Why you want to hire a real artist to do your illustrations

And I learned here that my cheap crayons are better than some of my oil pastels. 

Looking around the vast regions of ebooks being published, one cannot help noticing the artwork of the book covers being trotted out. In some case, the artwork is like "Wow--who is the artist? I so want them on my team." And in other cases, it is "God, I hope that you did the artwork yourself because you paid too much otherwise."

There are reasons to hire a real artist even if you can draw a straight line and/or modify photos in Photoshop. Just like there is a whole bunch of rough drafts and technical knowledge involved in being a writer (also applies to formatters, social media pros, and editors...perhaps even publishers), there is also a whole bunch of technical knowledge and puttering around involved with being an artist.

Just take for instance, the technical knowledge of various art materials. Oil pastels sound so much better than colored pencils, don't they?

But in practice, you could end up with a piece of bad art like the above development piece. It turns out that some oil pastels are worse than the cheapest box of crayons.

Oh, maybe you say it is just a bad artist. Ok, the blue scary monster below is by the exact same artist using the exact same paper. The difference? Oh, he used colored pencils instead.

Of course, to figure out that colored pencils are a better option (at least, compared to this particular set of oil pastels), he had to spend some time doing a rough piece of artwork. This is why artists do not necessarily work at the speed that one thinks that they should.

And if you do not want to spend a lot of time developing your art talent and learning a lot of stuff about various art materials, yet want decent artwork, you are better off hiring a professional artist.

Same artist, same paper, different medium. 

The original pencil sketch (changed color filter for contrast).

Thirty books all with the same cover

Warning---in this post I am talking about a writer who writes erotica...well, that is the polite term for it.

So tonight, I decide to spend some time on Smashwords...because I had no desire to read my homework. While there I am checking out the various books that people are putting up. I had the adult filter off because I am curious about whether that is a viable money making choice.

(Feel free to blame my curiosity about possible money making options on the fact that part of my student loan has still not gone through yet, and the semester is about to wound down. And I thought some merchants paid out slow.)

While there, I noticed that one of the erotica writers (ok, let's be honest---it is pornography) has used the same cover for thirty of their books. The cover for Summer Suds, a sex romp that starts at a car wash is the same cover (with just the title changed) as Summer Camp Surprise, and the list goes on for twenty-eight more books. They do have a couple of other covers, including one that is used twice.

Nevertheless, I find myself wondering isn't there some rule of thumb that you want the covers of your book to be different from one another? Or does that just apply to actual physical books?

Now, I suspect that the only reason that this writer is even using a cover is that you must have a cover to get into the premium catalog (aka the rest of the distribution network). But seriously, are they so cheap that they are only willing to spend money on one "safe" cover? Looking at their regular website, I realized that they are willing to buy for the more racier, not approved by Apple style of covers (lots of naked flesh and sex acts if you are curious).

So are clothes really that expensive that more than one cover is out of their price range? Or does it really not matter if all your erotica titles have the same cover? And does this also apply to other types of ebooks?

Experimenting with Book Covers

Celtic Soul Pottery at a craftshow

This morning I was experimenting with turning photos into covers---or at least, experimenting with the ways I am thinking about doing them. This photo is not a book cover; it is actually a photo from some craft show or another that my wife did. But I still like it anyways.

Of course, I would love just to pay someone to do my book covers for me---it is the old busted wallet that gets in the way there. Then again, I am not above doing book covers for others---hey, I am a poor college student; most college students are willing to sell their professors to trolls for lunch money, given half the chance.

I am still considering doing a test project for Smashwords (actually three, but who is counting); and if one hopes to make their way into the Premimum Catalog, a cover they must have.