Jimmy James and the First Book Cover

I finished my first book.

Sort of.

I've finished other books, but they were terrible. I actually like this one. So I'm publishing it.

Click here for the page all about the book itself! (Including a sample chapter.) Also, it's on KDP if you like that whole free-reading-thing.

Anyways, this post isn't about the book itself, but rather the cover.

I had the (now I realize stupid) thought that I could do it myself. I was young(ish), I was foolish. I was being a dumb-dumb. Making covers is difficult and not a skill I have.

It is funny to see the trail of terrible dead bodies though.

Here was my outline.

I had something of a clear idea of what I wanted the cover to look like. Big tent. Name of book.

Here was my first attempt.

The world in my story has blue grass and two moons. I actually thought this one was kind of clever. But my author name blends into the title, the 3 circus tents is strange and it looks very amateur-ish.

Attempt 2!

I wanted to try a blue sky. I actually still like how the grass and sky meet. And the title to author name came out much better. The tent, however.... Umm.. Moving on..

Attempt 3!

I went back to the dark sky. Added some saturation to the grass. Used a pathway to try and blend the tent better into the world. Two moons!

I tried really hard on this one. I thought it was quite good.

Then I uploaded it.

Boy oh boy.

Seeing it on Amazon crushed my soul a little bit. I spent 2 hours making this! It may not sound like much, but it felt like forever.

And it looked just terrible.

I decided to admit my mistake.

I opened up Fiverr, found a reasonably-priced option, and they made this.

Quite honestly, I still don't love it. The tent looks AI-generated to me. (It has that roundness that AI seems to create a lot.) But boy, does it look better than my attempts.

My name is gold... Nice touch. The border separating it is an excellent idea too.

The sky isn't the alien sky I was hoping for, but trying to explain that sent us down a weird spiral so I reverted to this one.

It's clear that it's a circus, and to me, it looks like something is afoot.

I hope seeing some very amateur covers helped you today.

Stay beautiful.

Cheers.