Artwork. I’ve got it covered, in house.

Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.

Don’t forget to click the link to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.

How many of your own graphics do you do? Does anyone help you with them?

When it comes to designing covers and other graphical elements, I’ve had quite the journey. In the past, I’ve used professional cover designers, people from Fiverr and commissioned bespoke artwork for social media.

What they produced was excellent. I used their creations and gave them full credit, but I have to admit to a nagging disappointment when the artist didn’t quite capture my vision.

This frustration, and a lack of money, led me to start designing my own covers, with the assistance of my long-suffering wife, who has an eye for the final detail that makes all the difference. Her input was essential to the success of the scheme. She also helped me conquer my own imposter syndrome and anxiety about what I was producing. After all, I might like the results, but she was honest enough to tell me if they were awful.

When I was ready to start, I upgraded to a full subscription to Canva, ignored all the AI features and spent time learning how to use it properly.

The first cover I did that I felt confident enough to seek her approval for was this one. We Are Saul is a medical sci-fi thriller.

She liked my basic idea. After a few tweaks, this was what we ended up with.

That was in 2022. The cover for everything that I’ve published since then has been designed by me, subject to Yvonne’s final approval.

I’m particularly pleased with this one, for my reincarnation thriller, I Remember Everything.

This was the first one I’d done that featured images of real people.

Doing it all myself is a much better way of working, as I often get the idea for a cover design at a very early stage of writing the book. I then refine it as the story develops.

For example, here’s the first version of a cover concept. It’s for a new Sci-fi story I’m in the midst of writing.

It conveys the main themes behind what I’m trying to say in the story, but I’m pretty sure it will change a lot before I finish writing it.

What do you think about this week’s subject?

Let me know by leaving me a comment.

While you’re here, please click the InLinkz link to check out what my fellow writers have to say about this week’s topic.

I’ll be back with another post on Thursday. See you then. Meanwhile, have a great week.

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