A Cover Branding Trick

Allyson Longuiera is the publisher at WMG Publishing. She also has a Masters in design, and does their covers.

In her publisher blog this week, she talks about using stock art in cover branding, and shows how she took two appropriate but disparate-looking pieces of art and made them match each other well enough to help cover-brand the first two books in a series.

It's one of those things that's simple when you read about it, but I probably wouldn't have thought of it. Check it out.

Calvin and Hobbes

The very first Calvin and Hobbes comic was posted today, thirty years ago. It was an awesome comic, and it ended too soon. Read that first strip here.

Angie

Cover Design

Chip Kidd has been doing book cover design for Knopf for about twenty-five years, and has done some awesome work. He discusses it, with illustrations, in this TED talk, which is well worth a watch, whether you do your own covers or hire other people to do them for you. Knowing what a good cover looks like, and what the possibilities are, is massively helpful when it's time to decide whether or not the person you're paying is doing a good job for you.

Note that Mr. Kidd has the unfortunately common Major Attitude toward e-books. [sigh] I wish people would just get over the whole, "But-but-but the smell of a book!!!" thing already. :P As someone who prefers paper books, it's embarassing how some folks who (unfortunately) share my preference get all sneering and snarky about it. Dude, it's a format. You're allowed to prefer whichever one you like. No reason to insult the other format, and by extension, all the customers who like it. I mean, seriously, do these people really think that if they just slather on the snark thick enough, often enough, the rest of the world will eventually smack its collective forehead and exclaim, "Wow, you're right! This whole e-book thing was a horrible idea! Let's just stop making them and go back to good old (smelly) paper!"

That one annoying quirk aside, Mr. Kidd is a incredibly talented designer. If you have anything to do with making book covers, whether putting them together yourself, or approving and paying for the work of others, give this a watch.

Angie

Young Explorer's Adventure Guide Cover

The Young Explorer's Adventure Guide anthology successfully funded its Kickstarter, so the ball is rolling. We have the final cover, with my name on it, yay. :)



I don't have a publication date yet, but I'll definitely be posting when it's released.

I love this cover. The art is great -- genre-specific enough to communicate "Hey, this is SF!" without focusing on a particular subgenre that'd let out a lot of stories, or trying too hard to be too many things and thus likely failing at everything. Good stuff.

Angie

Free Art

The Getty Museum has released 4600 pieces of art to be freely used -- including commercial use -- so long as the museum is credited. Whee, book covers! If you're indie pubbing and doing your own cover art, this can be a great resource.

Angie