Somewhere along the learning curve...

[sleigh]

Well, my second attempt at creating a cover for THE WOODS was mocked and derided by Jim Hines' minions.  OK, I knew that going in -- I liked the second cover much better than the first, but still wasn't satisfied with it, and hey, we writers like workshopping stuff, right? So when Jim said he was going to do a post on covers for ebooks and asked if he could throw mine up, I said sure.  

It was interesting to read all the comments.  As I tell my students when we're workshopping: "There will be people who like your work, and others who won't..." Covers strike some people wonderfully and others not so much; I've noticed that with draft covers floated around on various writers' lists, also:  the same cover will get everything from "fantastic" to "horrible."

And I don't claim to be an accomplished cover artist; I was doing what I could with what I had on the computer...

However, the fabulously talented photographer Kyle Cassidy (kylecassidy here on LJ) sent me a sheaf of photos he'd taken with a model featuring a woods background, and gave me permission to use them if I could use 'em.  Hey, professional work!  Cool!  So I started fiddling...

In the interest of continuing the workshopping of an eventual cover, here are four new draft covers I've put together.  Now -- what I don't want is for this to be -- as so many blogs and journals are -- an echo chamber of agreement.  Workshops need honesty.  If you really like one or more of these (and I'm hoping you do), please say so, but don't say that if you don't actually feel it.  If you have criticism, give it.  If you have feedback, give it.  You're not going to hurt my feelings. I'm trying to put together the best cover I can for the book.  Everything can be changed:  type can be altered or deleted entirely.  Components of one cover can be moved to another.  None of this is final.  In fact, saying that none of them work for you is also fine if that the way you really feel.

So here we go. Here are the four contenders...

Version #4:



Version #5



Version #6



Version #7 (using Kyle's entire shot)



The floor is now yours.  Let me know what you think.

Comments

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I like Kyle's alternate cover quite a bit myself, but here's the issue. I'm already having to justify to myself the fact that young woman in the novel is dark-haired, not blonde. The entire novel also takes place in summer, and thus the addition of the coat tosses everything too far from the story for my comfort level. In the shot I chose to use, at least she's in more 'summery' attire.

The alternative, of course, is not using *any* of Kyle's lovely shots, and continuing to look for other images. Always a possibility, too I suppose...

[katranna.livejournal.com]

Can you tell us what the roman's role in the story is? Also, do you have any photographer friends or even simply friends with a decent camera who aren't terrible at composition/blurry photos? I would really suggest just taking a day out to go to a wooded area (or the Morris Arboretum, it's gorgeous and full of magical imagery) with an attractive photogenic brunette female friend, and the photographer friend, and take some atmospheric shots. (Ie, the model doing more than just staring at the camera.)

If you don't know anyone who looks like your protagonist, you could even just put out a call here and see if anyone matches. Lots of people love taking photos, you could get it done for free and it would probably be better for your cover (even if the shots wouldn't be as professional as Kyle's).

[katranna.livejournal.com]

Oops, "woman's" not "roman's"

[katranna.livejournal.com]

I still don't know the role of the woman in your novel--whether she is the heroine, the mystery, the menace, etc... but I feel like this image would be a better fit:



http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=177911 (by Sanura)

I am not sure if this image is up for sale but you may really want to contact the owner and see if they'd let you use it for a reasonable price...

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

That's a gorgeous shot, and except for the lamp, I love it...

I'm going to talk to a professional photographer locally.

[dynix.livejournal.com]

Wow. Really lovely that lantern shot. It's more wonderland than spooky to my, but it would make me look twice at a book on the shelf and want to know what it was about.

It's hard to put together something that conveys the feeling you want people to have when they read your work and even harder to do it when you're not making the content from scratch.

With respect to the extremely professional photos you've used in the covers above, they are model shots, so what I see is a strong confident girl striking a pose. The expression is relatively ambiguous though and you might have more luck with a close up of just her head and shoulders with the trees behind.

The variation with her wearing the coat might suit such cropping even better.

There's an awful lot that can be done with post-processing the image if you want it spookier/more mysterious.

If you're thinking about starting from scratch, then think about what you want the reader to feel when they pick up the book, braindump all that into a creative photographer, let it simmer and see what ideas they come back to you with. Even better, get them to read some or all of the book.

Best of luck with this, it ain't trivial and props to you for wanting to do justice to your work.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I get why the coat photo doesn't work for your cover, darn it!

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

since it's an ebook you easily can add a line that says "stacy thought back to the fall, when she'd bleached her hair and gotten a felt coat and walked once through very similar woods before dying her hair back and throwing that horrible coat away."

:)