I like playing on Photoshop, I do. But I'm not great. I dabble.
Everyone knows that being an indie author, and a self-publisher too, you gotta have a killer cover, because let's face it, people DO judge books by their covers. I do.
Pre-made covers can be good, but sometimes they're not exactly what you might need. And customised covers can be expensive, especially when you're living in a country with a crappy exchange rate with the US (thanks Argentina... seriously). The Argentine peso is seriously nothing. One US dollar costs us 9 Arg pesos. (So, if you ever want to visit my beautiful country, you'll be rich even if you come with 200 Dlls.) Imagine what it would cost me to buy a 50 USD cover: 50x9=450 AR. Not so cheap if you're a student in uni like me. (I think the dollar is getting higher up in the market as I'm writing this...)
There are multiple variables to tackle this problem, and I played the Friend Card. My friend Jon is seriously talented, yet he doesn't think so. So I "hired" him to design my graphics, I told him to play around a bit and see what he could do... and the results were amazing. We haven't got the final cover yet, but the preliminary one is so gorgeous, I keep staring at it. (See, Jon, you can make beautiful things!)
Instead of paying a ton of money I don't really have to a stranger, I'm paying him what I can, when I can, but I am paying him for his work. Maybe he'll get confident enough to start designing covers for others, too.
The Darkness...'s cover will be released in a few weeks, and I'm hoping you'll help me share its beauty with the interwebs. But in the meantime, let me tell you, I've understood how important it is to hire a pro to do this stuff for you. You'll be too busy managing your blog, Twitter, Facebook, that you won't have time to also make your teasers, covers, banners. And you'll want your cover to look pretty next to all the rest, right?
Maybe you have a friend who's studying Graphic Design, or someone who just likes to play in PS. Maybe you have some money to buy covers from pros from around the web. But the point it, you'll definitely have to have someone to help you out with this.
xo, E
ps: If you go to my Facebook page you'll see the gorgeous banner Jon made for me. :D
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