{"id":3532,"date":"2018-01-24T15:17:05","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T23:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=3532"},"modified":"2018-01-24T15:17:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T23:17:05","slug":"looking-for-a-book-cover-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2018\/writing\/looking-for-a-book-cover-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for a Book Cover Design"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Painting by Oleksander Murashko: Peasant Family (1914)<\/p><\/div>\n

This January, I finished revising my third novel, a historical one, as different in feel from the first two I’ve written<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, as the second was from the first.<\/p>\n

It’s about a Ukrainian peasant farmwife, who shortly after her husband joins the Tsar\u2019s army has to escape with their six children, because the enemy-the Germans and the Austrians\u2014are about to invade. During the next fourteen years, she will endure the trials of a refugee camp, the dreaded typhus, her daughter\u2019s doomed love, the Bolshevik revolution, a civil war and the Polish occupation.<\/p>\n

(An aside: I stumbled across this painting by Oleksander Murashko<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span> The peasant farmwife in my novel is a lot younger than the old woman here but the sentiment in the painting spoke to me. I hadn’t heard of this artist, considered to be Ukraine’s finest at the turn of the twentieth century. He won a Gold Medal at the Munich Exposition in 1909 for his painting, Carousel. A patriotic Ukrainian, he was taken from his house in 1919 by a street gang and shot in the back. He was 44.)<\/p>\n

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Judging A Book By Its Cover<\/h3>\n

Getting my novel edited is next along with looking for a book cover design. I’ve made a date with an editor, and I\u2019ve been examining once again what makes a good book cover. That whole clich\u00e9, you can\u2019t judge a book by its cover<\/strong>,<\/em> I believe is wrong. I do judge a book by its cover. Don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

A good book cover gives a clue not only about the story, but also about the quality of the writing inside. If the cover\u2019s been hastily thrown together, the reader will likely assume the story suffers from the same lack of care.<\/p>\n

A Little Research<\/h3>\n

When I researched book cover designs online, I found a number of opinions. Chip Kidd, the Random House designer behind bestseller\u00a0Jurassic Park<\/em> and many others, is one who emphasizes the value of a good cover.<\/p>\n

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