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Back from ConDFW!
It was a con. We always have a disaster of some sort, usually weather-related (argh Snowpocalypse year!), and this year was the Plague Year.
We ended up down one (1) Guest of Honor because of a gallbladder that insisted on coming out this week, and four (4) panelists and two (2) staff members due to the Martian Death Flu. The hotel was the usual hotel at a con, with the usual problems with being unable to understand things that were specified clearly in the contract they'd signed off on.
We had a![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yhlee here for the con as well, and had a fantastic time visiting. And made sure to stuff him so full of Texas food that he had to roll to the airport to get home. yhlee wasn't able to make this panel, being in another state by the time it happened, so asked me to take notes. Here we go!
-------------------------
Creating Cover Art that Sells
Panel with just John Picacio, who was rather surprised to find himself on it alone, but who did a great job.
He took a poll of the audience at first, which was mostly writers, with one illustrator (me).
JP explained his philosophy, starting with a story about a publishing house that was repackaging SF classics with new covers, and wanted to hire him to do a cover for the reissue of Frederik Pohl's Gateway. The idea they pitched to him was sparse, with no recognizably SF features to it, and the idea was that they wanted to pull in a new audience, and they said they wanted to "take genre out of the package." JP vehemently disagreed: he does covers for the audience that will talk about the book the most. Presumably they eventually agreed with him, as he did the cover for the 2004 reissue on Amazon.
That led into JP's 2 vectors of cover art:
1) Create an illustration that has something to do with the story inside the book. If the cover has a disconnect with the story, that will alienate the readers, who will be less likely to pick up the next book from that author. The illustration doesn't tell the story--that's what the writing is for--but it needs a connection to it.
2) Create an illustration that connects the book to its rightful audience, not to the biggest possible audience. Connect it to the people who will talk about it the most.
--Brings up the question on who makes decisions about what the rightful audience is? JP thins that *he* makes that decision. And in light of that, he continues to do cons and shows like that, because that's where you get in touch with the audiences out there, and touch them, listen to them, see them, etc.
--JP says that cash flow is a bit more secure with big publishers than with small ones of indie authors, so he tends to prefer working with them, and sets his prices high (starts at $3500).
--If you're an author looking for an artist, look at Deviantart, Artstation, the ImagineFX magazine. A bit later in the panel he mentions the Spectrum series of books: an annual compendium that features the best covers, concept art, illustrations, editorial art, etc. and publishes the artist's contact info next to each of the illustrations. (Back to that in a bit)
--For book covers, the design matters also--typography and how it integrates with the art. Try to find someone who can do both. He suggests, especially for beginnings, keep the typography clean and minimal.
--(I suspect a lot of well-known authors might be annoyed at him for suggesting this next bit) If you can find a good person to do a blurb for you, go for it. Blurbs matter a lot for small-press authors. Find an author who speaks to your audience and see if they will blurb your book. He does admit a LOT of rejection will happen. If you get your blurb, keep it small and clear on the cover.
--Question: Why do you use bright colors?
JP: Doesn't think about it much, but thinks it has to do with competition. You want the book to stand out and the colors will attract people if it has the right composition. You'll need to contrast with what's around--anticipate what's going to be around when the book is out, anticipate the market. Try to figure out what in your cover art package will stand out. He told a story about a YA novel he was doing the art for--the fad was foil on the cover, and the publisher wanted him to do it with bright colors so the foil would stand out. He talked them out of doing that, and his cover stood out among the rest of the books on the shelf since it didn't have foil. (He also mentions that if he was going to do it with foil, he'd use darker colors to make the foil stand out.)
--Back to Spectrum 25, which will come out this fall. He was on the jury for it, and the artists that form the jury for each year go through the thousands of submissions in an afternoon. Afterward they talked about it, about what stood out, and what they were going to incorporate into their work. What stood out was:
1) Simple shapes
2) Strong composition
The shapes need to be made out from a LONG distance away, like across the room distance. The shapes can have all manner of detail once you get close up, but be simple and strong from a distance.
--Color helps prioritize information, but you want to have your values (dark to light) correct. JP starts with black & white so he can get his values right from the start.
One cheat--take your color image to B&W and see if it reads from a distance. Show it to others. Especially show it to people who don't read the genre, because they won't have the baggage that genre readers will have and will be brutal.
--Question: Do you see cyclic trends?
JP: Yes--right now he sees less illustration on covers, subordinate to design. (He says he may be the last of the full-time illustrators to be able to make a living at it. Younger illustrators are cheaper, but can't make a living because it takes so much time to do a proper illustration. I wasn't quite sure if he was advocating that they raise their prices, or if he was pointing out that they couldn't raise their prices, and so can't make a living)
However if the trend is for less illustration, then if you have a fully illustrated cover, that can be good because you will stand out.
