Forum: Author Hangout

Is that a photo from the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Yes. The USS Arizona. I assume it's public domain. And the Pearl Harbor attack is why the hero enlisted and one of the widows' husband died on the Arizona so it fits.

I think black and white book covers look unprofessional.

That's what I was wondering. Why I asked.

But as DS and Ernest said, it fits the time period. And I was searching for what color best represents loneliness for the title. Then I realized that gray would work, and black even better because of the widow aspect.

As an aside, to me the image you chose does not fit the title. I get that the husband was on the ship, but the title infers the story is about the widow, not her late husband...

Still, if the book focuses on the hardship of wives while their husbands are at war--especially their fear over reports of major casualties--it would fit. However, if the sinking is tied to why the guy entered the war, then it's purely background material, and actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the story.

However, if the sinking is tied to why the guy entered the war, then it's purely background material, and actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the story.

I was simply looking for a war scene.

Just a thought.

I don't know whether it's the same story you've mentioned before, but I remember not long ago my newspaper printed some pictures of allied troops advancing through Italy.

AJ

what might make this picture pop is to have to title is a sharp red

I tried that and my wife said it was distracting.

You can often color portions of B&W images for a slight punch

I did that with my "Last Kiss" cover. Black and white except for the girl's red lips (and the title to match the lips).

. However, your framing (white space layout) is a bit off, as you have too large of an empty space at the top sitting empty,

That was intentional. I wanted the title to be close to the action.

Whilst imitating the consensus is an option, it isn't exactly helping anyone strive for excellence.

agreed.

A cover image that has not much to do with the story seems to be fairly standard in the dead tree publishing industry.

Modern dead-tree Mysteries and Thrillers tend to have a picture of a running man on the cover, whether relevant or not :-(

AJ

A cover image that has not much to do with the story seems to be fairly standard in the dead tree publishing industry.

I think that only applies to certain publishers. I make my own covers and tend to make them relevant to the story or the title in some way while also trying for something eye catching. Mind you, the covers for a series are very uniform but still relate to the series in some way.

About the most distant I get from a story is in Star Performance where I use a picture of a star forming as the background image to emphasize the 'Star' part of the title.

Where characters are depicted, they frequently don't match descriptions given in the text and the cover image almost never represents a scene from the story.

Book covers are NOT intended as memorial wall posters, instead they're intended to represent the underlying conflict for people unfamiliar with the story.

As I always say, the title is meant to get the reader to pull the book off the shelf, the cover is to get them to read the story description on the back (for a paperback book), the descriptions whole purpose is to get the reader to read the first sentence/paragraph, and the opening passage assures the readers that the authors has some clue of what they're doing. But you're focusing on a slow-progression, edging the reader into making a decision. Accuracy of the images doesn't make any difference in actual book sales!

there are readers who buy based on the cover art more than the description.

And that is a problem for me. All but one of my novels are erotica. But most don't have an erotic cover, you know, a half-naked woman with big tits on the cover.

My "High School Massacre" cover would probably be better for a horror novel. My "Steele Justice" novel's cover is good for a thriller, which it is, but it has nothing to do with erotica, which it also is. My new novel's cover also doesn't depict erotica (and it's probably more erotica than my others).

But I think my covers reflect the story more than many others I've seen. Look at any Romance novel. They're all the same with a half-dressed man embracing a woman. I wonder if the picture even reflects what the hero and heroine look like.

My dream would be to have a book cover with no picture. Just the author name and book title. And the author name first because that's what would draw the reader to the book. "Oh, good, a new Stephen King novel."

Nothing wrong with black and white images. It does take a higher grade of photographer to get a good image

I wasn't talking only about the image. There is no color in the entire cover. The image is black and white (actually black and gray). The font for the title and author name is black. The image takes up the entire cover so there's no color surrounding it.

But based on the comments, it works. I did take Vincent's advice and moved the title up a little.

For those using GIMP, there's a bug in the Align tool. I use the Move tool to move things around. So I moved both layers of the title up to their new positions, but wasn't sure if I had accidentally moved them right or left. I use the Align tool to center it right and left. The Align tool requires you to make the layer the active one and then click on a pixel inside it. Then the corners have squares to tell you it's ready for the Align tool to do its thing. But no matter where I clicked on it, the corner squares never showed up so the Align tool didn't do anything.

The bug in GIMP is that the layer you're working on with the Align tool must be the top one. So I moved one title line layer to the top and clicked on it. The corner squares showed up and the Align tool worked. Then I moved the layer back to where it belonged and moved the next line of the title to the top and aligned it and moved it back.