I’ve self-published five books of my writing and photography. My favorite is A Place to Start, a collection of essays and stories from this blog. The other day I looked for a photograph in that book’s files when I came across these images — the final cover for the book plus two other covers you’ve not seen before.
A few people volunteered to read an early version of the book and give me feedback. I created the first cover above for that edition. It took me all of 15 minutes to make it.
When it came time to publish the book for real, I wanted a cover that didn’t look so slapped together. I made the second cover above — and then I didn’t love it. I thought it was too busy. I liked the typeface I chose, and how I arranged the title and my name, though. I used those elements as the basis for the cover I published, the third one above.
I knew all along that I wanted to use a photo of my first apartment’s front door on the cover. That apartment was the place I started my adult life; a story I wrote about it went into the book and gave the book its title. The photo I used in the first two covers is one I made shortly after I moved in. But as I put together the final cover I remembered that I had a print of a photo a friend had made with me at the front door. I found it and scanned it. The print was borderless; I created a fake border around it in Photoshop for the cover.
The red background includes a texture I found for free online. I wasn’t confident that people would like the red, but it was better than other colors I tried. I chose that yellow for the text so it would pop agains the red.
I wanted to do more with the cover, such as make the photograph look worn and perhaps torn, with a bent corner. But that was way beyond my Photoshop skills.
When I reached this point, I realized that I probably wasn’t going to do any better! So I stopped. This would be the cover, and that was that!
If you’d like to get a copy of A Place to Start, click the button below for more information.
