2019 Releases
- Thread starter Jarrod
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I'm not sure that "how long it takes in Photoshop" is the measure of a good cover. Composition, color, drawing the eye-- those things seem important, too. You're right that it probably takes no more than ten minutes to pick a typeface, but that ability to pick a typeface and position it well is the result of years of graphic design experience. Anyone who's looked at covers of self-published sf novels knows that lots of people are very good at picking cover fonts and layouts that just scream "amateurish."No doubt the man is very talented, but that Hall of Heroes cover is like staring into the Ark of the Covenant.
Just to be clear, there are a lot of great looking Trek covers out there. These guys are light years ahead of my skill level. But there are some covers that look rushed or just half-assed.
Dayton Ward speculated on his website that the reason that the German covers look so much better may be because the artists have more time to work on them than there American counterparts. I think that there is probably a lot of truth to that. So, I can excuse them not looking like masterpieces. That still doesn't explain why some of them look so rough. I would guess that 90 percent of the covers that don't involve creating new 3D rendered images can be done in a few hours at most.
I mentioned recently that I thought Alan Dingman had a hand in creating some great looking covers. He's had a couple of duds, but I think he's good. Here is one of his covers:
Now, I want to reiterate that I am no artist, and I suck at Photoshop, but anyone who even knows the basics of the program could recreate this image in less than an hour.
You have three main layers here.
1) A stock profile pic of Spock. If you haven't done so already, you would need to add an alpha channel and then cut Spock away from the rest of the image. Then tint the image to the color of your choice. The type of tinting used here is as easy as sliding a bar with a pointer. This should take 10 minutes at most.
2) The cg ruins. These may be the same renderings he used in A Choice of Catastrophes. Just a different POV. If so, you would just need to desaturate the image and tinker with the contrast and levels until you get what you're looking for. Another 5 minutes worth of work.
3) You don't have to have a layer for the swirling background, but it would be much easier if you do. Probably just experiment with your brushes until you find the texture you want. Dab away. 10 minutes.
Merge your layers. Maybe use a blur tool to make sure the layers mesh smoothly. At this point I'd probably spend some time experimenting and tweaking. If you were satisfied, you would probably need less than 5 minutes to make it look decent.
All that's left is to add your logo and text. The logo is probably already saved as a png or something, so you'd just drop it in. The text for the title and author's name is pretty generic. Just create 2 text layers, choose your font and adjust till you're satisfied. Maybe 10 minutes here if you're indecisive.
Save your file in a lossless format and that's all she wrote.
I don't think the cover above is bad or anything, or that a cover must be the product of days of toil, I just wanted to illustrate how quickly some of them could be produced.
Another thing I dislike about some Trek covers is how undistinguished they are. There are a lot of them that just aren't eyecatching. I think this happens because, one, the artists may only have a general idea about what the book is about and, two, having a stock image of a popular character may sell more books than a beautiful cover. Still, I wish they would employ a little more creativity.
Author: My book is about Spock and Bones being besieged by giant six legged man eating leeches after getting trapped on a Hellish swamp planet!
Artist: Great! Here's a pic of the Enterprise floating lazily in a generic starfield.
The German covers also benefit from the fact that they are actually illustrated and painted in Photoshop rather than the photo manipulations with some paint-over that we get, which means the Germans are willing to pay for better looking 2D art. But then I thought it was a pretty weird choice for Drexler to use CG sculpted characters for the Prey covers, which would have probably taken way longer than actually just drawing and painting them in photoshop (and honestly, would have looked better in my opinion). His zbrush sculpts end up kinda looking 2D anyway the way he does lighting so it was just an odd choice to me all around.
If you look back over Doug's whole career, it's always been characterized by a desire to expand his horizons and experiment with new creative skills. You don't see many people who've worked in both prosthetic makeup and production design/graphics. I figure he just got tired of doing covers the same way and wanted to challenge himself with a new kind of CG art.
On the third Prey cover, the two Klingons were originally random warriors; I felt it was important that they be from the book and requested edits, so Foreground Guy was aged a little to be Korgh and we made Background Guy into Worf, looking over his shoulder. There were other changes, and I do not believe there was much time at all for them to be made. We only got the covers out there about three months before book one hit the shelves.
Much about that third book’s scheduling was a close-run thing; I’d slotted time to write all three back-to-back but lost a number of weeks to family health issues. I’m delighted we hit our window and with the resulting manuscript, but a lot of people worked overtime to make that happen.
