Malfunction

Yesterday, as I set down to make the changes in Bliss on my laptop - that being a book I wrote for NaNoWriMo - after doing my proofreading when...the laptop died.

If you know me, you know I love my laptop. I do all my work on it. I use it all the time. It's an extra limb for me. And it just stopped working. No explanation, no warning, just dead.

I swear, I almost cried, except I know people who generally know what to do in these situations. I resolved to merely panic that it might be irreparable, that I can't afford to replace it. And I sent an email asking my best friend what to do.

He didn't just offer me one solution, which is just as well. The first one didn't work. It was the most basic. But the second option fixed my laptop in about ten minutes.

Yes, it works.

I love my best friend right now. He's just saved my laptop. It's the most valuable item I own, and it didn't cost me a cent to fix it.

While it wasn't working, I resorted to using the desktop computer. Technically speaking, it's better than my laptop. But in practice, I can't use it as well. I can't do half the things on it I can with my laptop, including design book covers how I like them. I mean, I'm limited to the certain standards, but I'd wanted to do a cover for Bliss.

So, I resolved to make this on the desktop:

It's not the best, but I just wanted it for the five free copies from CreateSpace. I got that from NaNoWriMo, and damn it I was going to take advantage of it! I love having copies of my books. It's much handier to hand someone a bound book when looking for feedback than sending an ebook or handing a bunch of loose pages. Plus, it's just cool.

There's a reverse image, but I don't think it's almost the same.

In case your wondering at the concept... well, initially I'd wanted to have a full face of pink/violet light on the cover, but with the laptop dying I wasn't able to devote as much time as I'd wanted to do actually doing it. So, I decided to go as minimal as possible, since I didn't have the time or software to do much more. I think it looks pretty cool, but then, I would.

The front cover is literally just one image and the text you see above. And that image took about thirty seconds to make. I just used the Internet! This nifty site let me make the image and save it: http://29a.ch/sandbox/2011/neonflames/#

Anyway, I have my five free copies on order now, and my laptop is working again. Things are looking up today, compared to yesterday!

But God, I do not want this to happen again!

Judging by the Cover

I'm sure we're all familiar with the age-old cliche, "Don't judge a book by its cover." I'm not even asking; if you're reading this post, you most definitely are familiar with cliches (I am... just look at the title of my blog-site!!)
Now, I'm not saying the cliche is right, but there are certain boundaries that should be put on covers; obviously, it has to be relevant to the book; it has to give some indication as to what to expect. But, and this is my opinion, the main character should be presented in photographic form on the cover. Some people might think, "That's most books though." They're right. I agree, most books do it. But some books, I think, take it perhaps too far.

This cover of Michael Grant's Gone is a prime example of what I'm talking about; we have two models representing two of the characters in the book (Astrid and Sam, I believe). What's my problem with it? Well, in my mind that's not how they looked. This is someone else's vision of the characters.

And here's the cover of New Moon by Stephenie Meyer; it's the movie tie-in. This is both better and worse - better, because at least it's obvious to people who've seen the large posters everywhere who the characters are, worse because the cover is now dependant on another form of telling the same story.

And finally, Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demon's Lexicon; we are given, once more, a visual representation of the main character, leaving nothing to the imagination. This is my real problem with book covers; many readers perceive the image on the front as a basis for what the character described to them is like. I'm not pointing fingers, but it's a fact. I imagine people who saw a movie of a book before they read it will see the actors in their head, not the characters described to them.





So, how do we stop this? Well, I think UK cover artists are already working on it. With the exception of Brennan's book, these titles all have UK original covers that don't show very much of the story (Gone having just the cover Gone in big highlighted letters, against a black background, New Moon having a flower on it, again with a black background). These covers are both more modern, if done correctly, and leave us to imagine the characters as we read them, not as someone else does. Leave the visuals after that to fan-art and movies!

What do you reckon? Will modern-art type covers finally come to the fore, or will we be eternally forced to see someone else's interpretation of what a character looks like before we've even read the description?