Goblin Tales Cover
I’ve been working on cover designs for Goblin Tales, my hopefully-soon-to-be-epublished collection of five goblin-related short stories. The cover art is by Daniel Ernle. He created this image for my German short fiction collection Der Goblin-Held, and I contacted him for permission to use it for Goblin Tales.
Some of the things I kept in mind while working on this:
- It’s important for the cover to work as a thumbnail, since e-book sales happen online.
- I want this to be recognizable as a goblin-related work (which is why I used a very similar font to what was used in the DAW editions of my goblin books).
- It has to capture the feel of the book/collection. (I really like the way Jig looks like he’s setting off on a journey, and his expression is almost inviting you to join him.)
This is what I’ve come up with so far. I’m not sure whether or not to keep the blurb from Publishers Weekly. I like both color choices for the title font (though my son and my wife have both voted for the blue). I zoomed in on Jig a bit more in the second image.
What do you think? You can click on the pics for a larger view.
Michael Jasper
February 24, 2011 @ 10:05 am
The covers look GREAT. I like the blue font better, and the blurb needs to stay, I think. I wonder if you could outline the title a bit to make it pop more? It gets a little lost with all the colors.
Nice! Looking forward to snagging an ebook version!
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 10:12 am
I think I need to strengthen the drop shadow for the title. It looked a little better in the low-resolution version I was playing with, but when I set up the high-res background image, the drop shadow shrunk and wasn’t as effective at making the text pop out.
Shawn
February 24, 2011 @ 10:13 am
If you are thinking of thumbnails:
Keep the blown up version of Jig. The bigger & more distinct the better.
Get rid of the busy background. If I’m shopping on my Kindle, the thumbnail is is grayscale. If you consider this graphic in grayscale, I tend to think the background is way to busy & Jig will get lost against it. If you want texture, do a much more subtle background that will be distinct in color but will disappear in grayscale, with plenty of contrast for Jig.
Get rid of the quote. I can barely read it on the cover on your website. In thumbnail, and especially in grayscale, it will be unreadable, & it won’t make anybody scanning through titles or covers stop just to look at a little squiggly quote. I would save the quote for the synopsis.
I like the blue text because it reflects the color of Jig. But make sure that the final version has plenty of contrast with the background, especially in grayscale.
All that being said … here’s something I’ve discovered about myself. I got a Kindle for Christmas. I shop through the Kindle store on the Kindle. Occasionally I shop through the Kindle store via the app on my smart phone. On both of those devices, I quit looking at thumbnail covers after about 15 seconds, because they are so small and so indistinct that they make my eyes cross. I shop for authors, then for titles. I appreciate the artwork once I’ve purchased the book, or occasionally if I stop to check out the synopsis. However, the cover art doesn’t make me stop & look at a book, & generally doesn’t have any bearing on whether I buy the book (unless it’s so bad and/or amateurish that it suggests the book will be bad and/or amateurish).
I may be weird in how I shop, but I thought I’d just share that anecdote with you.
BTW, for full size cover copy (in physical format, or for a full size graphic viewed on Amazon via a desktop monitor), I think the background is beautiful & the cover over all is wonderful.
zollmaniac
February 24, 2011 @ 10:21 am
I like the one on the left better. It feels like its got a better balance to it and the blue font mixes very well with the other colors in the picture without being overwhelmed.
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UnravThreads
February 24, 2011 @ 10:52 am
I’ll be honest, Jim – I don’t like either. Jig is really, really creeping me out, and making it bigger makes it a little worse. The first one is the better one, but I don’t think the art fits in with the existing books.
Sorry 🙁
Teresa
February 24, 2011 @ 10:54 am
I love the blue font, and the closer shot of Jig. I can take or leave the quote, but then, I don’t need it to convince me to buy.
I have a Sony pocket reader, and I do all my ebook buying from my desktop PC’s web–no built in ebook shopping. Shawn has a point about having a greyscale thumbnail for Kindle shopping–but with the increasing number of readers that offer color, I’m not sure it’s necessary. Can you have a greyscale thumbnail just for Kindle?
IMO, shopping the web at, say, bn.com for your ebook, finding a greyscale picture wouldn’t be too enticing to buy.
Off Topic: I got my Apostrophe Ninja tshirt. It’s so much fun to wear! 🙂
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 10:55 am
I’m leaning toward the blue, assuming I can get the drop shadow to work right so that the font stays legible as a thumbnail. Thanks!
Shane Ede
February 24, 2011 @ 10:55 am
I like the blue. The other gets lost in the flames from the torch. I’m not so sure that I like the blurb either. Problem is that the blurbs are there (in traditional publishing) so that when a prospective reader picks up the book he/she can read a few short blurbs that are gushing about the author or the stories. In the ebook world, it’s just part of the image for the book and all the gushing should be going on on the sales page.
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 10:57 am
There’s a limit to what I can do without commissioning an entirely new image. The blurb is probably going away, since the consensus seems to be that it doesn’t add much, and doesn’t work in the smaller images.
Your point about browsing/shopping on Kindles and other B&W e-readers/devices is a good one, thanks. I hadn’t paid much mind to how this will look in black and white, but I should.
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 10:58 am
Dumb question, but “sales page”? (Yeah, guess who doesn’t actually own an e-reader…)
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 10:58 am
Heh. I take it you haven’t seen the German covers for the series? 🙂
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 11:00 am
Thanks! I’m still thinking about the B&W. It’s an issue today, but like you say, will it still be a major issue a few years from now?
