Day Nine: Covers

The cover for Fire was made by me and my brother. I am extremely proud of this. My brother did the photography and I did all the editing on Photoshop. Everything on it is ours – we even took our own photos of fire in a chiminea in the back garden (which was more difficult than we had anticipated given it was the middle of winter and very windy).

It wasn't the first idea I had though – quite a few other options were trialed and dismissed before I ended up with the published version.

Idea One

To find a stock image of someone who looked a little bit like Roxy or Jasmine and put my own coloured steaks in their hair using photoshop. Many of my favourite book covers have just one face on them: Extras by Scott Westerfeld; The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson, Firelight by Sophie Jordan. 

The issue with this was that there wasn't any stock images which remotely matched my idea of Jasmine or Roxy. I wasn't expecting to find a perfect match, but the right skin tone and hair colour would have been nice…

I also wasn't sure about using someone else’s image, in case I misunderstood how the copyright worked, or ended up with the same book cover as anyone else.

Idea Two

A jar filled with fire (a little bit like the Beautiful Disaster cover). I thought that this could work quite well across the series, as it would be easy to tie them together.

I did try to do this, but the pictures didn't turn out very well – it was lighting the fire without an obvious source at the bottom of the jar that proved tricky.

Idea Three

I found this image on Pinterest and I really love it. OK, so the girl in the picture looks nothing like Roxy, but it is incredibly striking; I wouldn't think twice about buying a book with this on the front cover. The biggest issue with this idea was that I couldn't find the image source. I searched and searched with no luck. And if I couldn't find who had created it, I couldn't ask them about using it. I have now actually found the source (as you can see from the previous link). I really suggest you check out the artist’s other work; it’s very cool.

Idea Three

Someone cupping flames in their hands. This was obviously the idea I decided to go with. I am hoping to create something similar for Water and Air, so that the series covers ties together. At the moment, I'm thinking of having another girl on the cover for Water and a guy for Air, although I haven't really thought it all through yet (or worked out exactly how I'm planning to show air...)

What do you think of the cover for Fire? Are there any other ideas you think would have worked well?

{On a completely unrelated note - has anyone listened to the new Fall Out Boy album yet? It is beyond amazing! FOB are my favourite band to write to, so I'm so pleased to have something new to listen to.}