Book Cover Illustrations

Authors who have secured a book contract with a major publisher are often surprised to discover that there’s virtually no promotion or support from a publisher for a title these days. There’s no publicity department issuing press releases, no big ads targeted at potential readers. That’s reserved for the top tier authors. The mid-list writers are pretty much on their own beyond listings in catalogs and introduction to the news stands and book stores through the publisher’s distribution network.

That’s the shock many authors get with their first book: Big presses no longer offer (and perhaps never did) much of anything to promote a mid-list book.

Nor do the presses offer any help to the author in terms of how to go about writing press releases, scheduling book tours and signings, or locating radio programs the author might talk on. The author has to sink or swim. He must figure all this stuff out pretty on his own. “High-Ho, Silver, away!” The Lone Writer rides again.

This wouldn’t be so bad perhaps if the presses compensated the author for his publicity and travel costs. But they don’t (unless the author is lucky enough to be able to negotiate that in his initial contract).

So basically the burden of promotion, advertising, and so forth has been shifted from the publisher to the author with NO compensation to the writer.

Now the big publisher does bring some important cards to the table: Editing, graphic design, and distribution.

But many authors are starting to ask themselves if they might not hire freelancers to do this work and still come out ahead by self publishing since they’re going to have to pay for promoting the book out of their own pocket anyway.

Until recently, the answer was “No!” A big press still had the distribution of books sewn up and a self-publisher just couldn’t compete with that.

But with ebooks gaining popularity, this situation may be changing.

And already a few mid-list authors are saying, “Forget it” to the big publishers and starting their own tiny presses. It’s very possible this slow trickle of defecting authors will grow into a flood, and at that point the book publishing industry may be turned on its head.

Of course the big presses may react by paying a bigger percentage in royalties to authors. And they might even dust off their publicity departments and start offering writers the support needed for properly promoting books.

That uncertainty of how the players will react to future events is what keeps big publishing interesting.

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When not plotting the overthrow of big presses, Duncan Long is a freelance magazine and book illustrator who works for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, as well as for self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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For years I’ve been working on a science fiction novel Wrong Side In. The story takes place in the near future and travels around the word with a little time hoping to boot. The central character is a juvenile delinquent at the beginning of the story and slowly is transformed by events and his own motivations.

Today I created cover artwork that I’m happy with, so I think the book cover illustration is finally done. Hopefully the illustration captures both this anti-hero’s petulant nature while hinting at his possible greatness.

The manuscript is at a publishers for consideration (fingers crossed on that). It’s doubtful that the publisher who finally bites for the story will want the cover I’ve done, though one never knows; publishers generally have their own artists and it’s rare for a writer to actually illustrate a cover for his own book, even though that seems odd to those outside the industry. (It makes sense if you’ve been in the process — generally writers are kept out of the loop for creating the cover at established publishing houses.)

That said, it’s nice to feel like I finally have this story “out of my system.”

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When not wearing his writer’s hat, Duncan Long works as a freelance magazine and book illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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I recently saw an article (that will go nameless to protect the guilty) which claimed that since Central Americans tended to like bright colors while those in North America on the average prefer muted colors, people living in the north were “fearful of bright colors.”

Hello?

Let me be clear: I’ve spent most of my life in North America, and I can’t remember when I last saw a grown man running in fear from a bright color.

That said, I’m dubious of any suggestion that this or that culture is superior because it has a taste for a certain color, food, or style of dress — remembering that the Greeks and Romans, while wearing short skirts and sandals, conquered the known world.

There’s also the problem of which perspective on things is correct. What makes the pro-bright color crowd right? One might just as easily argue that the Northeners are right. The argument might be that those preferring muted colors have refined tastes, knowing the difference between subtle shades and garish hues.

And the more narrow among this league of muted color lovers might just as easily claim that their southern cousins must be fearful of muted colors?

Don’t get me wrong.

Even though I’m one of those allegedly fearful Northerners, I like bright colors (as anyone who has seen my artwork knows).

But I’d never be silly enough to suggest those who differ from my views are “fearful of color.” Come on now, isn’t that just a tad ridiculous?

How about, rather than having to claim that either A) Bright colors are superior or B) Muted colors are best, we instead go with C) All colors are fine? Why claim one choice is right and the other, wrong? Or that those who fail to choose whatever we deem superior are “fearful”?

