Cover Art and Fonts

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Cover Art and Fonts

April 5, 2015 by meredithmansfield

Possibly the single most important factor, especially for indie-published books, is the cover. It’s the first thing potential readers see. If it doesn’t intrigue them, they won’t click through to read the blurb or buy.

I started out doing my own covers because I couldn’t afford to do anything else. And my early covers weren’t just bad. They were horrible. I had to learn to do better.

Now, I probably could afford to hire at least some of my covers done, but I find I actually enjoy doing my own. But, of course, they still have to be good. I’m still learning. (I got a book on graphic design for my birthday, which I haven’t finished reading yet.) I also belong to a couple of cover art critique groups, now.

One of the areas it’s clear I’ve needed to work on is typography. With the cover for the upcoming BEYOND THE PROPHECY, Book 3 of the Dual Magics series, I changed the font to something less standard.

Which, of course, means I now have to change the other covers to match.

Here’s the first cover for THE SHAMAN’S CURSE:

Not bad. But here’s the newer version, which just went live yesterday:

I also changed the font on the cover of “Becoming Lioness”, which is a tie-in short story. And on the cover of “Modgud Gold”, another tie-in short story that I expect to release in the next week or so.