I have a friend that could use some advice/help. He self-published a series of novels through Publish America. After years of complaining, fighting, and eventually getting an arbitor involved, he got the rights to his series returned to him (he wants to confirm what SFWA says on their Preditors and Editors site, Publish America is not a place to do business with). Since then he made arrangements with another self-publishing company and has gotten some request for his novels but he needs covers for his books. Anyone know enough about Photoshop to either recreate the original cover or design a new one?
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
I have the expertise, but not the time. Your friend needs to hire both an illustrator and a graphic designer... maybe he'll get lucky and find someone who can do both. The illustrator paints/draws/creates the artwork; the graphic designer puts it in a format ready to print. Don't waste too much time screening for Photoshop expertise; a good graphic designer will know what is needed. Photoshop is only one program necessary for this process - you need a desktop publishing program like InDesign or Quark for the phase of getting the cover ready to print. Most likely the printer will request the artwork in a PDF format, high res, CMYK. Have your friend look in the yellow pages under "graphic designer", or see if there is a Graphic Artist Guild chapter in his area. http://www.gag.org/ Make sure your graphic designer knows enough about publishing to know about the need for ISBN artwork...
Posted by Kee Stone (Member # 8282) on :
Even so, I have artistic creativity and experience in photoshop design, photography, and layout. I've used InDesign as well. (parents are printers)
Not saying that I am worth anything. I have never tried anything like that before. However, I think that I could rise to the task. So, if you want to go with someone 'professional' go ahead. But if you want to try me, just say so and I'll see what I can do.
Posted by WouldBe (Member # 5682) on :
Is he certain he has rights to the original art? If P.A. created it (probably not), there might be an issue easily avoided.