Painting the cover of a book!
The idea:
Last Nov/Dec I had a draft for a new book, a short story told from the perspective of Death. This short story, being untied to the other book series I was working on was an open invitation to play around in all the aspects of the publishing process. So, by George, I was going to play with it. My only criteria for the cover was that it had to be cool, and cheap (i.e. not paying someone else to do it), and I wanted a Memento Mori to fit with the theme. After searching for a while of available paintings, I decided it’d be better to just paint one myself.
Front Painting
What I wanted from the Memento Mori painting were elements that would relate to specific elements in the book. The book has five shorter stories, all told from Death’s point of view, but following different characters. For the characters, I picked one or two things that could represent either the character or their death.
A Goof: I painted this cover after finishing the second draft of the story. (Which is where I would normally stop and turn the manuscript over to a professional editor. Since I was trying to do as much of the bookwork myself, I decided I’d do a third draft/edit before I released it.) In that third draft, I actually changed two of the stories in major ways. So a few elements on the cover still go with the story but don’t match the story and the deaths. Oops.
I wanted to paint a skull ('tis a big piece of what makes a Memento Mori after all) and have other items related to Death specifically since he/it was the main character.
Death has the skull, book, candle, and in some ways the flowers. (Plus the entire back cover is directed toward him/it rather than any of the characters.
After I had everything planned out, the only thing left was the painting part. Which went smoothly and most of it turned out well.
There are some changes I’d make now. Such as:
Redoing the flowers and the background completely
Fixing the candle smoke
Little changes to the painting of the book
Eliminating the use of the orange and instead mixing the reds and yellows present in the rest of the piece. (This is probably the biggest thing I would change. I realize now that it was a bad move to introduce a new color rather than mix the colors already present.)
But you live and learn. This painting was definitely one that I learned a lot from and that pushed me beyond what I had previously thought I could accomplish.
Finished Front Cover Painting
Back Painting
An aside: You may notice that I only painted the front cover last December. I noticed that too after I had finished the book editing and was having my manuscript proofread. I started looking at how to format a book cover and stared at my screen for a few moments before realizing I had nothing for the back. Oops again. I did consider just having a simple monotone back or somehow stretching the front cover, but I quickly pushed those thoughts aside and decided I’d have to paint a back cover as well.
The process:
I went about designing the back in a similar way to the front. Since all the characters were represented, I made the back completely Death-themed. Several not-so-quick Google searches later, and I had a few options to consider for representing Death. Since the back cover was late and I was on a deadline, I decided to do a few elements that would be easy and quick.
Again, once the planning was done, I just jumped into painting. I used a smaller canvas since I was in a hurry and figured it wouldn’t matter much. It did not. (In fact, the front cover had to be trimmed from the original size to fit.)
Another oops. The only real issue with the back cover is the color of the wall, and the glass is a bit off from matching the front. The red tablecloth is good, but I could not get the back wall right. Since I painted the two so far apart, I wasn’t sure what colors I’d used for anything and just guessed. Some guesses turned out better than others.
Finished Back Cover Painting
Final Pieces
With both covers painted, I just set them up in the Amazon KDP template so they were ready to go.
Third oops, the initial attempt at this messed up the spine. I’m sure it was user error, but everything was lined up according to the template so I’m still not sure what I messed up. Either way, after a little trial and error, I fixed it so it looks proper now.
The book looks great with its custom Memento Mori painting. I was able to fix some of the elements I disliked in the front cover, and some others were just cropped out to fit it properly.
My next book will use my regular cover designer to match the cover with the rest of the trilogy. However, for future books after that, I will likely be painting the covers.
