Greetings, All!
As a special treat for this Friday morning, the talented Bobby Nash has graced our presence with an exciting guest post! But before we delve into his post on book cover creation (which he draws from experience in the making of one of his own titles), proper introductions must be made. *clears throat*
Introducing... Bobby Nash:
From his secret lair in the wilds of Bethlehem, Georgia, Bobby Nash
writes. A multitasker, Bobby is certain that he doesn’t suffer from
ADD, but instead he... ooh, shiny.
When he finally manages to put fingers to the
keyboard, Bobby writes novels (Evil Ways; Deadly Games!; Earthstrike
Agenda), comic books (Fuzzy Bunnies From Hell; Demonslayer; Domino Lady
vs. The Mummy; Lance Star: Sky Ranger “One Shot”), short prose (A
Fistful of Legends; Full Throttle Space Tales Vol. 2: Space Sirens;
Green Hornet Case Files; Tales of The Rook; Zombies vs. Robots),
novellas (Lance Star: Sky Ranger; Ravenwood: Stepson of Mystery;
Nightbeat; Blackthorn: Thunder on Mars), graphic novels (Yin Yang; I Am
Googol: The Great Invasion; Bloody Olde Englund), and even a little pulp
fiction (Domino Lady; Secret Agent X; The Avenger; The Spider) just for
good measure. And despite what his brother says, Bobby swears he is
not addicted to buying DVD box sets and can quit anytime he wants to.
Really.
When not writing fiction, Bobby is usually talking
about his books and writing fiction at conventions and writers
conferences. Bobby is also a part-time extra in movies and television,
is the co-host of the weekly Earth Station One podcast (www.esopodcast.com), and writes for New Pulp (www.newpulpfiction.com) and All Pulp (http://allpulp.blogspot.com) news sites.
***
JUDGING
A BOOK...
By
Bobby Nash
When
Rachel invited me to do a guest blog post I wasn’t really sure what I could
talk about. I don’t blog often so coming up with a topic had me stymied for a
short time. Then it hit me, I would talk about my experiences with designing
the cover for my latest novel, Deadly Games! This was my first time designing a
cover and I’m proud of how it turned out. I thought I’d share some of the steps
I went through in designing the cover.
So,
without further ado, here’s Judging A Book...
There’s
an old saying: “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
While
in the context of the statement, that might be true, there is also a lot of
truth in the fact that so many readers do in fact judge a book by the cover.
The cover of a novel, comic book, even DVD or CD is the first point of contact
with a prospective buyer. Think about how many times a striking cover has
caught your attention and you picked up the book just to see what it was all
about. That’s the mark of a good cover.
I’m
not here to debate the merits of certain types of covers over others. As with
most forms of art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When it comes to novel
covers (just to keep it simple) creators and publishers have many options.
There’s the painted cover, the comic art style cover, the computer generated
image cover, the clip art photo cover, the original photo cover, the abstract
design cover, the giant fonts without an image cover, and on and on and on.
When
I was putting together my latest novel release, Deadly Games! I started out by sketching ideas for what type of
cover I wanted for the novel. Deadly Games! is an action/thriller set in the
real modern day world. Knowing that I started to form ideas of what I wanted.
Once I had the basic idea I had to decide what type of cover worked best for
this book. I love drawn and painted covers, but I did not feel that either of
those methods worked here. I decided on a photo cover.
I
scoured through free photos looking for something that fit the theme of the book,
but nothing really jumped out at me so I went back to sketching and came up
with the idea that became my cover. I knew that I wanted a shot of our
protagonist, Detective John Bartlett standing with a gun and a copy of a will
in his hand on the cover. Blood would be splattered on the will and his hand as
well as a puddle of blood on the floor, possibly with a reflection of Detective
Bartlett in the blood pool. I loved the idea and decided that I would have to
shoot this myself.
I
called up my friend Kurt, a talented photographer himself, to discuss my idea
and ask if he would play the cover model. He agreed and we went off to shoot.
