Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Book Cover Art

Publishing and Marketing
#1

http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/temp/Reconnection_Cover_Mockup.png
http://kschnee.xepher.net/pics/temp/Reconnection_Cover_Mockup_2.jpg

I’m looking to market a new novella, but it needs cover art. I got an illustration of the main character by an artist who worked cheaply and had no problem with licensing rights, and slapped that onto a free fantasy background off DeviantArt. Also tried it off a pixelly background.

Uh… it’s not up to the same quality standard as the cool image I paid $60 to license last time. In fact one friend candidly told me the squirrel pic would be a turn-off if anything. Because this thing is a novella of around 20K words and will probably be a 99-cent download, I’m not looking to spend significant money on it. There are a couple of generic forest backgrounds I might be able to use too; DA artists post weird ambiguous license terms.

Think I’d be better off ditching the squirrel pic from the cover, just including it as an interior illustration, and just having a generic dull cover like the pixel background plus text?

(Under the weird circumstances of the setting, it’s actually hard SF but takes place in a fantasy world… and occasionally Texas. So I’m also looking to not make people think it’s pure fantasy.)

#2

Yeah, I think that it works better as an interior illustration. I wouldn’t be tempted to buy a book with this as a front cover.

#3

Blah. Well, it’s good to be told that in advance; thanks. I’m now trying to figure out whether to buy more furry art or just put together something more abstract. Probably the latter at this point.

#4

I would strongly consider just going onto a site like e621.net or FurAffinity, search term ‘squirrel’, and go looking for art that would be good enough for a book cover. Draw up a list of, say, 10 of them, and then go politely knocking on artist’s digital doors, and discuss licensing the image(s) that you think fit.

#5

I tend to not like abstract covers (Richard Powers and Ed Emshwiller could paint attractive s-f abstractions, but they’re both dead and nobody else seems to be able to), so I hope that you do find a furry artist who can create a good anthro squirrel.

I just saw a trailer for “Get Squirrely”, a coming Canadian talking-animal movie with, to put it politely, not very up-to-date CGI animation. The animals lack fur, and while that’s okay for the reptiles, a squirrel without fur looks – well, that’s probably why Squirrely appears fully dressed all the time. I’ve posted the trailer (in an article from Cartoon Brew) to Flayrah, so furry fans can see it.

#6

Are you still looking?