Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Design a book cover contest!

Teralyn Rose Pilgrim is hosting a book cover design contest! My entry:


I love creating covers for my novels and hadn't done one yet for my current rough draft. So I threw this together last night. What do you think?

There is still time to sign up for the contest. If you would like to participate, head here: Linky. And you can also go to the linky to vote for me, which would be awesome as well (I'm number 2)!


53 comments:

Dafeenah said...

Now that is a book I would read. I love your cover. truly amazing

Abby said...

You just threw that together? WOW! That is so awesome! I wish I could do something like that. Very impressive. I love it.

Jani said...

That looks really good. I'm on my way to go vote for you.

ladonna watkins said...

I do like the cover. I'll go vote for you.

ladonna watkins said...

How do you do that? The book cover

Lady Gwen said...

It's so awesome, Heidi! How do you do the transparency thing?

Lisa L. Regan said...

I love that cover! How did you do it? I would love to play around with my own book covers but I have no idea where to start!

Christine Rains said...

That is a fantastic cover! Good luck! I'll go vote for you now. :)

Teralyn Rose Pilgrim said...

Thank you for participating! That cover is STUNNING!

Megan said...

Oh wow, definitely agreeing with everyone else here! When I make a cover all I can seem to do is find a picture and type the title on there. It baffles me how people are this creative!

What's your secret!?! I have to know!

:-)

Sarah Pearson said...

Add me to the list of people who would love to know how you do this :-)

Leigh Ann said...

Ooooh! Creepy!

I really really want to design a cover for my WIP, but I'm afraid of jinxing it. I'm so superstitious. :)

Heidi Windmiller said...

Thanks to everyone who stopped by! It wasn't all that hard to do---I used Pages, which is kind of like the Apple version of Publisher, and just made the images transparent and overlayed them. There is a drop down in the menu for Pages to make the images transparent and then you just need to overlay them in the correct order, so your most transparent images are on top.

I've found that when trying to overlay images, it is easier to do it in a kind of publishing program than in any kind of photo software.

I'm not sure if Word or Publisher has the ability to make a photo transparent--I don't use either of those programs anymore.

When I got the images the way I wanted them, I selected all of them and copied them into Preview where I saved the file as a JPEG.

I hope that helps!

Dawn M. Hamsher said...

Your cover is fantastic! I will vote for you!

cherie said...

I like your cover! Nicely done.

Melissa Hurst said...

Oh wow, I love your cover! Awesome job!

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

That is an AWESOME cover. Don't need a contest ... yours WINS!

Elizabeth Mueller said...

Whoa, I love this! I wish you had posted your synopsis, too! <3


♥.•*¨Elizabeth¨*•.♥
Can Alex save Winter from the darkness that hunts her?
YA Paranormal Romance, Darkspell coming fall of 2011!

Liz Davis said...

Stunning cover. You're very talented and deserve to win. I'm off to vote fo you.

Francine Howarth said...

Hi,

Gorgeous image! The guy gets the vote! ;)

best
F

Pauline said...

A beautiful cover. I'd guess 'werewolves in the city' genre. Those eyes are not human.

Crystal Collier said...

LOVE. What a great cover! I leave my cover design to my hubby, the graphic artist, although if I had more time... Hope you win.

Heidi Windmiller said...

Thanks to everyone for stopping by! I appreciate all your kind words!

Jaye Viner said...

Hey, thanks for stopping by. Look forward to seeing you around also.

The Sisterhood said...

Cool cover, Heidi! I also love to design book covers (in fact, that was my dream before I discovered a passion for writing.) I have several for my first book. I'll see if I can find a decent one for the contest (I designed them a couple of years ago.)

Great to meet another historical writer!

Lorena

RaShelle said...

Heidi - I love the eyes. Very cool!

Mary Mary said...

I really like your cover! And hey, I used to live in Fort Collins for about seven years, so it's nice to have you in the historical group. At least we now have two things in common!

Scheherazade said...

Very professional looking. Nice.

Cindy M Hogan author of Watched said...

ok. I'm scared. New follower:)

Gail Shepherd said...

Excellent cover. Methinks you could make a second career of this.

Linda Gray said...

Hi, Heidi. Thanks for dropping by Critique Sisters Corner and saying hello. So nice to meet you. Looking forward to the history group!
Linda

Melodie said...

