You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover

By Yvonne Perry

The cover of your book is not just an artistic rendering. It is a marketing piece and should give some idea of what the book is about. Special consideration needs to go in to the art and the overall design.

Many publishing companies offer template book covers that you can modify by substituting a stock photo or changing colors, but to me this important marketing piece needs to be personalized in order to be as effective as possible.

I love Hayley John's artwork! This high school student is such a joy to work within the creation of art for the cover of my two latest books. I sent her a couple of articles about empathy and a picture I found online to give her an idea of what the book was going to be about, and she conceptualized the girl on the cover of Whose Stuff Is This?

She also created the collage from the illustrations she did for several of the stories in my children's book, The Sid Series ~ A Collection of Holistic Stories for Children.

I've asked Hayley to answer a few questions for those who are interested in her work.

YVONNE: How did you come up with the idea for the art cover for this book?
HAYLEY: I was given the general idea of a girl showing both happy and sad emotions and an example of what Yvonne wanted. At first I was considering putting the two emotions in different faces but I realized it might not display the right idea so I decided upon giving the girl tears and a smile to show her different emotions.

YVONNE: What programs did you use to create the piece?
HAYLEY: Originally the piece was done with colored pencils in my sketchbook. I then transferred the image to my computer were I used a photo editing program called GIMP to finish my creation.

YVONNE: How long does it take to create something like this?
HAYLEY: I spent about two hours on the original colored pencil part and about four more with the editing program.

YVONNE: Where are you studying art?
HAYLEY: I'm not taking any art classes right now.

YVONNE: Do you plan to continue your art studies after graduation?
HAYLEY: Yes I do. I love art and fully enjoy using my creativity. Everything artistic is my passion! Although I enjoy art too much to let it go, I want it to be more of a side job because of the inconsistency of the pay.

YVONNE: Are you available to other authors who need cover art for their books?
HAYLEY: YES! I would love to take more jobs for anyone interested! You may contact me at http://www.wix.com/hayleys_custom_art/ Thank you.