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Yeah what you got there looks pretty sweet, but like a bloke above said, probably got to shrink the art down to give your title more prominence and not so close to the trim. And this here is just my personal opinion or taste, and black being my favorite color, I reckon a black, smoky style background or something to make the gold pop, any cover with those types of colors typically draw my attention for some reason.Almyrigan Hero said:Well...I did enroll in KDP Select, actually, and a bit prematurely by the looks of it. I don't know exactly what Amazon would think of me distributing review copies on other sites, but if I'm not a marketing munchkin then I'm certainly not a legal eagle, so instead of tempting fate, I think I'll just put off those plans for the time being.
Meanwhile, though, I still want to at least develop a better placeholder; and no, I'm not too inclined to spend $80 - $100 on a premade that I intend on replacing in less than three months. I feel like I've got the start of something temporarily passible here, but I can't quite settle on a font that looks fancy enough to be fantasy, but still fits the whole title legibly in thumbnail size.
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On another note, I should probably explain my ambitions and expectations a bit more thoroughly here. I am...sort of just writing for the enjoyment of it? I do want to make back more than I'm spending (obviously,) but I'm not necessarily expecting nor directly aiming to claw my way up the rankings or make this my primary source of income. For all intents and purposes, I'm just a hobbyist with mild ambitions and a vague hope that my book might happen into the right reviewer's hands.
I...could cough up $300 - $500 for a 'cheap' market-quality cover (and I still probably will, after my resolve finishes dissolving,) but as someone who's not necessarily looking at this from a business investment sense, it is a little bit difficult to wrap my head around that sort of investment. Sure, time is money, but money is also time, and it's gonna take quite a few sales for a low-to-no-profile indie book to absorb that kind of cost. Sales that, even after I have a good thumbnail, will probably require some fairly heavy advertising to get off the ground.
The point being, I'm looking for a balance. I'm not aiming to outbid the big leagues for the front page, not yet at least, I just want something that'll stand out (in an interesting way) amid the sea of cookie-cutter 'sexy photo model confidently staring at the reader while colors swirl in the stock background behind them' covers.
But yeah, that design looks pretty sweet and you can craft graphics or images of that caliber by your own hand, I'd be designing my own cover too. On top of saving money, being an aspiring indie author, nothing truly encapsulates the process by doing everything single handedly. People will probably say, 'you can't do everything yourself!' but if you can, and the end product is attractive, well written, well, I tip my metaphorical bonnet to you.