Here It Is...Cover Art for Love Simplifed

And here it is. The cover of my novel, Love Simplified.

I must admit that this was a challenging undertaking. Not because it was beyond my skill set. I have been designing covers for over five years now. When working with a client, I normally have guidelines, even with clients that allow me release my full creative abilities with little input. Not only that, I have to adhere to certain guidelines that come along with being a graphic artist.

For instance, I have to create, first and foremost, a great piece of art. The baseline function of art is beauty. Yes, the things I design have purpose, but it must be at its core, appealing and engaging artwork.  Another guideline is purpose and audience. I have to consider who the author’s audience is and what kind of cover catches that audience's attention.

Also, I have to try and adhere to industry “standards” in cover art. That’s not to say that there is a set rule on cover art must look like, but there are some common features to certain genres. For instance, romance normally has pictures of couples. Women’s fiction books often have one or no people on their covers or vector-based drawings on the cover. Thrillers and normally done in dark colors, unless it’s a cozy. And there are so many more considerations that go into creating cover art.

Since I know all that already, it should have been easy for me right? NOT!

The fact that this cover is for my book, my baby, I threw all that knowledge out the window. In the early drafts, I didn’t consider audience or purpose. I just created what I liked. Right around draft 8, something clicked and I remembered all the rules. So after 14 drafts, I finally came up with something that I liked.

But that brought on another problem…the problem of revision. As a writer and a graphic designer, I love to revise. I love tweaking my works, adding subtle improvements and pushing myself to create something really spectacular. I could revise forever, and thus the problem. Normally, my clients or the contract I have with them decides when a project is finished. But when I’m the client, I could have kept revising until kingdom come. Also, I haven’t been completely delivered from being a closet perfectionist, so it was hard to me to stop tweaking and count the cover as done.

So after much revising, and my husband telling me to stop stressing myself, I settled on a cover. I can’t say I’m not tempted to take it through another round of revisions (read: kill perfectionism). What do you think of my cover?

PS: I spent an hour tweaking the line "A Tempest Day Production." When I finished, it was well after midnight. Bad girl, Terri!