Cy Pruitt

When you’re self-publishing, coming up with covers is a special challenge. For posting on the web, I commissioned an artist to draw my main characters. I added a border and some text. That was my cover.

Because it’s my first cover, I’ll always have a soft spot for it, but when I decided to self-publish, I knew that I’d need a new one. Why?

• Commercial Use: I actually paid my artist for commercial use. However, our entire interaction was via Twitter DM (those were the days) and they’ve since moved to other platforms. Given the lack of formal contract, I’m hesitant to move their art from web to print.
  
• Popular Trends: Everyone wants a professional cover. Which is more difficult when you aren’t working with a professional publishing team. I’ve done fact-finding in my own bookshelf and on the relevant lists, trying to understand what the genre and its reader want. At the same time, I want to avoid things that I think can date covers, like using decoupaged stock images. (The lack of free images that match my story also helped me choose!) I also want to be true to myself and my own aesthetic.
  
• Print Color Profiles and Dimensions: Although this is the least sexy reason, it’s the one that kicked off the rest: My webnovel cover was designed for the web! No spine, no back cover, no CMYK profile– I knew I’d have to revamp it anyway, and once I opened that door, why not evolve?

Knowing what I didn’t want didn’t make creating a new cover any easier. At first, I went mad with power using Canva’s AI image generation. It was fun, and lovely, and exciting. But there are ethical concerns with AI covers. And some practical ones. The more you look, the more it bugs you when the character’s hand can’t actually be holding that umbrella, you know? Although I have three AI cover options that I truly like, I fear regretting them in the future. So I re-evaluated.

Instead, I found a talented artist in my online reading group and worked with them to create a cover that completely blows me away. Not only did the talented Eliasis create amazing art of main characters Wei Qing and Yue Fei, but they full designed the cover, including blurb and title.