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(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
Every
good book cover is a metaphor
I have had the pleasure of designing
and using each of my book covers for my novels and for other authors as well. It
is a first-class cover and banners of an author's book on the self or in an
online store that will get readers’ attention, after your book is on the market.
I would love to help you become successful and produce an excellent cover and marketing
materials for you. Take a look at what I have done and let me know if I can
make a Cove, a Trailer or a Banner that that will let people know your book is
excellent by its cover.
Most likely, a reader rarely realizes
how long an author will just sit and stare at their proposed cover to make sure
everything is placed right, that the colors are perfect and that the cover
tells a synopsis of the book before it ever gets purchased. Yet, nothing is
more vital and amazingly powerful than the photo that adorns your book, and
which is perhaps the greatest incentive to drive readers to invest in your
book.
For Example, What does this image
below say to you?
It paints an atmosphere, a feeling
that is both intense and full of calamity. If those are the images my
metaphoric picture conjures up as you view it, then that means I infused your
mind with the thoughts and feeling I wanted to portray.
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
Learn
to Think in Pictures!
Many people think in ideas, others
think in numbers; I think in pictures. I can look at tree bark shapes and often
see an image, like we did as kids in finding images from cloud shapes. Those of
us who were born with that ability from God find that things we hear and things
we see become instantly images that can be turned into a story in colors.
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
Think about this amazing idea. A
painter creates an image by seeing the colors on a tableau before they even put
the brush to the canvas. The end result is something that we can see after it
is finished, but which the painter saw it already before he or she commenced
their work of art. A writer
paints with the color of words. In reality, we are
doing the same thing. So it is also when we design a great book cover.
As I begin to develop a new book
cover, it is a magical thing that erupts inside me to let the story run through
my mind and to grasp the key points of the story. By doing that, I can keep the
whole flow of the story going and in the end, I have a perfect image in my mind
of what would tell any interested reader that my book is what they were looking
to read. Of course, we never want to give away the twists and turns during the
journey of the story, but a great book cover will tell potential readers that
what they are looking at will be worth the financial and time investment in
what the writer has penned.
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
In my book, StillBorn!, I remember
looking for an idea. I thought about one of the characters who has no name, has
been constantly abused as a child and who is seriously angry and mentally
disturbed. I did not want to design something morbid that would make a reader's
stomach churn. I wanted to instill intensity without morbidity, fear without
making the reader instantly plop the book back on the shelf.
So, It needed to be sad, and it
needed to make the reader know this young man in my novel is indeed abnormal,
but caused the reader to feel sorrow and empathy for the brutalized young man
of the novel. So I developed an image that was somewhat religious and with his
arms outstretched like a crucifixion. That made viewers and readers know that
the boy was serious flawed but in reality he was an oblation and turned into a
monster because of the the treatment of his fellow humans around him. It turned
into a powerful and riveting book cover that matched the powerful and riveting
story.
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
Don't
Settle For Mediocrity!
It is not an easy job even for
people, like myself, who think in pictures. We still need to press out the
limits of our imagination and creativity to develop the story in one shot,
called a book cover. It is the same thing we authors face when we get to the
middle of the story we're writing and face some kind of gigantic huddle that we
know causes us many more hours of writing than we had envisioned.
A writer has but two choices: We can
tell ourselves it is good enough (Two words that have derailed many
emerging writers). It is no different for the development of an
attention-grabbing cover. I always develop at least ten different covers for
each book. That means nine of them were simply wasted time? Not at all, for
each draft cover represents the narrowing down process and fine tuning that
will never be a waste for a writer.
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
I have read books that have kept me
so intense that I did not even want to get up and get a cup of coffee. Yet, I
almost did not read several of those outstanding novels, because though the
writer gave their all in the story itself, which deserves accolades, they
unfortunately settled for mediocrity in the cover and I am sure lost many
readers as they almost lost me.
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
Though he did not practice this as
president so well, President Jimmy Carter very astutely titled his memoirs,
"Why Not The Best?" Though few would believe it, James Earl Carter is
a nuclear Physicist and finished 38th in his class of hundreds. He told the
story in his memoirs of the day when he spoke with his highest ranking commanding
officer. The officer asked the young Jimmy Carter, "Did you do your
best?" to which an honest young future president replied, "No,
Sir." His commander then added, "Why not the best?" Don't Settle
For Mediocrity!
(Image Designed by Steven Clark Bradley)
That is the same thing I want to say
to you. Don't settle for mediocrity. Go all out, don't be afraid to scrap it
all and start over, because the first page of your book is not page one. It is
the cover, and whether or not they will get to page one will depend on the
metaphor your cover inspires in the minds of the readers you hope to attract,
keep, addict and amaze. So, Authors Beware - Your book WILL be Judged by its
Cover
- Author Steven Clark Bradley
For Information
Contact
Contact
Bradley's Banners & Book Covers
at
scbradley_2000us@yahoo.com
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