Creating the cover of "Mr. Summerhaye's Horse"

The different stages in the creation of the painting I used as a cover for Mr. Summerhaye's Horse.
If all goes well, it should be published on the 2nd of June 2020, in about one month from now.

Choosing the cover of "Mr. Summerhaye's Horse"

When I started to think about what the cover of Mr. Summerhaye’s Horse would look like, I decided to use the same process as for As Winter Came and Went: that was to use as an inspiration a painting from the same period and recreate it to fit the story. 

The cover of As Winter Came and Went already featured Summer the horse and was inspired by a painting by Horace Vernet. I copied it, changing the colour of the horse, as well as the background. 

The painting I used for Mr. Summerhaye’s horse was a French one as well, done by Theodore Géricault (1791-1824). One of Géricault’s best known paintings is "Le Radeau de la Méduse" ("The Raft of the Medusa," 1818-1819), but he was also a prolific painter of horses. I really like this part of his work, and the vibrant, expressive paintings he made of those animals, which he obviously loved – though his many riding accidents played a part in his premature death. 

When I was visiting the Château de Chantilly, near Paris, some time ago, and looking at the art collections on display there, my eye was caught by a medium-sized, undated oil-painting by Géricault, depicting a black horse being led by a man out of a stable. Somehow, this painting reminded me of the fictional horse who gallops through the pages of As Winter Came and Went. Probably because of his black coat with white markings, and because the horse in the painting is probably one who had been imported from a foreign land (he has a dished nose like an Arabian horse). 

The château de Chantilly where the painting is displayed.

At the time, I was getting As Winter Came and Went ready for publication, and had already made (and I think revealed) the cover. Gazing at this painting, I found myself regretting that I had not used this one instead of the other. 

Fast forward to 2020: having decided that I was going to self-publish the novella about Summer, I had no hesitation choosing “Cheval sortant de l’écurie” (“Horse going out of the stable”) as the basis for the artwork I would use for the cover of the book. 

I did not copy it faithfully (though I do wish I could paint like Géricault!) and the result is a simplified reinterpretation of the original: I used the portrait rather than landscape format (because it is more convenient for a book cover), I darkened the background (and took out a lot of details), I took out the man and changed the horse’s markings to better fit the description I give of Summer.

Cover reveal

And here it is, the cover of Mr. Summerhaye's Horse!

Watch this space for a post on the story behind it... 

"The Would-be Novelist" cover reveal

Here it is, the cover for The Would-be Novelist! Feel free to let me know what you think of it! 

Video: Creating the cover of "As Winter Came And Went"

A small video showing the how I created the artwork used as the cover for As Winter Came and Went!

"Creating a bookcover"

Another cartoon in the series about the making of book-covers... Again, inspired by real events!

"Designing your own bookcover"

And because designing your own bookcover when you're a would-be novelist is hard, here's another cartoon on this subject. Sadly inspired by real events...

Creating the cover of "As Winter Came and Went"

I had begun to think about the cover of As Winter Came and Went even before deciding to self-publish. Which author hasn’t? Daydreamed about a wonderful cover, about the way the book would look in a shop and so on. And I had even wondered, what would I put on the cover if I was able to do it myself? But at this point, I hadn’t even realised it would one day come to that: me creating the cover for my novel. 

What cover did I have in mind then? Actually, there were many covers. One was lush, colourful, rather abstract with floral motifs (think William Morris – and yes, I am aware it’s not the right time period for my story, but everything’s possible in daydreams, right?) and lots of gold-leaf. And (of course) the book would have been a hardback and that design would have featured on the dust-jacket. Another would have featured a horserace (think Stubbs – yes, yes, still not the right time period). Another, quite an elaborate design with a mixture of sketches and floral motifs (why floral motifs? Because they look pretty and quite timeless, that’s why). So, my imagination knew no limits and I dreamt on.

It was another matter when I was confronted by reality: I had decided to self-publish and I had no money to spend on a professional cover design, so I would have to make it myself. 

I downloaded Gimp, a free photo-editing software, because a writing magazine I was reading recommended it and, hey, it’s free! And I opened it. And I had no clue how to use it. And I google “how to make a bookcover with Gimp” and found several helpful videos on YouTube and useful articles on a number of blogs. And I started making “pretend” covers. I never actually thought, here I am, making the cover that’ll have to sell my book. I thought, here I am, learning to use that software and pretending I’m making a bookcover. 

I don’t really know why I was thinking that, but I’m glad I did: it made the whole process quite fun and stress-free. Except that the covers I came up with were very bad: basically, photos, with writing on it. You see, I may be a daydreamer, but I’m not naïve. I knew I had to forget the covers I dreamed about: I did not (and still do not) have enough skill to create them. And I did not even try. And I also thought that many novels, especially literary ones, have very simple covers. And that some novels have photos (landscapes, seascapes, slightly misty as to have an abstract look) on their covers. I’m an amateur photographer. I’ve got lots of photos. So it seemed like an easy solution to have a simple cover, that would not scream at the reader: “handmade by an indie-author who doesn’t know how to use Gimp properly.”

