Book Covers: from sketch to design
In producing my science fiction books, one of the many tasks is to produce a book cover for each book. I could hire this step out, but I made a decision early in my author experience to feature both my art and writing in producing my books.
~
There are ten (soon to be eleven) books in the Meniscus Science Fiction Series. Once I decided on the design for the first book (Meniscus: Crossing The Churn), I knew I wanted all the books in the series to follow a similar cover pattern. I liked the format of a single block showing the cover art and the general placement of title, volume number and author’s name. I also wanted all the cover art to show the two Meniscus moons (Cardoth-roe, the big moon, and Cardoth-grill’en, the little moon) and the characters in the book in silhouette.
~
~
Creating a book cover takes four main steps.
~
Step One is to consider how I want to present the book and what themes could be displayed.
Step Two is to do a black and white drawing of the cover.
Step Three is to do an acrylic painting of the drawing.
Step Four is to create a cover for the book, to be up-loaded to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for both paperback and e-book editions.
~
The only cover to depart from the pattern (no drawing was produced that led to the cover), was Book Seven, Meniscus: Encounter with the Emenpod. Here are the drawings and final covers for all the books after the first:
~
There is one other book, Meniscus: One Point Five – Forty Missing Days, that should be shown. Its cover came from a painting done to welcome people to my sales table at various book fairs.
All my best,
Jane ( a.k.a. Alexandra)
nichepoetryandprose 
Your artistry has so many dimensions Jane. What talent!
LikeLike
Debby Peck
July 13, 2022 at 7:15 am
Thanks Debby. It means I am never bored! And I am glad that my botanical knowledge is useful, even when I am on another planet!!!!
LikeLike
jane tims
July 15, 2022 at 3:02 pm