First comes the idea ... but from where changes from book to book. Sometimes it is drawn from the title, other times key components of the story, and yet other times the author or publisher already knows what elements they want for their book cover and hopefully can articulate them well enough for me to take those desired elements and run with it ... making the cover both theirs and mine. Such is the case with Confessions of a Former Rock Queen by Kirk Bjornsgaard.

Vivian at 4RV Publishing knew what she was looking for and has the artistic background to effectively express what she is looking for (just like she did for her suspense thriller Midnight Hours).

For the front cover Viv wanted to have a professional woman in the forefront. Someone that expresses power and independence along side maturity, a business savvy woman. She also wants the image abstracted a bit, after all, I sometimes use stock photographers and neither of us want to see the exact same image on another book some time ... lol.

The photo I used for this as taken by Mitar Gavic and it's titled 'businesswoman'.

As you can see I played with some filters in Adobe Photoshop to get the effect I wanted by first rotating it horizontally, then applying the 'Fresco' and 'Cutout' filters and removing the background noise.

Of course the 'Rock Queen' had to be part of the cover, the memory of her as the 'Rock Queen' anyway.

To get the memory effect, I used a Neon filter and faded the image by altering the transparency then I cropped any unwanted aspects of the image and layered it behind the first figure.

The photo is called 'Female Singer' and was taken by Jason Stitt.

The image for the back cover was my idea based on what I knew from the book. To me a cover design just isn't finished without the back cover adding a visual hint to the plot since reviews and synopses don't always cover key aspects.

I like to do my part to create interest in the book too.

The base photo was taken by Maksym Dragunov and is titled 'Oil Rig' and I altered it to compliment the front cover by first tweaking the color scheme to blues rather than browns. Then I applied a 'Neon' filter to it like I did the 'Rock Queen' on front and faded the transparency so the review on back can be easily read.

Last but not least, the font designer for the marquee style letters at the top of the front cover was created by Randy Ford and it's called 'Showtime'.

As you can see, there are many elements and skills involved in the creation on just one book cover and I like to give credit were credit is due.

Hopefully I have spurred some interest in the up coming release and hope you all get a copy.

Confessions of a Former Rock Queen
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: 4RV Publishing LLC (Coming Soon! 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0-9818685-2-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-9818685-2-3

Aidana WillowRaven
http://willowraven.weebly.com
When you think of a gift, think of a book!

Want me to design your next cover or kiddie book? Check out the rest of the website for more info.