YA Indie Carnival ~ Cover Love

Our theme this week is cover design. I'm super busy finishing up with Forever, so I decided to recycle one of my older posts on this very topic. Enjoy!

I thought I would take a moment and share a little background about one of my book covers. First of all I took most of the pictures associated with the cover. The picture of Big Ben was taken during my 2009 Anniversary trip to London with my husband. We stayed a few nights at a Marriott directly across from the Thames near Big Ben. We both love photography and took thousands of pictures on the trip.

The model on the right is my biggest fan, and she really wanted to be on the cover. I was happy to oblige.

The model on the left is a friend of hers. He was good enough to help a new and struggling author with her cover especially because the stock photo I had originally wanted was $500. Fateful is doing very well, but I still wouldn't be able to afford that price. And since I've worked many years as a professional photographer, I really didn't see the point in paying someone else that much for a photo I could take.

I used Adobe Photoshop to create the final product. If you are unfamiliar with Photoshop imagine those old over-head projectors when a teacher would lay one transparency over the top of another to teach a lesson. Photoshop works in very much the same way. This image has about 30 layers or more. The picture of Big Ben is the bottom layer. Built on top of that are the models, the moon, the glow on the moon, the text, a couple of texture layers and the graphic embellishment. Even a bit of stubble was added to the male model's face. There is some overall shading and smoothing done to blend it all together and this is the result.

Some of the graphic designs are Photoshop brushes from http://www.brusheezy.com/ and/or 123freebrushes If you use brushes like this, I would recommend checking the copy right on each one to make certain they can be used for commercial purposes.

It takes a few hows to get it the way I want it...and it takes a bit of trial and error, even so, I immensely enjoy the process. Of course I hope you like the design as well.

(Note: I actually did two designs. One for the eBook, and one for the printed book. I might not do it that way for everything I do next, that's just how the first one came out.)

Also!!! For Christmas shopping, if you've already read and loved the Fateful Trilogy there are signed books and replica jewelry available in my shop on my website. For the first 5 customers who buy something, you will get a coupon for half off your next purchase!!!

Until next time, my friends! But before you leave, check out my other amazing YA Carnival friends:
1. Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween, Book 1 in the Teen Halloween Series
2. Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3. Heather Self
4. T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5. Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga
6. Darby Karchut, author of GRIFFIN RISING
7. Lexus Luke
8. PJ Hoover, Author of SOLSTICE, Blogging at ROOTS IN MYTH
9. Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
10. Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
11. K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed
12. Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
13. Courtney Cole, author of The Bloodstone Saga
14. Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
15. Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
16. Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
17. M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping
18. Abbi Glines, author of Breathe and The Vincent Boys
19. Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind
20. Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls
21. Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
22. Gwenn Wright, author of Filter