I'll Know It When I See It

Imagining is more fun than doing, so in lieu of focusing on editing my novel, I did a quick search of cover designers. The good news is, they're not all priced out of my market. Just by perusing two sites, I found galleries of nice designs, reasonably priced. One of the sites is actually set up as a "design contest", in which you describe what you're looking for, then designers submit their concepts, and you pick the one you like best. The site also features individual designer galleries, but unfortunately there is no ability to narrow them down by genre. I don't want to have to scroll through pages of faeries and anime to find something suitable. Of course, as with Fiverr, one would need to ensure that an artist doesn't work with stock photos, but is an actual creator in the truest sense of the word.

My dilemma is that I don't know what I want. Browsing Amazon's best sellers, regardless of category, I hate 99% of the covers I see. They're almost mind-numbingly ugly; one unattractive cover tends to fade into the next. I know there's a psychology behind covers; I don't know if someone conducts focus groups or what, or if a preferred cover type is based on book sales. If so, that's a faulty measure. I'll buy a book that sounds interesting, whether I hate the cover or not.

Weirdly, Colleen Hoover is a New York Times best selling author of women's fiction (never read her), but she has no cover "brand". All her covers are different. She has only one with the image of a woman; the rest are a mish-mash. I guess, though, if she's not afraid to feature a woman on her cover, why should I be?

Once I finally figured out what my main character looks like, and that only occurred about halfway into the story, I found an image on iStock that matched, but of course that would force me to design my own cover, and those haven't worked out well for me. Don't get me wrong; I like my covers, but they haven't ever moved the needle. Then there's the reality that Canva's available fonts aren't book cover-worthy. Their fonts all scream homemade. 

The bottom line is, I would only know if a designer's cover was right if I could see it and ruminate on it. I have no great ideas for one. I can't tell them, "I need this on it, and don't forget this, and I want a gold inlaid font that's three inches high" (or something). That might look like shit in the end.

I need a mind reader. "Here's my story; now whip up something good." Is that so much to ask? Isn't that why they got into the design biz to begin with?

I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be going with my own design. I would love to hire someone, but when it came time to commit, I'd talk myself out of it. Throwing money away hurts. I could live with maybe fifty dollars for a decent cover, but no one charges that little. And look what my self-designed covers have reaped! Okay, nothing, but at least they were free.

Ahh, but one can dream.