Well, it’s Labor Day here in the U.S., one of our national holidays when banks, government offices, schools and financial markets are closed. Labor Day also marks:
- The unofficial end of the summer season, and
- The beginning of the national political campaign.
Schools are back in session but off for the day, and we all tend to gather at friend’s and family’s houses for an end-of-summer barbecue. There are parades, parties and lots of sports events.
If you’re new here, I’d like to offer you a few links that you’ll find interesting:
- Eleven Ways to Get Better Book Reviews for Your Novel—Author and reviewer Florence Osmund walks you through the critical criteria to get reviews for your book.
- 5 Favorite Free Fonts for Interior Book Design—More great fonts with licenses that allow you to use them in your own books, and they’re all free.
- Ebook Cover Design Awards, July 2015—The most recent edition of this reader favorite, showing over 100 covers with critiques and commentary. All designers are credited and linked to, too!
Have fun, and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday.
photo credit: karen horton via photo pin cc
Here’s another useful link.
Designing movie posters is an art form that is extremely demanding. Huge sums of money ride on getting that poster just right. And if you think about it, they’re often marvelously well done.
Why does that matter to authors? Because a movie poster is much like a book cover. It must represent in a single picture with accompanying text what a movie/book is about and motivate people to spend their money. It’s also typically done in portrait mode just like covers. Learn how to design a movie poster well and you’ve learned how to design a good book cover.
Thomasz Opasinski is one of the world’s premier movie poster designers, having creating hundreds of them for major-release films. And Adobe, through their Inspire magazine has posted an article on his “Tricks of the Trade,” including some three-minute snippets of useful techniques and an almost-hour-long webinar. You can find that here:
http://inspire.adobe.com/2015/8/18/how_to_design_a_movie_poster_featuring_tomasz_opasinski.html
You can find illustrations of his work here:
http://www.tomasz-opasinski.com/
Click on the arrow on the right to view each category. They are most impressive. Perhaps you can find an idea for your book cover there. He certainly knows how to create beautiful and unique images.
Good luck!
Joel:
Getting lazy, aren’t you? (Just like me.)
Or perhaps you are following these words of wisdom:
“Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.
— Douglas Pagels