It's great, Heidi - very evocative and hinting. If I saw this on the shelf, I'd definitely read the blurb.
And thanks for posting the Pages instructions for making a cover. Mac is so much better graphic-wise than PCs. Sigh. Almost makes me want to replace my laptop with a Mac.

Samantha said...

Hello from a fellow campaigner! I'm in the historical fiction group.

I love your cover, thanks for sharing!

Samantha
Writing Through College

ali cross said...

This is so weird ~ I swore I commented here yesterday. Sheesh. Anyway, this cover is beautiful, Heidi. Reminds me of the City of Ashes covers, which is great.

Good luck to you! (AND you have such a refreshing, pretty blog. I love it!)

Ruth Madison said...

How gorgeous! I love it.

Is anyone else bothered by the tagline? It's good except seeing "no one" with "they" rubs me the wrong way. :(

Heidi Windmiller said...

Thanks again to everyone for al the great words! I really appreciate how supportive and nice everyone is!

Ruth--In truth, it bothers me a little, and I was wondering if anyone was going to say anything about it. But it would be awkward to say "him or her". I don't know. It is just a cover for fun--I'm still working on the first draft of the novel, so I'm not going to worry about it. But thanks for the advice! I really appreciate your post!

Heidi Windmiller said...

Ruth--I meant "he or she"...

J.L. Campbell said...

Heidi, this is really, really nice. I didn't see it on my first go round and I voted three times already. It looks professionally designed. Well done!

Marcy said...

I really like this eyecatching cover! I’m a fellow Historical campaigner from group 45, finally getting around to meet everyone. I look forward to reading more and getting to know you.

Ruth Madison said...

It is awkward to think of an alternative! I've been trying to come up with something and nothing sounds as good as that. A bit of a tricky situation.

Carole St-Laurent said...

I like the cover. Who is the guy in the picture? He looks like Damon in Vampires Diaries.

The Red Angel said...

This looks awesome, Heidi! I really like the shade of gold you used for the title. The only thing is book covers often have a central image that "leads" the eye to it, and it seems just a little bit too much is going on here. The images separately, though, are all really cool. And I love the blurb at the top.

~TRA

http://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com

christyfarmer said...

I like it Heidi! My question is where are you getting the images themselves? (Inquiring minds want to know.) Pleasure to meet you;)

Julie said...

Oooo! The eyes! This cover is so intriguing!

Lola X said...

Such a great post! Love visiting your blog!

Lola x
http://lola-x.blogspot.com

Lola X said...

Such a great post! Love visiting your blog!

Lola x
http://lola-x.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Mueller said...

thanks for dropping by! I really like your book cover, too. It is alluring. Just to let you know, I voted on this! :0


♥.•*¨Elizabeth¨*•.♥
Can Alex save Winter from the darkness that hunts her?
YA Paranormal Romance, Darkspell coming fall of 2011!

Medeia Sharif said...

It's enigmatic. I love the face in the middle. My focus is drawn to the eyes.

Hello, Heidi. I'm a new follower and fellow campaigner (I'm in group 11).

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Mandi said...

Hello Heidi! I'm Mandi (Lover Dove Writes)! I just wanted to let you know that I really did like the hierarchy of your cover and you got my vote. :)

I wish you all the luck!

Carol Kilgore said...

I love this cover! Great job :) Going to vote now.

Margo Berendsen said...

Hi - I'm also a campaigner in the historical group and a new follower (I also write YA, too -yay for historical YA) I love the two blended images in your cover, the city scape and then those oh-so-impelling eyes!

Brenda Sills said...

Hi Heidi! An intriguing cover - it makes me wonder what is REALLY going on in that city! The tagline is especially great & goes so well with the title.

Your Blog Mission on your sidebar is awesome - I've never seen anyone do that before. Love it! And I'm SO impressed at your Friday Mash-up post - you have so many fantastic-looking links! I can't wait to go read them all. Thanks for doing that for us!

I'm a fellow campaigner- I'm not in your groups, but I wanted the fun of getting to know more writers. It's so great to meet you!

Katie Dodge said...

Hey to a fellow Historical campaigner! And I'm loving this cover. It's fabulous! :)