Cover is everything these days in book publishing. Think about it, when you’re browsing the bookshelves at the library, local bookstore, or on Amazon, it’s a book’s cover that draws your attention if only for a split second. But it’s that split second that makes all the difference in whether you’ll reach for the book to find out a bit more or move on.
The advise given to authors… hire a professional cover designer. Well, of course, I decided to do it myself. I’m not a book designer or graphic artist by any means, but I have lots of experience designing graphics and most importantly know how to use many of the graphic design tools like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. Otherwise, I’d definitely would have hired somebody.
I’ll assume you found the cover of Hattie’s War compelling. Of course you did, you are here reading more about the book! So let’s a dive into how it was made. Don’t worry this is not going to get too deep. There are lots of online resources to help with the technical stuff, but I am going to talk a little about the elements that make up the front cover and why I chose them. Hint: every cover element relates to a significant story element (but, you knew that already, didn’t you?)
Hattie
Let’s start from the top and work our way down. You probably assume the young woman/girl is the real Hattie (my gr gr grandmother). Sorry, it’s not. I have a number of photos of Hattie but none usable for the cover unfortunately. The young woman on the cover is Minnie Layton. I found this beautiful photo of her in photo album belonging to my great grandmother Maude Phelps. Fortunately it was labeled with a name. But, who was Minnie Layton? After a bit of research on Ancestry.com I learned that Minnie is the daughter of Fra (not to be confused with Aunt Fra from the story) Phelps, Arthur Phelps’s sister. Minnie (I love that name!) was born in 1888 and died in March 1964. So, she is my Hattie for the purposes of the cover. You will note the watch on her shoulder. Recall that Mrs. Fink gives Hattie a gold watch to be worn on her green dress at the shoulder. This photo was probably taken around 1910.
The Title
Book’s gotta have a title. I decided to use a fancy script font called Meddon. Since letter writing is key to the story it made sense to use a fancy script font that looked like handwriting. I made it red with blood in mind. It not only represents blood but works well with the overall color scheme of the cover. More on that shortly.
Battle Scene
Below the title is an engraving made by master illustrator Frank Leslie that appeared in a book Famous Leaders and Battle Scenes of the Civil War published in 1886.
Here is an excerpt from the engraving’s description:
Siege of Vicksburg, attack on the Confederate Works, May 22nd, 1863. Our sketch represents the terrible but fruitless assault made on Pemberton’s last line of defense around the city of Vicksburg. On May 22nd, 1863, a tremendous assault was made on the grass-covered fortifications held by the Confederate army. These works consisted of a chain of forts about eight hundred yards apart, connected by deep intrenchments and extending for seven miles. Lawler’s brigade rushed up amid a cross fire, and with heavy loss planted the Stars and Stripes on the edge of a parapet; but the enemy gathered there, and the Federals were overpowered…
I chose this image because of the brightness in the center from the exploding munitions and because it depicted the brutality of close combat. Like many other images in the book this illustration is in the public domain. Read about the definition of public domain and why it is important to understand copyright and fair use.
Raven
By now you understand the importance of Raven to the story. Raven is the name Hattie gives her melancholy/depression. It took me a long time to find the right raven graphic for the cover. This image is a “stock” graphic I licensed ( I paid for it) through Adobe. The raven sitting on the branch against spooky sky was just the right look I needed. After all, Raven is always waiting in the shadows to swallow poor Hattie up.
Blood Smoke and Asylum
The smoke or clouds are meant to represent the bloodshed of battle and the mystery surrounding the death of Hattie’s father. Plus they bring bright color and help focus the readers eye to the main subject of the bottom section, Willard Asylum for the Insane.
The image I used for Willard is actually Denbigh Asylum in North Wales, UK. All the images I had of Willard Asylum were not ominous looking enough. Denbigh is much more dramatic. The image is from a postcard of the asylum. Note the staff in white coats at the entrance. Learn more about the real Willard Asylum for the Insane in Ovid, NY.
Putting It All Together
Using Photoshop I created the cover using Layers for each element. Without going into a lot technical detail, know that how the layers are stacked and the type of blending used creates the final effects. You can see each layer in the panel on the right. The image size is the exact size of the book 6 x 9, which makes for a big file, about 85 Mb saved in native Photoshop psd format.
There was a lot of trial and error in creating the final image. The photo of Minnie (Hattie) runs the full length of the cover. Since the original photograph is sepia tone (brownish) I needed to do something to change it to a more pleasing color. I added an adjustment layer that changed the Hue and Saturation of the image. This gave it the blue-green tone. I liked it so I kept it as the cover’s color palette.
Image files for print must be at 300 dpi using CMYK color not RGB. The biggest mistake the average person makes when printing photos is not understanding image resolution and attempting to print low resolution images. Fortunately most photos taken with smart phones today print well, however images from the web are not high enough resolution for most printing. To send off to Amazon and Ingramspark (Amazon prints books!) the psd is converted to Adobe PDF.
That’s it!