Much about that third book’s scheduling was a close-run thing; I’d slotted time to write all three back-to-back but lost a number of weeks to family health issues. I’m delighted we hit our window and with the resulting manuscript, but a lot of people worked overtime to make that happen.
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The German artists also have the benefit of hearing many critiques from the actual readers before doing their own versions.
What I love is that the red brought back memories of the original US cover of "Spock Must Die!"
My first edition of "Spock Must Die!" was a later printing with different art, and I had also seen the Corgi UK cover, but the original US cover was quite unique.
For my part, I was only slightly irritated at the uncanny valley-ness of the English cover to The Hall of Heroes. I would have to rank it my favorite of the three.
I didn't like the cover to Hell's Heart because it was completely impossible for the Enterprises to meet in the book, and I thought the refit 1701's presence on the cover was disproportionate to its role in the pages.
I was alright with the cover to The Jackal's Trick because the devil was an original image (I think?), but it didn't resonate with me that I perceived the antagonists in the book to be Klingon-themed only and not Earth-themed.
I didn't like the cover to Hell's Heart because it was completely impossible for the Enterprises to meet in the book, and I thought the refit 1701's presence on the cover was disproportionate to its role in the pages.
I was alright with the cover to The Jackal's Trick because the devil was an original image (I think?), but it didn't resonate with me that I perceived the antagonists in the book to be Klingon-themed only and not Earth-themed.
Covers are commissioned when the books are still at the outline stage, which explains a good deal.
The idea at outline (and, thus, cover design) stage was that Hell's Heart would be two-thirds TNG and one-third TOS, or slightly more. It ended up being about 25%, but even I didn't predict that at the time. Regardless, I endorsed both Enterprises being on the cover, because covers are sales pieces, and the montage's sales message was always going to be that it wasn't just a TNG trilogy. It would've been no different than Worf and Spock figures appearing in montage. (Come to think of it, both Enterprises did face the same ship, but at different times.)
Jackal's Trick was a case where the plot said that the middle-third or Excelsior section would show an illusionist portraying the Kinshaya's devil, but I provided no guidance in the outline as to what the Kinshaya's devil looked like (much less the Kinshaya). In the writing, in fact, the Kinshaya reacted to Kahless as their devil, with the dragon as their war god. But because I had seen the cover by the time we were in proofreading, I made sure that a devil figure was among the ones that the crew activated on Ardra's ship.
That whole section went down to being about 10% anyway because that's all it required; that's not uncommon. In book three, I'd originally projected the middle chunk to flash back to Ardra and Shift at the prison, but decided on the briefer holodeck retelling so I could put Picard in it. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no book exactly resembles its outline -- particularly if you think of a way to do it better.
The idea at outline (and, thus, cover design) stage was that Hell's Heart would be two-thirds TNG and one-third TOS, or slightly more. It ended up being about 25%, but even I didn't predict that at the time. Regardless, I endorsed both Enterprises being on the cover, because covers are sales pieces, and the montage's sales message was always going to be that it wasn't just a TNG trilogy. It would've been no different than Worf and Spock figures appearing in montage. (Come to think of it, both Enterprises did face the same ship, but at different times.)
Jackal's Trick was a case where the plot said that the middle-third or Excelsior section would show an illusionist portraying the Kinshaya's devil, but I provided no guidance in the outline as to what the Kinshaya's devil looked like (much less the Kinshaya). In the writing, in fact, the Kinshaya reacted to Kahless as their devil, with the dragon as their war god. But because I had seen the cover by the time we were in proofreading, I made sure that a devil figure was among the ones that the crew activated on Ardra's ship.
That whole section went down to being about 10% anyway because that's all it required; that's not uncommon. In book three, I'd originally projected the middle chunk to flash back to Ardra and Shift at the prison, but decided on the briefer holodeck retelling so I could put Picard in it. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no book exactly resembles its outline -- particularly if you think of a way to do it better.
I love insider info! Thank you for that. Also, I loved the trilogy! I especially enjoyed the Excelsior parts because I hadn't really 'been on the Excelsior' before in the books.
Is there any hope for the DS9/VOY/ENT lines? It's a bit worrisome that there hasn't been any lined up...
I doubt it. I think S&S are going concentrate on TOS, TNG and Discovery going forward.
Although the Voyager novel To Lose The Earth may appear at some stage as it has been contracted.