--JP favors evocative illustration which evokes the spirit of the book, could be a collage-type image, or a character study that hints at the temporal and physical setup of the book. You want to give an emotional impression of the book, not tell the story.
--JP says the current cycle is for big type and stock photo covers, which are often garbage, but if you do that you need to find someone who can combine them professionally.
--JP says the influence of Design over Illustration stems from Chip Kidd, who made illustration unfashionable. He put the focus on fancy typographic covers, and convinced publishers they would save money by not hiring illustrators. However, he did it on well-known books that would sell anyway, no matter what the cover (i.e. Michael Crichton), but it created an artificial narrative that illustration doesn't matter.
--Cover art credits matter! It not just properly gives the artist credit, but artists have fan bases who will buy the book just to have the cover art who wouldn't normally buy the book.
--An audience member showed JP his cover and JP critiqued it. I won't put it all here, but it boiled down to: you need to prioritize the information on the cover and use color and images to direct the reader's eye. In some books the illustration needs to pop more than the title, in other books it's the reverse. And don't make the whole title evenly sized--prioritize the important, eye-catching, most interesting words and make them the focal point--make them bigger than the other words.
--------------------------
My overall response is: this is another person who knows his professional genre market selling through bookstores really really well, but who doesn't know the indie market in other genres selling digitally. 90% of what he says works in the areas I work in, but there's the occasional thing here and there--he's very disapproving of stock photo covers, but indie Amazon romances with illustrated covers only sell well if you were already established as a traditionally published author with a specific look before making the jump into self-publishing. I absolutely agree with him when it comes to bookstores, but not when it comes to Amazon.
I'm also not quite as down on typography-only covers because I think fantastic design sells quite well, especially in certain genres, like literary. Not so much in SF/F and horror.
We ended up down one (1) Guest of Honor because of a gallbladder that insisted on coming out this week, and four (4) panelists and two (2) staff members due to the Martian Death Flu. The hotel was the usual hotel at a con, with the usual problems with being unable to understand things that were specified clearly in the contract they'd signed off on.
We had a
yhlee here for the con as well, and had a fantastic time visiting. And made sure to stuff him so full of Texas food that he had to roll to the airport to get home. yhlee wasn't able to make this panel, being in another state by the time it happened, so asked me to take notes. Here we go!-------------------------
Creating Cover Art that Sells
Panel with just John Picacio, who was rather surprised to find himself on it alone, but who did a great job.
He took a poll of the audience at first, which was mostly writers, with one illustrator (me).
JP explained his philosophy, starting with a story about a publishing house that was repackaging SF classics with new covers, and wanted to hire him to do a cover for the reissue of Frederik Pohl's Gateway. The idea they pitched to him was sparse, with no recognizably SF features to it, and the idea was that they wanted to pull in a new audience, and they said they wanted to "take genre out of the package." JP vehemently disagreed: he does covers for the audience that will talk about the book the most. Presumably they eventually agreed with him, as he did the cover for the 2004 reissue on Amazon.
That led into JP's 2 vectors of cover art:
1) Create an illustration that has something to do with the story inside the book. If the cover has a disconnect with the story, that will alienate the readers, who will be less likely to pick up the next book from that author. The illustration doesn't tell the story--that's what the writing is for--but it needs a connection to it.
2) Create an illustration that connects the book to its rightful audience, not to the biggest possible audience. Connect it to the people who will talk about it the most.
--Brings up the question on who makes decisions about what the rightful audience is? JP thins that *he* makes that decision. And in light of that, he continues to do cons and shows like that, because that's where you get in touch with the audiences out there, and touch them, listen to them, see them, etc.
--JP says that cash flow is a bit more secure with big publishers than with small ones of indie authors, so he tends to prefer working with them, and sets his prices high (starts at $3500).
--If you're an author looking for an artist, look at Deviantart, Artstation, the ImagineFX magazine. A bit later in the panel he mentions the Spectrum series of books: an annual compendium that features the best covers, concept art, illustrations, editorial art, etc. and publishes the artist's contact info next to each of the illustrations. (Back to that in a bit)
--For book covers, the design matters also--typography and how it integrates with the art. Try to find someone who can do both. He suggests, especially for beginnings, keep the typography clean and minimal.
--(I suspect a lot of well-known authors might be annoyed at him for suggesting this next bit) If you can find a good person to do a blurb for you, go for it. Blurbs matter a lot for small-press authors. Find an author who speaks to your audience and see if they will blurb your book. He does admit a LOT of rejection will happen. If you get your blurb, keep it small and clear on the cover.
--Question: Why do you use bright colors?
