One of LousyBookCovers.com’s alumni, Kris Tualla, has written a related blog post for her publisher:
They grow up so fast…
Edit: And another one, by Karl Bunker at The Indie Author:
A cover for your self-published book
(Of note is the complete absence of the word “bollocks” in the second one, in stark contrast to the first.)
*awww, dad…* 😉
Any post that says bollocks that many times is a winner in my book!
I just realized something, I think that I, and likely others, have been somewhat scared of self publishing due to the horror stories I have read about how the book does terribly, goes nowhere, or just fails on every level… but I failed to even think that some might have done terribly because they deserved to do terribly.
Perhaps it is time to throw away the ‘you must have a publisher’ mentality I have! If the book is good, edited, is interesting, and doesn’t have a cover that will end up on here it might just catch on.
(Honestly, if my own cover sucked, I would submit it here gladly.)
I just realized something else! Sometime overnight I became an elf. Odd.
All this time I thought that custom icons were a privilege that Nathan bestowed on only the most worth of posters. His way to control us with custom graphics. Oh how I tried desperately to make the correct kind of snippy comments to one day be blessed with such a great honour.
… and it had nothing to do with that at all.
Neat!
All the things you could become, and you became an elf…
It does make sense in retrospect. If you controlled the avatars around here all the angry authors with no right to complain would suddenly pop up with little custom Shumate avatars of smiling butts.
I guess I thought it was 1998 or something.
[Frantically waves his hand in the air] Me too! Me too! I also wrote a blog post about book covers for self-publishers. It also mentions this site, but somehow totally neglects to use the word “bollocks” even once.
http://www.the-indie-author.com/index_files/SelfPubBookCovers.html
The TL;DR version: 1: Hire a designer, and 2: Even if you hire a designer, you should still educate yourself about what a good cover for your book should look like.
Actually, it was while I was doing research for that article that I first came across LBC, and I’ve had “hours of cringing entertainment” ever since.
Self-publishing is no walk in the park, let me tell you! But don’t be afraid of it. If your product is well written and well edited and has a decent cover, you’re ahead of some traditionally published books, sad to say. I’m pleased to say that all 12 of my novels (7 self-pubbed/5 small press) average 4.5 stars or better. 😉
4.5 Stars or better is a great record, so congrats! I can only hope to strive for that.
Thank you for the article that suddenly broke my barriers!
Great articles, boy and girl!
Great article.
Can I just add to number two and the “a novel” thing on the cover… If it says “a short story” or “a novella” instead, it’s probably a warning to the reader that she’s not buying a full length novel, rather than a sign of an amateur. I’ve seen a lot of angry one star reviews from people too lazy to read whey they were buying.