I’m starting an experiment with predesigned book cover art that is somewhat customisable. I’ve tried this before, and ended up with people who wanted a full custom cover for the predesigned price, but I think it’s worth trying again.
The problem with custom covers is that increasingly they are done with a design-by-committee approach, as people post them on their Facebook groups, etc. The design window stretches out, far past the assigned slot, and the many, many micromanaged changes mean that you usually end up with a bad cover. I’ll be honest, I’ve considered giving all of this up due to this…and you know how little I want to go back to grey cubicles and software design! :D
What I’d like to do are covers where the art is intact, yet the author or publisher can change the face and hair to match their idea of the character. Covers are rarely helped by having an exact depiction of a certain scene on a cover, as the art is meant to be a marketing tool to intrigue people enough to pick up the book. Although I’m calling these predesigned covers, they’ll have as many hours of work in them as a custom, only at half the price.
Fingers crossed that this is a win/win for both artist and author!
I confess, I do judge the book by it’s cover, and I would so buy this book just because ” oh cool, this Person looks amazing, the book must be good”,, It helps me imagine the Person more, reading the book, and seeing this Person interact,,,