I met J. C. Andrijeski on Facebook and was fascinated by her cover designs. The color and the eye grabbed my attention. And since she designs her own cover, it is uniquely hers and does not resemble ones done by any other artist. J. C. shares with us her thinking process in branding and reflecting the cross-genre nature of her "Allie's War" series.
J. C.: I'm pretty unusual among a lot of writers, I think, in that I
often design my own book covers. I've hired artists as well, here and there,
but for a number of reasons, I decided to do a lot of them myself, at least
when I can.
For one thing, it's really fun. As a writer, my work is pretty
danged non-visual, and I'm a very visual person who likes visual art a great
deal, so it's a blast for me. It's also nice to do something different that's
still creative. Strangely enough, it
also feels more inclusive and 'social' to me. There's a reclusive quality to
writing that stems partly from the fact that it's difficult to show anyone a
work in progress and get immediate feedback. I've had a lot of visual artist
friends over the years who could spend a few hours working on a project only to
show me their current 'baby' and get my immediate
reaction. Same with musician friends, who would write a new song and play it
for me at once to see what I thought. This is tricky to do as a writer without
having to ask for a time commitment from the person in question. In any case,
it's definitely not immediate.
Well, unless you make the person read it while you're in the room
and hover over them.(poor husbands/boyfriends and wives/girlfriends of writers
everywhere...I sympathize with you!), which is pretty much uncomfortable for
everyone concerned.
Another reason I ended up dabbling in cover design was the
difficulty of branding one of the series' I write, the Allie's War series, due to it's funky, cross-genre nature that made
it difficult to market. I ended up redoing those myself partly as a result of
the process of discovering my own
brand, meaning as a writer. Some of this has to do with branding, which was
already difficult for me with these books, and the primary reason I was told
they were 'unsellable' by editors I spoke to at traditional houses in New York
who liked them. As an odd mix-mash of genres (urban fantasy, science fiction,
alternate history, romance, adventure), the books were difficult to market
solidly in any one genre, so I generally got advice to change them to make them
fit easier.
One of the wonderful things about indie publishing is that I
didn't have to do that. One of the difficulties of indie publishing is that I
was now faced with the same challenge that the publisher complained about with
the books...trying to brand them in such a way that they'd find their audience.
The artist I'd initially hired to work on the Allie's War series covers, Amelia
Craigen (www.ameliac.com)
is an amazing commercial designer and artist. She came up with a very cool
brand for the books that really matched the science fiction elements of the
stories in a lot of ways, as well as some of the more gritty, political
elements. But unfortunately, her covers were also almost entirely missing
probably the biggest market for the novels, which was the romance and urban
fantasy crowd.
So after some hemming and hawing and testing with various
readers, I decided I needed to go back to the drawing board. At the time this
really frustrated me, but it ended up being a really excellent exercise for me,
because it forced me to dig into learning about genre branding and the
different kinds of art and marketing that people associate with different kinds
of books. Now I believe it's really absolutely critical to do this, even if
you're a huge fan of the genre in question...even if you don't plan to design your own covers. It doesn't mean you have to
take a bunch of design classes, either (although these would be extremely
helpful, of course!). Just pull a whole lot of covers of successful books from
that particular genre, line them up, and check them out for common themes and
elements.
While I had decided to primarily target the urban fantasy/
romance market, I didn't want to brand them exactly
the same as the majority of other books in that genre...just with enough
similar elements that readers would know it might be 'their kind of book.' It
quickly became apparent that the lack of people on the cover simply wouldn't
work for romance of any kind...and the color scheme I'd been using was all
wrong for both paranormal romance AND urban fantasy. The first thing I noticed
in my research was the use of a lot of rich, 'magical' colors in the covers of
these books: dark vibrant purples, blues, pale greens, blacks, whites, dark
reds. These were the colors of the curtains you might find hanging in the
windows of an old castle, or the early night sky, or the sky at the middle of
the night with a full moon. I also saw people...a lot of people. Some of these
were abstract, but the themes were similar. In the more romance-type books,
there was often a couple embracing. In urban fantasy, usually the hero or
heroine took up most of the front cover, with some element of magic happening
around them, or a symbol specific to the genre (e.g., moons for werewolves,
lonely lanes and/or blood for vampires). Leather clothes were common...as were
sultry, tough expressions.
I decided to take the same basic concepts, but brand my own spin
to them, since the Allie's War books didn't fit the exact vibe of a lot of these books, due to the crossover elements.
When I made the first cover that prominent eye, and picked a more posturized
and polarized green and white theme, I felt like I was finally onto something
that might work. It was a 'look' that I felt matched the books, but still kept
enough of the genre tropes for it to stand out to those readers. It also
conveyed a kind of otherworldly 'vibe' that I thought would work for the series
as a whole.
