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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Ebooks -- Covers

Moving ahead on my ebook cover. The designer asked me to go online and have a look at feathers since I wanted a feather on my cover. Not that the designer will use these feathers, but they will give her some idea of what I have in mind. I wanted a feather that looked like it had been through the wash and I wanted a parrot feather. The name of the memoir is My Father's Parrot.

I sent Dee two feathers from Google Images that are not the right feather but had qualities I was looking for. One was all rumpled but too pointy. Another had the right attitude but was too stubby.

Next, I looked at thumbnails. I went to Amazon and had a look at ebooks and chose three that I liked and two that I didn't. Surprisingly, because I consider myself a minimalist, I liked a book cover with big type on the front. I liked it because I could read the title so easily. Another one I chose on the basis of colour. I liked the warm, sunset red colour. The third I chose because of the whimsical image and how it drew me in to want to know more.

Out of the two covers I didn't like, one had type that was so small I couldn't read the title or author's name. Why else are you looking at a cover? The second one was a cover that I kept seeing again and again as I scrolled through the ebooks, which I thought was really odd. Was it some sort of commercial cover available through a program? It wasn't the same author and the topics seemed to vary wildly. Anyway, I just wanted to steer away from anything that looked similar.

In addition to these pics which I emailed to Dee, I gave her the title and author name and a request for no caps and a round font. "Round" is not very specific but I wanted a font that didn't take itself too seriously.

Dee wrote me back asking me what size I wanted to see in terms of a proof. Right away, I knew I wanted to see a thumbnail size (1 inch x 1 1/2 inches) and I requested to see an e-reader size. My ereader is a Sony and the screen measures 3 1/2 x 5 inches. I'm not sure if it costs any extra to see two sizes, but I thought these two sizes were important to preview.

That's all for covers!

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