Friday, January 27, 2012

ZEN AND THE ART OF EBOOK COVERS

Hey, everybody! My wife, the fabulous Emily Devenport, has a new ebook out. It's called Pale Lady, and takes place in an afterlife like no other. And if you go to her posting about it you can get the coupon code that will allow you to get it for $0.00.


What a deal!


Another reason you may want it is because I did the cover.





Not bad if I do say so myself, though I'm still learning the art of ebook cover design.


This is my first solo attempt; the first cover I did was a collaboration with Em for her novel Broken Time (originally published under the pseudonym Maggy Thomas).





Again, pretty good, but since it was part of the learning process, I see things that could have been done differently, and better. I'd go back and redo, but that would eat up a lot of my valuable time. It's better to go on to the next cover, not look back -- do better next time.


Currently, I'm struggling with a cover for the e-edition of Obsidian Harvest, a novella I wrote with Rick Cook. I've done some drawings, scanned them, and am using GIMP to combine them with lettering to make a eyeball-snagging cover.





The problem is, I'm still struggling with the intricacies of GIMP. For this I have to do more than the diddling around I do for my on-the-run, straight-from-the-sketchbook, slam-dunk blog illustrations. Still, I would like for these covers to have the same instant impact.




The problem is, I'm just plain thinking too much. I need to forget about all the technicalities and just do it.


In the words of that American master, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, “I never spent any time thinking about art, I just did things.”



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