After soliciting feedback on this concept and a few others I'd
been kicking around, I decided to test it out. At the time, I had the first
three books in the series out, so I created two more covers that matched the
brand of the first, at least in terms of the color scheme and the basic design.
I added more plot elements, too, and emphasized the romance side of things a
bit more in books two and three.
So now the real test.
What do you think? Do they work, in terms of both 'fitting in'
and 'standing apart'? What kind of books would you think these were, just by
looking at the covers?
blog: http://jcandrijeski.blogspot. com
FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/J.C. Andrijeski
Goodreads author page:
http://www.goodreads.com/ author/show/4470130.J_C_ Andrijeski
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ jcandrijeski (@jcandrijeski)
Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/JC- Andrijeski/e/B004MFTAP0/
Link for books:
Rook: Allie's War, Book One
http://www.amazon.com/Rook- Allies-War-Book-ebook/dp/ B004TXR6FG/
Shield: Allie's War, Book Two
http://www.amazon.com/Shield- Allies-War-Book-ebook/dp/ B004TXR750/
Sword: Allie's War, Book Three
http://www.amazon.com/Sword- Allies-Book-Three-ebook/dp/ B004W48KXO/
Shadow: Allie's War, Book Four
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow- Allies-Book-Four-ebook/dp/ B006L0XQX6/
Knight: Allie's War, Book Five (just released, I'm working on the
paperback cover for that one right now!)
http://www.amazon.com/Knight- Allies-Book-Five-ebook/dp/ B008FKV59M/
JC Andrijeski has published novels, novellas, serials, graphic novels
and short stories, as well as nonfiction essays and articles,
including the Allie’s War series and The Slave Girl Chronicles. Her
short fiction runs from humorous to apocalyptic, and her nonfiction
articles cover subjects from graffiti art, meditation, psychology,
journalism, politics and history. JC currently lives and writes full
time at the foot of the Himalayas in India, a location she drew on a
fair bit in writing the Allie's War books. Please visit JC's blog at
http://jcandrijeski.blogspot. com
FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/J.C.
Goodreads author page:
http://www.goodreads.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/JC-
Link for books:
Rook: Allie's War, Book One
http://www.amazon.com/Rook-
Shield: Allie's War, Book Two
http://www.amazon.com/Shield-
Sword: Allie's War, Book Three
http://www.amazon.com/Sword-
Shadow: Allie's War, Book Four
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-
Knight: Allie's War, Book Five (just released, I'm working on the
paperback cover for that one right now!)
http://www.amazon.com/Knight-
JC Andrijeski has published novels, novellas, serials, graphic novels
and short stories, as well as nonfiction essays and articles,
including the Allie’s War series and The Slave Girl Chronicles. Her
short fiction runs from humorous to apocalyptic, and her nonfiction
articles cover subjects from graffiti art, meditation, psychology,
journalism, politics and history. JC currently lives and writes full
time at the foot of the Himalayas in India, a location she drew on a
fair bit in writing the Allie's War books. Please visit JC's blog at
http://jcandrijeski.blogspot.
Excellent post, and I love the covers.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nancy ~ I'm really glad you enjoyed the post, and appreciate the positive feedback on the covers! :)
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the post very much. It was very revealing. Thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm an old fan of AW series, but I still clearly remember that those greenish, unusual covers were the first to grab my attention.
Thanks Zoe!! :) I'm glad you liked the post...it's the first time I've tried to write about this. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post. I enjoyed reading it, Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed the post. It put to words some of the concepts that I had been applying to my own work intuitively, while bringing to light some issues surrounding expression of genre that I hadn't considered.
ReplyDeleteI like all four of the covers, but one and four particularly stand out to me. Perhaps it's because the visual concepts of those scenes present themselves more easily from first glance, but those two particularly stand out to me.
Excellent covers, and excellent read.
Hey thanks so much, Michael and Jason! Funnily enough, this topic came up on a writer's list I'm on in just the last few days, too. The gist that we've been talking about there is, whether the cover needs to accurately depict some key element of the story (or title?) or if it's more about just intriguing the reader and getting them to pick it up. What you were saying Jason seems to support the latter more (meaning that it's more about a strong visual image to capture your eye). Which I kind of believe too, after talking to a lot of readers. So much to learn in this area, really.
ReplyDeleteJC is so talented. I'd say the cover's purpose is to get the second look. And your covers have done that.
ReplyDeleteAww, thanks so much, Rachelle! And thanks again for having me on here, I love your blog! Talk about a lovely design... :)
ReplyDelete