Except those covers (yes, there were more than one), seemed to say instead: “handmade by an indie-author who doesn’t know how to use Gimp properly so put a random photo of a seascape and wrote the title in a fancy font.” I was not satisfied. Those covers were not attractive. And yes, they were random: they could have been put in front of any book. They were not original. They told nothing about the content of the book.

So I thought I had to find another solution. And I thought, maybe I could take several pictures and make a montage, as to combine different elements that would give a clue as to the contents of the novel. As if I had the skills to do such a thing! Anyway, I started looking online for pictures of horse-racing painting dating from 1820 that would be copyright-free and available for commercial use (on a side-note, if you’re making your cover yourself, and not using your own photos, please be very careful about copyrights and check the rules in your country and in the countries where you want to sell your book!). Because, I did have this idea at the back of my mind that I wanted to include something about horseracing. Because it is quite a central element to the plot of As Winter Came and Went, and because I think that horse-paintings of the 18th and early 19th century are very quaint.

And I found a painting from 1828 by Horace Vernet, “A saddled racehorse tied to a fence” which you can see it here:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Horace_Vernet_-_A_Saddled_Race_Horse_Tied_to_a_Fence_-_WGA24752.jpg And I thought, great, it’s approximately the right time period, that horse looks nice, there are no people around it. But I began to wonder, how am I going to include it in the cover? As I’ve said before, I do not have the skills to do so. Let’s be honest, I cannot create a nice cover design on a computer.

But there’s one thing I can do better: paint. And I had an illumination. I thought, I know, I’m going to recreate a painting featuring a racehorse. And I wondered why I had not had this idea before. For not only would it allow me to have an original cover, but it would be linked to the novel for two reasons. The first, obvious one, would be the racehorse. The second, not so obvious one is that: one, very important character (no, you do not “know” her yet, for I have not posted any extracts concerning her) is an aspiring painter. And she paints horses. And she paints Summerhaye, the horse featuring on the cover (yes, that’s the talking horse in last week’s extract). So the painting on the cover could be a representation of one of the fictional paintings in the book.

I loved that idea. And I started to paint. The format of the actual painting is A3, taken vertically. I was inspired by the posture and attitude of Horace Vernet’s horse, but I changed the colour from chestnut to black with white legs and a white blaze, to fit the description of Summer. I replaced the buildings by a misty sort of landscape and cloudy sky. And, another change, I did not make my horse have a docked tail (a tail where the last vertebras have been cut), because, though it would have been representative of the time, I think it’s barbarous and I assumed that the first of Summerhaye’s many owners would not have done it (for cultural reasons, but I will say no more), and that later on, the horse would have become too difficult to let someone touch, let alone cut his tail, without trying to retaliate.   

Anyway, I completed the painting, digitalised it by taking and editing a high resolution photo of it, and then used it to create the cover. Not without some difficulty: I had to put it in the right format, crop it to the right size, find an appropriate font. But the most difficult was finding the right colour for the title. How I struggled! It was either too green, too blue, too light, too dark… But in the end I made my choice. And now that I’ve revealed it, well, I’m not going to be able to change it anymore (at least, that’s what I tell myself)!

"The 6 stages of D.I.Y. bookcover design"

Because I've just revealed my bookcover, I thought it would be fitting to make a cartoon on this subject. I have gone through all those stages... More than once actually... Anyway, now that I've published my cover, I won't be able to change it, even if I do go again, from time to time, through (shortlived) phases of despair and doubt!

"As Winter Came and Went" cover reveal

And here it is! The cover of As Winter Came and Went, featuring the racehorse Dennys met in yesterday's extract...
I do hope you like it and that, maybe, it makes you want to pick up the book and read it!
Feel free to let me know what you think of it! I will soon write a post detailing the story behind it.

"D.I.Y. cover design"

 

 

Cover design sounds easy. Cover design looks easy. Why, I just need to use a photo and stick a title and my name on it. Done. Except that... I don't want my cover to actually look "homemade". I don't want my novel to scream at potential reader "Hey, I'm a self-published novel and the author didn't want to spend money on the cover so she did...this!"

 

I've got a cover for my novel which I hope doesn't look to amateurish. I'm still playing around with fonts and colours. It's not my dream cover (which would have been a very ambitious, luxurious, lavish work of art, mostly abstract, with hints to the historical period my novel is set in and subtle reminders of the plot...) but I think it's ok (sort of). At times I think it's ok, at others I'm more like...this is terrible (*sob*)! But I've shown it to some people, who told me it was ok (were they being kind?). And anyway, my family and friends seem to actually expect me to make the cover myself ("of course, you'll be drawing the cover, won't you?"). So, I don't have a choice, do I?

 

There'll be a big cover release, probably in October, on this blog, Facebook (www.facebook.com/maybermont) and Instagram (www.instagram.com/may_bermont). My official author website will go live at the same time.