The Comfy Hermit

You have come here either in search of an artists, or as an artist in search of resources.
This section is resources for artists.

Artists and the Book

When it comes to the actual book, you can help an author bring their world to life. That could be through character art, cover art, and interior art (like chapter headers).

Character art, you probably have your own setup and preference for how you’d do this. This is pretty straight forward, someone provides you with a description of the character, you provide them with the rendition of it. This would be in your own style. I recommend you make this an interactive process and allow them to give you feedback at the sketch, first coloring, then closer to the end.

Interior Art, you have less room to work with. Typically, this will be put into a paperback or hardcover book with dimensions specified by the author. Let’s say you love high-fantasy worlds and you make gorgeous silhouettes of fairies and butterflies. These will probably be in a black and white as there is additional printing costs for works containing color. The writer may want a larger piece for the end of a chapter, they will need to keep in mind “bleed”. More details to come.

Cover Art-if it is for an ebook, you only have to worry about the front side. The backside will be plain text beside the book on Amazon, or whatever platform the author sells on. Short, sweet, to the point, the dimensions should be simple.

Per Reedsy: “the average e-reader screen (Kindle, Nook Simple, and iPad) has an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 — which means that for every 100 px (pixels) of width, there will be 133 pixels of height.”

As mentioned in a previous article, I used Sketchbook on my tablet and GIMP2 on my computer to work on my paperback cover. I was able to switch from pixels to inches because my brain doesn’t process the above information. The author should tell you the book size-this is because there are standards for sizes. These are determined by genre. You can find more information on Reedsy, Masterclass, and Blurb-this last one talks about hardcovers and dust jackets! really, for an ebook, all you need is 6″*9″, or what have you.

Above, I used information from my book Drawing from the Void to generate the information. This is what the calculator will provide you with. You will need this information above if you are doing a paperback or hardcover design.

Ultimately, your author is able to get you detailed information about guidelines by using the KDP calculator.

Please note, this isn’t a one-size fits all, so your author may come back to you with tweaks. If they use Ingramspark, their paper is a little thicker than KDPs so their spine width will be a bit larger. You will need to use Ingramspark specific calculator.

Regardless of the cover, When designing, you should have the author look at comparable titles in the genre and send you 3-5 covers to get inspiration from. Communication is super important in this stage. You don’t want to waste each other’s time and resources.

Be Aware
You can only keep text within the “safe area”. If you go outside of the safe area into the margins on the outside, the text may bleed over and ruin the design.

What is bleed? I’m glad you asked. Per KDP-“Bleed is a printing term that refers to when printed objects on a page, such as images, background color, or graphics, extend past where the publication will be trimmed.”

There’s more detail available here.

JPEG, PDF?
KDP and IngramSpark specifically request PDF-Print ready files. Your authors will need this to upload the design into the system. I utilized Canva for this.

Work Together
As you are probably already aware, the design must convey a bit of the book, the feel, and the genre. This is conveyed through design choices. All of this will be governed by genre. You wouldn’t use a spooky font on an up-beat, whimsical, middle-grade fantasy novel.

Connect with your author, get their blurb (that’s the overview on the back of the book) but also get the synopsis-2 page overview of the book. Maybe read the first chapter. Get a feel for the tone. Do they want something simplistic? Photo-realistic? Discuss price! Don’t blind side someone at the end of the process with a massive price tag.

You should provide your author with three different covers to choose from. If you work with them, in the same style as a character artist, you shouldn’t have any issues with satisfaction.

Color Design– choose the appropriate pallet for the book. Here’s a helpful article on color theory and design for the book industry.

Typography-choose the best font for the book. This can help attract the perfect audience. Here’s an extensive article on the subject.