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Tuesday, August 9

Bookcovers: When Bad Things Happen to Good Authors

Which of these covers looks more professional? Any idea which cover was supplied the publisher and which was commissioned by the author after her rights reverted?



According to Passive Guy, if you guessed that the grainy first picture was from the publisher then you'd be right. The second picture, which I think looks pretty awesome, was commissioned by the author, Grace Draven, when her rights for the book reverted to her. She has since published it for the Kindle.

PG writes:
This cover [the first one, above] is from her publisher and the fuzziness in this clip-art paste-up by somebody who just learned Photoshop is obvious in the original – click here to go to Amazon, then move your mouse to the cover to bring up Look Inside and choose the front cover view. You’ll note how the sophisticated professionals at the publisher got the cover proportions all wrong on Amazon as well.

Here is Grace’s reaction to her first cover: “Fuzzy, pixelated picture with day-glo blue outline on a font design that looked like I was advertising for Dippin Dots Ice Cream.”

The kindle version of Master of Crows looks amazing and I wish Grace Draven every success with her, much better looking, book.
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4 comments:

  1. Jamie Sedgwick - Jeramy GatesAugust 9, 2011 at 1:36 PM

    The second cover evokes a whole different emotion doesn't it? She's right about the font. The newer one is amazing.

    I wonder about my own covers sometimes, whether I'd sell more books if I could afford a pro artist. One of these days... But I have gotten pretty good with Gimp, and using modified stock photos and custom fonts it's possible to build some pretty impressive art. It's a learning curve.

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  2. Karen WoodwardAugust 9, 2011 at 2:20 PM

    I love your covers, especially The Tinkerer's Daughter (http://www.amazon.com/Tinkerers-Daughter-Jamie-Sedgwick/dp/1460982290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312924445&sr=8-1). I had no idea you did them yourself. Wow, good work. :)

    By the way, this is completely off topic, but I really like the Amazon widget you have on your site. Do you have to be an Amazon Associate to get one? lol Sorry for the strange question!

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  3. Jamie Sedgwick - Jeramy GatesAugust 9, 2011 at 2:27 PM

    Thanks Karen, that's reassuring to hear :-)

    I do have an associate account. It's fairly quick and easy to set up, and you have your choice of a number of cool widgets. As a California resident I can't get a commission, but it's still nice to have the links right there on my page (they lead straight to the books on Amazon). It's a very elegant way to put my books in a high profile location. Much recommended!

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  4. Karen WoodwardAugust 9, 2011 at 2:34 PM

    Thanks Jamie, appreciate the info. :-)

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Because of the number of bots leaving spam I had to prevent anonymous posting. My apologies. I do appreciate each and every comment.