke]

View attachment 15437

Does a colour change make a difference?

it does! but i think if you're aiming for adult readers, the bubbly font and graphics are a bit too youthful. the original blue-and-yellow design was more coded to older readers

 

[Jake E]

 

[Brooke]

View attachment 15438

i think that's pretty close to perfect! nice job

 

[Jake E]

i think that's pretty close to perfect! nice job

I think it's going to have to do until I'm a rich and famous author and I can afford to pay someone to make a better one.

 

[Barbara]

Are you aiming at adult readers?

Even if you're writing for MG, in my view, it's way too young looking.

 

[Jake E]

Are you aiming at adult readers?

Even if you're writing for MG, in my view, it's way too young looking.

I'm aiming at adults.

 

[Hannah F]

Are you aiming at adult readers?

Even if you're writing for MG, in my view, it's way too young looking.

I agree. Too young looking.

 

[Hannah F]

View attachment 15427

Fantasy titles usually have a squirly (can't spell that word) font. Is this a lifted design? Can you play with it? What if you changed the background colour to blue, squirl the title font and put the tag-line (which is a definite hook) prominently within the open page of the book?

 

[Hannah F]

Could you design a running away wizard with some big hand reaching to grab him by the collar Monty Python style? And keep the brilliant tag-line.

 

[Jake E]

I

Could you design a running away wizard with some big hand reaching to grab him by the collar Monty Python style? And keep the brilliant tag-line.

If only. Ha ha.
I'm stuck using stock images and I don't think I could find one that specific

 

[James Charles]

... With book covers.
I am awful at design and I think this latest experiment with book cover design has pretty much proved it lol.

Here are some of the 'masterpieces' I was able to create.

View attachment 15408View attachment 15409View attachment 15410

All feedback, ridicule/constructive criticism welcome. ha ha

I like the first one as it's easy to read, Jake. Maybe use a blood red background (they say red covers get the most attention). Second vote is the third one.

 

[CageSage]

Yeah, still young.
Why is your name so teeny-tiny and too close to the bleed on the edge? That close means it won't pass auto-checks from publishers/platforms. Needs a minimum distance from that danger line.
And the tag-line needs to be visible at the size of a Zon thumbnail - that's the giveaway for humour.

Sorry, but I preferred the other options - book or wand.

 

[RK Wallis]

The floating book indicates young for me. I preferred your original blue one...

 

[Bloo]

I'm late to the party, but I think the floating book is too abstract. And I agree with others here that it aims young.

Most of the first images look too serious and stodgy for the story you are going to wrap it around.

I actually like the first plain parchment cover. It's abstract but whimsical. I'd look inside to see what it's about.

I have this idea of a frustrated wizard wondering how he got into this mess, and telling everyone to bugger off. So I let Craiyon have a crack at it with the prompt "Confused wizard holds a large book." After a few tries, I wound up with something interesting, so I saved the image to my phone, cropped it, filtered, and added your text...



It's amateur AF, but gives you an idea where to go.

Trouble is...your book is too good for a crappy cover. You can play with AI and use something like GIMP to polish it up, or bite the bullet and pay a pro. Either way, your novel deserves the chance a good cover will give it.

I DON'T like the "What if the Chosen One ran away?" tagline. It's cute, but it's a big spoiler. If you're going to use a tag, be sure it doesn't give away too much.

 

[Jake E]

I'm late to the party, but I think the floating book is too abstract. And I agree with others here that it aims young.

Most of the first images look too serious and stodgy for the story you are going to wrap it around.

I actually like the first plain parchment cover. It's abstract but whimsical. I'd look inside to see what it's about.

I have this idea of a frustrated wizard wondering how he got into this mess, and telling everyone to bugger off. So I let Craiyon have a crack at it with the prompt "Confused wizard holds a large book." After a few tries, I wound up with something interesting, so I saved the image to my phone, cropped it, filtered, and added your text...

View attachment 15449

It's amateur AF, but gives you an idea where to go.

