Here it is, in all it’s glory, the custom cover I commissioned for the first Erich Ramble’s mystery novel.
The process itself was dead simple.
I started by researching mystery covers for the genres I was going to place the book in. I went to the Amazon Kindle store’s mystery section and looked at the top hundred covers for mysteries, thrillers, and others to see what elements were common in the best selling covers. Once I knew that I could move on.
I then went to a place called 99Designs and started searching for designers. There I had two choices, option number 1 is to run a contest for several designers, choose a winning design and work with the designer to finalize it. I liked the idea of a contest but chose option number two instead.
In option number two, I looked over the work of several designers and chose one directly which produced work that best matched the cover style I was looking for. Near the top of the list I found designer L1Graphics. I sent them the background information they needed to start the cover based on my research and waited.
The initial cover was everything I could have hoped for albeit a bit heavy on red, which I thought was too bloody for the novel itself. People get killed but in more tasteful ways. Worked with L1Graphics on color changes and ended up with the perfect cover. It really reflects the Austin area, my idea of Erich, and the tone I wanted the cover to have. It should also look right at home in the popular ebook lists should it make it that far.
Thx to L1Graphics at 99Designs for their great work, cooperative attitude, and fast turnaround. I will definitely be using them in future projects.
So, what do you think? Does it work for you?