I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that it’s just plain crazy to claim one or another color is chosen only by the brave and avoided by the fearful.

Such a suggestion is like arguing that because a person dislikes celery, they must be fearful of that vegetable.

Doesn’t it make more sense just to believe they don’t have a taste for celery.

Or, perhaps, bright colors.

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When not cowering at the sight of vegetables, Duncan Long is a freelance magazine and book illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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You see strange things in the murky depths when you go fishing late in the day. A wise fisherman knows not to talk about them, except perhaps to those who fish as he does.

This is the “One That Got Away,” that mermaid sighted for just a moment, that lady of the lake who becomes the ultimate fish story.

And, yes, all rights to this illustration (including book and magazine) are currently available.

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When not musing about fish, Duncan Long paints magazine and book illustrations for Ballistic Publishing, HarperCollins, The Sun, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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Thanksgiving Day here in the US… Not working on holidays is tough for me – I love doing what I do for a living. That said, this has been a great year in terms of having work to do, something many in the US can’t say this year. So I have much to be thankful for, and hope those without work will soon be in the same boat I find myself in.

OK… So I cheated a little and stayed up late last night to create this book illustration looking for a home: “Where My Scattered Thoughts Do Go.” Hopefully that will get me through the celebration. Or at least until I sneak out and do a little work on the sly. In the meantime, this is an illustration looking for a home at the moment; I hope it will be gracing a novel soon (inquiries welcome).

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US — and for the rest of the world: Have a great day!

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When not sneaking away from family gatherings to create illustrations without a home, Duncan Long works as a freelance magazine and book illustrator. His work has appeared on covers for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See more of Long’s book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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Sci-Fi Art Now continues to garner great reviews. The most recent is to be found at io9.

And out of the several hundred images in the book, they chose two of my illustrations to display at their site – always a feather in the cap of an artist. Sadly, enough though they chose my artwork to display, they didn’t mention my name; such is the lot of “creatives” in today’s marketplace, I guess.

Here’s wishing my US friends a Happy Thanksgiving.

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When not gnawing at a turkey leg, Duncan Long will be working as a freelance magazine and book illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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I was conversing with a fellow graphic designer recently and mentioned how today we enjoyed the many benefits of DTP (desktop publishing). The designer was somewhat taken aback (with good reason – as noted below). And I realized that the term DTP is almost never used any more, having slowly vanished from the lexicon of most graphic designers.

For the uninitiated, DTP seriously began back somewhere in the dark ages of the mid-1980s when personal computers were just starting to be powerful enough to handle typefaces and layout duties in a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment. (I know some historians consider the machines of the 1970s as DTP capable – but that’s sort of pushing the idea as they were slow, expensive, and not easy to use for the most part).

Of course the term DTP is a little misleading since before computerized layout came onto the scene, the ability to shoot plates from typed sheets of paper or the like for offset printing made it practical to cobble together paper versions of a book or newsletter and put it into print.

Small presses, self publishers, and others who could never afford big typesetting equipment assembled their publications with scissors and glue pots. This “DTP” was a matter of rubber cement, cut and paste — with scissors and real paper — and rub-on capital type that invariably was a little cockeyed to the page. Often an electric typewriter supplied the columns of type to be glued into place, with typos corrected by another layer of type glued on top of everything.

It was a horribly sticky process. And quite intoxicating.

Literally, due to the fumes from the glue.

So when computerized DTP became cheap enough for the masses, it was revolutionary. Columns became straighter, justification became practical, and there were no glued sections slipping around between the layout table and the print shop.

There were new eyesores.

Perhaps the worst resulted due to the growing wealth of typefaces (aka “fonts”) available to designers. Umpteen different ones could be placed on a page with ease, and for those typeface-starved folks in the 1980s, it was often too tempting not to add as many different fonts as the designer could manage.

Heady.

Lots of fun.

And quite ugly.

Today all but the greenest of designers have learned to limit typefaces to one or two on a page, so that even though thousands of choices are available, only some of the classics are regularly used (with the possible exception of titling on genre books where weird and grungy is often acceptable if not expected).

So the DTP child once sick through the overindulgence of typeface eye candy, eventually got over the illness and learned to consume fonts with caution. Reason finally prevailed.