Trouble is...your book is too good for a crappy cover. You can play with AI and use something like GIMP to polish it up, or bite the bullet and pay a pro. Either way, your novel deserves the chance a good cover will give it.

I DON'T like the "What if the Chosen One ran away?" tagline. It's cute, but it's a big spoiler. If you're going to use a tag, be sure it doesn't give away too much.

I've played around with AI art and I can never get what I want.

The closest I got was this:


Still not quite right for a cover, but very close to what the characters look like. Not spot on, but close.

 

[Jake E]

I've played around with AI art and I can never get what I want.

The closest I got was this:
View attachment 15451View attachment 15452

Still not quite right for a cover, but very close to what the characters look like. Not spot on, but close.

Also, I keep running out of credits on every site lol.

 

[Barbara]

There's a discussion going on in a Facebook group I belong to. It's all about picture rights (even free ones) when using Canva for book covers. It's not necessarily a straight forward use as you like as it would seem. I don't have the time to summarise or pick out comments, but I suggest you join the group and read the advice.

The group is called Alessandra Torre Inkers.

 

[Jake E]

It's not necessarily a straight forward use as you like as it would seem

Nothing ever is, is it.

I suppose I should just start taking art classes ha

 

[Barbara]

Nothing ever is, is it.

I suppose I should just start taking art classes ha

That's why I drew ours ... And quite clearly I haven't been to art class either. (Only @Jonny's drawing would have been worse.) But strangely, a bad drawing works in our case.

 

[Jake E]

That's why I drew ours ... And quite clearly I haven't been to art class either. (@Jonny's would have been worse.) But strangely, a bad drawing works in our case.

I'm not at all artistic.
That's probably a huge part of the problem. I have no creative vision for what I want my cover to look like so I'm just trying everything.

 

[Jonny]

Hi Jake,

I thought I'd throw this into the mix. This has just been made into fairly big budget movie too. The cover is perfect for the book which if you've never read (thanks for the heads-up @MattScho) I can't recommend strongly enough. There's a series of them by the way. I think they'd be right up your street.

But and back on covers - I think this illustrates that sometimes there's no need to sweat things. Little can be just as much as big budget.

Oh and @Barbara is underselling her talents. I think what she created for ours is superb.

 

[Barbara]

Hi Jake,

I thought I'd throw this into the mix. This has just been made into fairly big budget movie too. The cover is perfect for the book which if you've never read (thanks for the heads-up @MattScho) I can't recommend strongly enough. There's a series of them by the way. I think they'd be right up your street.

But and back on covers - I think this illustrates that sometimes there's no need to sweat things. Little can be just as much as big budget.

Oh and @Barbara is underselling her talents. I think what she created for ours is superb.

View attachment 15453

In that case:

Something like that. (Not sure the writing above the three boxes is clear enough. It says 'Tick The One You Are'. It's a bit small.) This example is too geometric but you get the idea.

Took me 5 mins in Powerpoint. If you spend a bit more time than that and maybe hand draw the scroll, you'll get something decent. This is just a quick example of something you could do like Tom Holt's.

Yes, I still use Powerpoint.

From the third cave on the left.

 

[Jonny]

Yes, it’s got to be worth a play around.

PowerPoint or GIMP is excellent if like me you can’t draw.

GIMP which has much of Photoshop’s trickery is open source, totally safe, free and there are many tutorial videos out there - several I’ve seen focusing on book covers.

 

[Barbara]

You could have some fun with "The One" options to tick

The One
The Might Be The One
The Other One
The Not Even Close To Being The One
The Who The F*ck Brought This One
The Thinks He's The One
The Follows Everyone One
The Never Will Be The One
There Is Always One
The Defo No One

 

[Jake E]

You could have some fun with "The One" options to tick

The One
The Might Be The One
The Other One
The Not Even Close To Being The One
The Who The F*ck Brought This One
The Thinks He's The One
The Follows Everyone One
The Never Will Be The One
There Is Always One
The Defo No One

Almost sounds like Friends episodes

 

[Pamela Jo]

Maybe replace the hand with a figure running away-comically. That shouldn't be too hard to find.