Anyway. The other five percent, if it is five, goes into the cover. The cover's an important element of any novel, ebook or otherwise, 'cause it's the first thing the buyer will ever see. Consequently, it behooves an author to put a lot of effort into their cover. This requires one of two things:
- A freelance artist to do the work for you; or
- Some graphic design skills of your own.
So. Cover. What to do? My first instinct was to run the tried-and-true comic book route, with big, bold, in-your-face letters (the lettering on the old Invincible Iron Man comics always jumps to mind as an example) and Dr. Sock in a bold pose, but I almost immediately dismissed the idea. That seemed too superhero for the good doctor, and, obviously, I want the other end of the spectrum.
That means boldness, but not colours. Black and white. And no pose that could be construed as heroic. Eventually, I settled on a head shot, with the letters running over Dr. Sock's face. So I drew up a picture at, like, 2 a.m., and scanned the sucker. This is what I got:
... yeah. I know. What a piece of crap. Very rough, very ugly, very... almost MS Paint. Which is a tragedy on my part since I was using, and have used consistently, an excellent program called GIMP. If you can't afford Photoshop, GIMP is your best option.
Well. Rough, ugly, terrible - but it gave me an idea of what I wanted to do: lettering that wrapped around Dr. Sock's face, with the 'Dr. Sock' part of the title looking like a smile. Doesn't come out so well here, so I tried again, this time going for a much more symmetrical look by carefully drawing what I wanted and then simply mirroring the face. The result was this:
And eventually morphed into this:
Which isn't bad. The goggles don't look AMAZING, and the picture's still a little rough around the edges (literally), but I couldn't complain.
But... was that a book cover? Not really. Not a successful book, anyway. So I was back to stage one, dissatisfied with the font and unhappy with the size and the look. I wanted comic book, but comic book that somebody would actually buy. Would you read the above comic? Maybe. Would you buy it? Meh.
Back to the drawing board. I decided to return to the full-body shot concept, so I drew up something new, a shot of Dr. Sock leaning on his knee. It still didn't satisfy me, though, and I chucked it out.
Frustration.
Dr. Sock wasn't working. For his own damn book! He's supposed to be an angular, awkward kinda guy, so I couldn't draw him otherwise. It looked too clunky to fit on a book cover. I didn't want to go hyper-realtistic like most other book covers, though, so... I doodled. Doodled, doodled, and eventually wound up drawing a gas mask.
Those of you who have read the book will probably know that the gas mask belongs to The Puppetmaster, the antagonistic force behind most of the book's action. And as soon as I saw him on the paper, with slightly more flowy lines than with Dr. Sock, I knew I had to use him. A side view would work nicely, I thought... and maybe I could incorporate a major theme of the book into the freaking picture: a sock. What a concept!
I was too lazy to go all the way downstairs to use my scanner, though, so instead I sketched up a little picture of The Puppetmaster the way I wanted him and took a picture with my webcam, intent on fixing it up in GIMP. The result?
Even larger and darkened, you can barely see the thing. Don't use an H pencil if you plan on taking a webcam shot of a picture. (For that matter, just use a bloody scanner.)
I made do, however, and with a lot of outlining and tweaking I turned it into this:
Not bad. Slap some type on that and you can call it a day.
... or not.
I still wasn't satisfied. The picture was lacking. Eyes, for one thing, which I supplied with a circle, and the hood bit looked goofy, so I eventually got rid of it. Much smoother, much more streamlined... but not right. I wanted something else, something... inky. Inky splotches. Yes. But I wasn't good enough with GIMP to do them myself, so... the solution? Look online! (If you need a splotchy brush for GIMP, really, look here. Very helpful.)
Unfortunately, I went overboard on my first try:
And then, when I moved the font around, I got into stylistic debates with my girlfriend over what looked best:
Or:
And eventually I just gave up on being too fancy and settled for the cover that's on the book now:
All that over the span of three days. Three agonizing, meticulous days.
So, uh, if there's a moral to this story, it's to just let somebody else do your cover for you. With enough work you'll create something people will buy, but the journey is... yeah. Anyway.
One last thing to note: the design for the website? Nailed it in, like, three tries. Much easier. Look closely, though, and you'll see that I stole the freaking arm off the book's cover and gave it to The Puppetmaster on the site. It's already his, so why argue?