That said, I do still mix types once in a while, even within the words of a title. But I try to do so in subtle ways that hide the fact or allow me to achieve some weird effect, like a skull instead of an “O” in a mystery title. But even that sort of use is becoming a bit clichéd and likely will be laughable before long (fashion being that thing that looks great today and funny tomorrow.)

As for the acronym “DTP,” it’s pretty much vanished from the language of designers. That’s likely because of the somewhat negative connotation it gained. DTP brings to mind some poor rube cobbling together a monstrosity of typefaces and poor design in the old tradition of the good, the bad, and the (muli-font) ugly of the recent past.

Besides which, all graphic design for print is basically DTP for all practical purposes. That’s all there is today with the exception of those few brave souls still setting type by hand or on a typesetting machine.

Too, think how much more refined “graphic design” sounds when set alongside “DTP.”

I know which I’d rather be doing.

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When not reminiscing about those heady days of rubber cement layout, Duncan Long works as a graphic designer, creating book covers and illustrations for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers as well as self-publishing authors. You can find examples of his graphic design work at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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Those who follow the comments on this blog will recognize Rosanne Dingli’s name. She regularly offers sage advice and commentary, and I’m always interested to learn what she has to say about my work.

Recently she created The Versatile Blogger Award for blogs that she says, “Are all fascinating, informative, funny, brilliant, and very enjoyable. Visit them with my guarantee of satisfaction, safety, and success.”

Here’s my good news: The blog you’re reading right now was selected as one of the twelve.

I greatly appreciate Dingli’s kind gesture (now to contain my pride).

I’d suggest you visit Dingli’s blog not just to find your way to the wealth of entertaining information on the twelve blogs she selected, but also to read her blog as it’s a treasure trove of useful suggestions and ideas as well. You can find the list (and Dingli’s entries) at Rosanne Dingli’s Blog.

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When not crowing over his The Versatile Blogger Award, Duncan Long works as a freelance magazine and book illustrator. His clients include HarperCollins, ISFiC Press, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. You can find his portfolio at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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This is a sort of spin off from my book cover project for Dale Allan’s novel Me Not Not Into Temptation. Initially I did a sketch of the priest with his back to the viewer and one with his front — the latter being the one chosen for the cover since it was easy to see he was a priest.

After finishing Allan’s cover, I decided to do something with the back-to-the-viewer picture and so developed it into a different picture, this time as a hit man rather than a priest, and sans much of the symbolism. (Well, except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the background).

I’ve titled this one “Tree of Knowledge: Snowy Death.” (Based on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil mentioned in Genesis 2:9 as growing inside the Garden of Eden. Also, the idea that winter is the season symbolic of death.)

No. There’s no buyer as of yet for this illustration. And don’t ask why someone would do this as a “fun” project. Perhaps it is better not to go there.

That said, I have always been fascinated / terrified by the notion that there’s such a thin line between morality and immorality within each of us, and also with the human tendency to lash out with anger at the least provocation. (I am told) anger is a sort of mini-murder directed toward the object of our anger. Each of us has a little murder in our heart.

As Sigmund Freud noted, ‘The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.”

Perhaps there’s also a hit man in each of us, wanting to get out, just as it did in Nazi Germany, Mao China, or Stalinist Russia. The terrible truth of these times and places is that the people doing these evil deads weren’t inhuman monsters, but rather regular Joes. The guy living down the street from you. And maybe the guy who looks back at you from the mirror. Ordinary people seem very able to became extraordinary killers of the innocent when given the chance.

Anyway, here’s one of my nightmares: The cold, calm murderer who makes a living slaying the innocent and guilty alike, efficiently doing his work without apparent qualm. The murderer who, had things just a little different, might have turned out to be me.

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When not looking over his shoulder to see if an angry editor has dispatched a hit man for him, Duncan Long draws and paints illustrations for HarperCollins, Ballistic Publishing, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, ILEX, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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Every once in a while I create an illustration that I think is fantastic – only to discover I may be the only person on the planet that thinks it is great. This is one of those.

When Stars Fall Down From the Sky has a story behind it. I imagined a jilted lover in some out-of-the-way preliterate time or place, where a spell might be called upon to bring stars from the sky, and awaken a monster to wreck retribution on the man who had cheated.

And so this picture.

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When not thinking of revenge and jilted lovers, Duncan Long is a freelance magazine and book illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, ISFiC Press, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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