I wouldn’t create the image in B&W, but an older Nook or Kindle would render it that way, meaning it might be better for me to up the contrast in the color image so that it comes through more clearly when your e-reader displays it as black and white, if that makes sense? But yes, anyone with a color screen would see the color image.
Also, yay! Any comments on the shirt yet? 🙂
russ
February 24, 2011 @ 12:28 pm
I like the blue overall but I think the yellow stands out more. At first glance the s at the end of Tales blended into the background so much that I thought it was 2 books- Goblin Tale and Goblin Tales, maybe a sequel. Maybe you could take the quote off the thumbnail because it’s illegible when it’s small, and kind of cluttery ?
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 3:20 pm
Blurb is probably going away. (I’m not 100% sure yet, though.) I’m also playing with shifting/darkening parts of the artwork to try to make the font more legible and distinct. Thanks!
KatG
February 24, 2011 @ 8:27 pm
Excellent. I think the close up version works better, but I do like the blue print for the title too. Could you combine them? The orange-yellow title does stand out well, but the blue still strikes the eye nicely.
Jim C. Hines
February 24, 2011 @ 8:35 pm
Thanks! I’m continuing to play with the font. I’m not sure there’s a way to combine them, but I’m working on some outline/shadow effects to try to get the title to stand out more.
Gives me a whole new respect for the cover designers who do this stuff for a living!
Mike
February 24, 2011 @ 8:46 pm
Artwork is excellent. I greatly prefer the blue font and the close-up image. The blurb makes the cover look too busy to me, and is barely readable.
Sarah
February 24, 2011 @ 9:26 pm
I like the blue font, but I also like the blow-up version (without the blurb). One thing to consider, which helps when creating power points and things like that, is simply adding a bold border around the text in either black or white could really help it pop. That could also help the lettering stand out in grayscale (though I don’t really know about that). Good luck, and I’m looking forward to having Goblin Tales on my kindle!
Teresa
February 24, 2011 @ 10:28 pm
A couple of funny looks (they clearly didn’t get it), but the nice lady who checked out my books at the library the other day got a good laugh out of my shirt. 😀
Sean
February 24, 2011 @ 10:28 pm
I like the blue one better (to me easier to read than the gold. I like the expanded image over the close up, to me it give more of a story of leaving, you can see him walking to, well wherever he is going. I would nix the blurb though, but that is a personal preference i just like clean covers.
He is right about the greyscale, at least on the sony and kindle. However remember that a lot of people are using iphone and ipad and color ereader(is it nook?). I personally have a greyscale sony reader, but it is for reading not viewing the cover. But you can use paint or gimp and convert it to greyscale just preview and see which font (blue or gold) shows better when converted.
Just my 2 cents.
Sean
Jim C. Hines
February 25, 2011 @ 8:53 am
The blurb is almost certainly going away. Thanks for the feedback!
Jim C. Hines
February 25, 2011 @ 8:53 am
Yep, I’m working with several outline effects to get the title font to stand out more. Thanks!
Jim C. Hines
February 25, 2011 @ 8:55 am
I’m seeing both sides of the B&W issue. I do want to make sure the image looks okay in B&W, but I also know that e-readers are shifting more toward color displays. So it’s something I want to be aware of, but it’s not my very top priority. And yeah, the blurb is probably going away.
Jim C. Hines
February 25, 2011 @ 8:55 am
Proving yet again that library people are the best!
UnravThreads
February 25, 2011 @ 12:49 pm
I have, although not in great detail. I suspect it only creeps me out so much because it’s a larger-than-‘normal’ image, so perhaps it’d look better in context.
Still going for the one on the left, though. 🙂
Anita K.
February 25, 2011 @ 3:10 pm
Personally, I prefer the orange/gold text as it is far easier for me to read. The blue is pretty but I find myself straining to make it out as it very closely matches some of the background colors.
I also much prefer the zoomed in image, as I think it is easier to see in a small/thumbnail format, and it also gives more of a sense of immediacy/urgency to the image in my opinion.
Possibly blue text on the zoomed in image would be easier to read, as with the image zoomed in less of the pale blue/grey background would be behind the text?
Jim C. Hines
February 25, 2011 @ 3:12 pm
Anita – is this version easier to read?
http://www.sff.net/people/jchines/Temp/GT%20Cover.jpg
Anke
February 25, 2011 @ 4:19 pm
I converted that to greyscale and shrank it to 100 pixels height, and it was still readable, which wasn’t the case with the first two drafts, so I’d say that’s a success.
Jim C. Hines
February 25, 2011 @ 4:37 pm
Excellent – thank you!
P4p3rDr4g0n
February 28, 2011 @ 8:00 am
Very good cover! I have a question. The books will be available in Hungary? If you are the most popular bookstore (www.konyv-konyvek.hu) can not find one, you will be nowhere. And I can not find them.
Jim C. Hines
February 28, 2011 @ 8:40 am
So far, we haven’t had an offer from a publisher in Hungary to translate and publish the books over there. I’d love it if that changed, though. And if so, I’ll definitely post the news here.
Anita K.
March 2, 2011 @ 8:54 am
Yes, I agree with Anke, this one is MUCH easier to read, and I like it the best of all! 🙂