JP: Doesn't think about it much, but thinks it has to do with competition. You want the book to stand out and the colors will attract people if it has the right composition. You'll need to contrast with what's around--anticipate what's going to be around when the book is out, anticipate the market. Try to figure out what in your cover art package will stand out. He told a story about a YA novel he was doing the art for--the fad was foil on the cover, and the publisher wanted him to do it with bright colors so the foil would stand out. He talked them out of doing that, and his cover stood out among the rest of the books on the shelf since it didn't have foil. (He also mentions that if he was going to do it with foil, he'd use darker colors to make the foil stand out.)
--Back to Spectrum 25, which will come out this fall. He was on the jury for it, and the artists that form the jury for each year go through the thousands of submissions in an afternoon. Afterward they talked about it, about what stood out, and what they were going to incorporate into their work. What stood out was:
1) Simple shapes
2) Strong composition
The shapes need to be made out from a LONG distance away, like across the room distance. The shapes can have all manner of detail once you get close up, but be simple and strong from a distance.
--Color helps prioritize information, but you want to have your values (dark to light) correct. JP starts with black & white so he can get his values right from the start.
One cheat--take your color image to B&W and see if it reads from a distance. Show it to others. Especially show it to people who don't read the genre, because they won't have the baggage that genre readers will have and will be brutal.
--Question: Do you see cyclic trends?
JP: Yes--right now he sees less illustration on covers, subordinate to design. (He says he may be the last of the full-time illustrators to be able to make a living at it. Younger illustrators are cheaper, but can't make a living because it takes so much time to do a proper illustration. I wasn't quite sure if he was advocating that they raise their prices, or if he was pointing out that they couldn't raise their prices, and so can't make a living)
However if the trend is for less illustration, then if you have a fully illustrated cover, that can be good because you will stand out.
--JP favors evocative illustration which evokes the spirit of the book, could be a collage-type image, or a character study that hints at the temporal and physical setup of the book. You want to give an emotional impression of the book, not tell the story.
--JP says the current cycle is for big type and stock photo covers, which are often garbage, but if you do that you need to find someone who can combine them professionally.
--JP says the influence of Design over Illustration stems from Chip Kidd, who made illustration unfashionable. He put the focus on fancy typographic covers, and convinced publishers they would save money by not hiring illustrators. However, he did it on well-known books that would sell anyway, no matter what the cover (i.e. Michael Crichton), but it created an artificial narrative that illustration doesn't matter.
--Cover art credits matter! It not just properly gives the artist credit, but artists have fan bases who will buy the book just to have the cover art who wouldn't normally buy the book.
--An audience member showed JP his cover and JP critiqued it. I won't put it all here, but it boiled down to: you need to prioritize the information on the cover and use color and images to direct the reader's eye. In some books the illustration needs to pop more than the title, in other books it's the reverse. And don't make the whole title evenly sized--prioritize the important, eye-catching, most interesting words and make them the focal point--make them bigger than the other words.
--------------------------
My overall response is: this is another person who knows his professional genre market selling through bookstores really really well, but who doesn't know the indie market in other genres selling digitally. 90% of what he says works in the areas I work in, but there's the occasional thing here and there--he's very disapproving of stock photo covers, but indie Amazon romances with illustrated covers only sell well if you were already established as a traditionally published author with a specific look before making the jump into self-publishing. I absolutely agree with him when it comes to bookstores, but not when it comes to Amazon.
I'm also not quite as down on typography-only covers because I think fantastic design sells quite well, especially in certain genres, like literary. Not so much in SF/F and horror.
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I just ordered Spectrum 24 (25, the one I think JP was on the jury for, will be out in Oct) because I figured it would be a good place to check out the trends for cover art.
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I used to desultorily collect copies of Spectrum because OMG so much stunning art. =D
My sekrit hope is still to someday learn to draw spaceships, but I think I need to understand perspective first so I've tabled that while I work on this here watercolor thang.
Also, I'm weeping at the fact that a large-format scanner would cost me $3,000. I can raise the money, but it would take time. I'm debating whether it would be better just to do inks on Bristol or something at 8.5"x11" (which is what my scanner accommodates) and do simulated watercolor in Rebelle with my incoming Wacom tablet, rather than hoping to do trad media watercolor on larger paper. *sob* I really wish there were an affordable large-format scanner out there...
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So far, the few things I've done, I've just taped them to a sheet of foamcore and photographed them outside. XD
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Joe also said that it was probably more economical to get any larger watercolors scanned professionally than to blow $3,000 on a large-format scanner.
I have a camera but no idea how to extract anything but JPEGs from it even though it claims that it saves in RAW. XD I am inept at technology...
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I think the typographic covers are a form of counter-signalling: "This book is so good it doesn't need to impress you."
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