New Cover for Kafka Novel§
by Russell Dyer
published: jan 27, 2011; revised: sep 10, 2017; readers in past month: 232
Although the cover of my first novel was nice, I was never quite pleased with the results. It was missing something. It had a feel to it that made it less than professional looking. The background image was from a photograph that I had taken in Milan, in the crypt of a chapel at San Lorenzo Basillica. The problem wasn’t the photograph, but how I had used it in relation to the text. I put together cover completely on my own. I tried to look over several examples of books that I owned, ones that I thought were well done. But all of that inspiration didn’t help me to see how to create my own cover — at least not fully. So, I’ve been wanting to get some help to redesign it.
Using the same graphic designer in Milan who did the art work for my new book on MySQL Replication, she helped me to redesign the cover of my novel. She made some adjustments to the original photograph, as well as restoring the photograph as it was originally taken. I had flipped the image when I did the cover, placing the main wall on the left in an attempt to allow me to wrap the image around to the back cover. She put it back to where it was, which places the distant lit section to the right, drawing the eye outwardly instead of the image folding in on itself. She also recolored the image, changing it from a green tone to a brown coloring. She added a band across the bottom in a different tone. This helps to block in better the title text and all on the front, as well as separate the description of the book on the back cover from the publisher and pricing information. If you’d like to see an enlarged shot of each cover, click on the images of each. Overall, I think the results are much better.
If you would like to buy a copy, you can find it Amazon where you can order a copy. It doesn’t cost much: only $12 — I only make a couple of dollars or so. It’s in print format only at this time. I bought a Kindle electronic book reader for myself for Christmas so that I can learn how to use it and how to format books for them. I tried just loading a PDF copy of my book on it, but the text was too small and the margins too wide. It’s going to take some time to understand how to format it properly using Amazon’s format.
Once I’ve worked that out, though, I’ll post a notice on my site announcing that the book is available in Kindle format. If you don’t have one of the devicies, you can also use the free Kindle reader software that works on normal Windows or Macintosh computers, as well as other portable devices (e.g., Apple iPad and iPhone and other smart phones).