When we started our publishing company because we (Laurel, Susan, and Rachel) wanted to write fiction, we agreed that we were going to work on a shoestring budget. We aren’t full-time writers. We all do other things as well. After the initial setup costs to get the business up and running, we wanted to keep our expenses down. Doing our own proofreading and creating our own covers were ways to do that.
Book two of our Dana De Witte Mystery Series is about a Revolutionary War reenactment gone terribly wrong. One of the reenactors is shot and killed with a musket ball from a replica weapon. This isn’t a spoiler—the shooting happens on page 1.
We decided we wanted a very clean, striking image for the cover that highlighted the murder weapon—the loaded replica. We chose a dark red for the cover since that was a popular color during the Colonial Era. We wanted to give the cover a linen look, like book cloth. I (Susan) created the right size for the cover in Photoshop, then added a linen-look layer that I purchased from an Etsy seller to give the cover a woven-fabric look. It worked very well.
From researching, I learned that two popular weapons during the American Revolution were the Brown Bess and the Charleville musket. But I didn’t want to create an exact rendering of either one for the cover. I’m not sure what the Meadesdeal reenactors were using, so I decided to base my drawing on both—with a little bit of one and a little bit of the other. The Brown Bess and the Charleville musket.
Then, using my drawing tablet, I hand-traced my sketch onto a transparent layer in Photoshop and added stippling and cross-hatching details. I switched the color to a pinky, off-white so it would pop (but not too much) against the dark red background of the cover and positioned the transparency over the dark red cover layer. Next I added the fonts. Those I colored in white with drop shadows. I wanted the title to stand out more than the line drawing of the musket. I think it works.
We’re hoping to one day be able to afford to hire someone to do our covers so we can devote more time to writing!
L. S. R. Powell - Author 