It was almost Halloween at this time so I picked up a tube of fake blood at one
of the Halloween stores. Turns out I didn’t need it. Kurt mixed up a pool of
blood and the blood spatter with some liquid latex. It was an education for me
as I was not familiar with the substance. That turned out to be one of the best
things ever. Not only did it look wet, but it was easy to move around. All you
had to do was peel it up and go.
A handy little time saver, let
me tell you.
Before
I go on I should talk about the will. I did a search on-line for wills and
found several examples that were rather dull looking documents. I created the
Last Will & Testament header myself and used a will I found on-line
belonging to Ted Williams. Yes, that Ted Williams. A few adjustments to make
the will fit the character in Deadly Games! and we were off and running.
The
photo shoot went well. We took several photos for both the front and back cover...
...until I found the right pose.
Oddly enough, the
image on the back cover of the novel was an improvised shot. Originally, I had
not intended for the hand to be in the shot with the gun. That’s my hand, by
the way. Some ideas came while we were doing the shoot so keeping an open mind
to new ideas was important.
The presumably dead hand holding
the gun not only looked good, but also tied in to the story so that was a nice,
unexpected bonus.
When
I sat down to design the cover my first step was to remove the background
clutter that I hadn’t realized was in the shot when I took it.
I
found that none of the fonts in my digital library seemed to fit the tone of
the book or didn’t have the right look to match the cover. That meant a trip
through some of the free on-line font websites where I downloaded a lot (and I
do mean a lot) of new fonts. I finally settled on a few different fonts that I
could try. That, of course, led to a whole lot of trial and error to see what
works. I’m only posting a small sample here.
There were a lot of variations on
themes, fonts, and textures, but something still wasn’t quite
right. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. At least not yet.
It
finally dawned on me that there was a lot of dead space on the cover in front
of and behind the character on the cover. Cropping it was the logical answer,
but I wanted to be able to see the pool of blood on the cover. Thankfully, I
decided that the cover worked just fine without the blood pool on the front and
the cover was finally how I wanted it.
Adding some texture and
type to the back cover completed the look.
All
in all, the process of creating the Deadly Games! cover took several days.
During this time I was also formatting the interior pages as well, but many
hours went into this. Most important to me is that I am happy with how the
cover turned out. That certainly helps when it comes time for me to talk up the
book. I have had experiences where the covers on books I’ve written or been a
part of were not to my liking. As evidence, the cover to my first novel, Evil
Ways was a great disappointment and it did very little to help sell the book.
Hopefully,
potential readers will like the Deadly Games! cover enough to pick up the book
to see what it’s all about. If so then it is a successful cover. I think it
came out great and hopefully you’ll agree.
I will definitely design more of my
own covers in the future. In fact, I just recently completed a cover for an
upcoming release called Earthstrike Agenda that I thought came out great as
well.
And
just in case this blog about creating a cover has piqued your interest in Deadly
Games!, here’s a little more information about the story:
DEADLY
GAMES!
A
thriller by Bobby Nash
They
played the most dangerous game of all and death was only the beginning...
Six
years ago, Police Detective John Bartlett and journalist Benjamin West were
instrumental in the capture of notorious master criminal Darrin Morehouse.
Their story played out in the media, rocketing both Bartlett and West into
local celebrity status.
Today,
Morehouse, still a master game player and manipulator, commits suicide while in
prison. His death initiates one final game of survival for the people Morehouse
felt wronged him the most. At that top of the list are Bartlett and West, who
must set aside their differences to save the lives of Morehouse's other victims
and solve one last game before a dead man’s hired killers catch them and his
other enemies.
Deadly
Games! is a fast-paced action/thriller featuring action, suspense, murder, and
the occasional gunfire from Author Bobby Nash, the writer of Evil Ways, Domino
Lady, Lance Star: Sky Ranger, and more.
***
Deadly
Games! is available in print and digital editions at the following:
Print
at Amazon
Kindle
ebook
Smashwords
ebook (Kindle, Nook, PDF, etc.)
KOBO
ebook
Visit
BEN Books at http://BEN-Books.blogspot.com.
Visit
Deadly Games! author Bobby Nash at www.bobbynash.com.
Before
I wrap this up, I’d like to thank Rachel for letting me take over her blog
today. It was fun.
Bobby
