C.B.’s Comments (group member since May 01, 2015)

C.B.’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

I saw the cover help thread and this site came to mind instantly. I am a frequent visitor. If you are designing, or have designed your own cover, I suggest checking them out.

www.covercritics.com

I used this site while designing my own book cover for Breakers of the Code. You can post your cover and a group of authors, artists, and frequent readers review it and tell you what you could make improvements on. I was so happy with how much they helped my cover evolve and I love it now! Just tell Nathan (who runs the site) that Waffles (my name there) sent you! :D

Hope you find it useful.

I removed the other site, as per request. Sorry.

I am a graphic designer. I have done book layouts and covers for books before (although I mostly design restaurant menus, logos, and business cards). It is one of the reasons I decided to try writing a book, and I am very thankful I had this skill and could save the costs. (After traditional publishers thought I was... strange) I knew I could do it myself.

It was an easy choice for me to design my own cover, and my own book layout.

I prefer Elfrotica as well! ;) Is has a great ring to it.

like right now.
omnipotent NPCs. how does everyone know what you've already done? it's like someone is broadcasting your every move on a secret radio station.

discarding equipment: you find a better sword, the old one is instantly trash!

Oh! My book is set in a video game and good golly Miss Courtney could I help with tropes!

Here are some:
Fetch quests: almost every game has them, and no players like them. such as collect 5 Whampasnort Pelts, or Deliver this Envelope, or Kill the thing and bring me it's pelvis.

ridiculous female Armor: how does a chainmail bikini protect you better than full plate? I dunno, but it does.

Non player characters that repeat themselves if talked to again. " welcome to Cornelia!"

mini games: I know you are trying to stop the Dragon king from destroying the world, but can you fish me up 5 magic fish first?

palette swaps. you just killed 30 Gray wolves in the forest... but in this new area is all new monsters, like these black wolves.

I'll think more! :D

Sorry, need to add one more thing Jessica (and everyone else ever).

never use red text on a black background. (or black on red) it has such terrible contrast and some people with certain colour blindness can barely see it, if at all.
treat red like black for the purposes of contrast!

Jessica. I really hate to say it, but wolves on book covers is a very over used trope. So much in fact that wolfie is the mascot on the Lousy Book Covers site.
I really suggest removing any wolves on any covers ever. :D

You would be better serviced with just one image and no bar across the middle. I will suggest just removing the bottom completely as it features some 'obvious to graphic designers like me' cut and paste issues. one image would be more powerful anyways!

Good luck. I look forward to seeing what you can come up with! I love covers!

Hello Owen,
I quite like the picture on the blue writing cover, and how the cloud isn't stopped by the black bar. but the text on the others stands out far better.
you really don't need the subtext readabile in the thumbnail (but even then I still can)

I'd suggest taking the gold text and putting it on the last one. I don't think the b+w is as fetching! still, great job.

Q: What is Keming?
A: Kerning by someone that doens't know how!

What an amazing group! There are just so many hellos out there!

My name is CB Archer and I am just setting up the layout and getting ready to publish my first Elfrotica book!
...
I mean gay fantasy book! ;)