I see! Thank you for providing insight on that matter.
Yeah, I agree with David Weller on this one. With all the new CBS All Access shows coming down the pike, and the original series novels, and the fact that all books will apparently now be $16 trade paperbacks, I'm not feeling optimistic about the other spinoffs. I think TNG will continue at least until the nu-TNG show comes out. And if the nu-TNG show blows up the current relaunch storylines, there'd be no reason to continue DS9 and Voyager, since they're both tied together (Voyager less so, but it's still in the neighborhood). Enterprise would probably be safe but I think S&S will be focused elsewhere, and again I'm not sure the market will support $16 Enterprise books (no offense to Christopher, I love his Rise of the Federation novels and I would pay $16 for them).
I don't know about that. My understanding is that when the books started up again, they wanted to begin by concentrating on the established best sellers and of course the newest show, since a new beginning is a tentative thing and you want to start with your safest bets. But it doesn't necessarily follow that things will stay that way indefinitely. It's possible that things could loosen up somewhat once the line has regained a solid footing.
Can you comment on how the more recent books (including Discovery tie-ins) are doing sales-wise?
As I understand it, the belief has to do with the fact that there are so many new Trek shows in development. If we look at what we know of this year's current lineup, we have two Disco novels, two TOS and a TNG one in the lineup with possibly another TNG one by year's end. That's currently six novels. If following years follow the model of six to eight novels (likely if they're all trade paperbacks now) Then as years go on and new shows go in development, the novel lineup will likely be filled in with tie-in novels for the other shows. Indeed, the 2020 lineup could easily consist entirely of tie-in novels for Disco, the Picard show and the Section 31/Emperor Georgiou show.
The only recent Trek novel is the Disco one released earlier last month. The one before that (from Pocket that is) was over six months ago
I have no information on that. I'm just a freelancer. The only sales info I get is for my own books, and it's been a couple of years since one of mine came out.
Well, yes, of course the ratio of books is never going to go back to the way it was before. But that doesn't mean it's already been decided that there will never ever ever be another book that isn't TOS or TNG. I'm just saying, it's unwise to make absolute declarations about the future. Just because something is the current and near-future status quo, that doesn't make it valid to presume it's carved in stone for the rest of eternity.
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Yeah, that's sort of how I look at it. I think other spin-off series books will basically get crowded out. Because in addition to that there will always be original series novels, probably a couple a year. I think it's just going to come down to space, that there's simply not going to be enough space for DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, or any novel only franchise books like New Frontier or Seekers. I mean, unless they go back to doing 2 novels a month, but I honestly don't see that occurring.
And the other issue is the market for $16 books. Pocketbooks will probably think there's more chance more people will by a $16 Discovery novel or original series novel then a $16 DS9 novel, as much as it pains me to say that. MMPB's of those series, maybe, even with a modest price increase....but I think the days of Star Trek MMPB's are over.
Do I hope to be wrong? Hell yeah. I'd love to see 12 books a year with 1 DS9, 1 Voyager and 1 Enterprise book, and maybe an odd Seeker or other novel only series here and there mixed in. I'd be happy with 1 from each. But if I look at it from a business perspective I can't help but think if I were running Pocketbooks that I would make more money with 3 Discovery novels, 3 nu-TNG based books, and a couple original series books.
I think perhaps our best hope might be something Christopher mentioned some time ago, and that is the possibility of E-books based on the other non-running series (again because I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth this was not something he said was planned or in the works, just an idea). While I prefer print books, I'd take an E-book over nothing any day.
Actually that's pretty much what I was just about to post -- that maybe the e-novellas will resume at some point.
If you suggest it I'll back you up
Seriously though, I do think there'd be enough of a market for that, and the pricing seems a bit more flexible on e-books, I guess depending on the size and I suppose other factors.
It was interesting what they did with the last New Frontier story "The Return". Basically if you take the 3 parts you have a full size novel (or close to full size). They could do something like that with other series too. Take a full size Enterprise novel and break it up in 2 or 3 parts---or I guess there's nothing really stopping them from 1 full size E-book as well. I guess it all depends on what you guys and the publisher/editors would want to achieve.
I mean, I'm actually surprised they haven't planned any E-books in the near future. It seemed for a while E-books was becoming the new thing but it seems to have dissipated a bit. I don't read other fiction all that much, are E-books still the future, or has it shifted back to print?
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