Elizabeth Bell, Author

Undeniable Love. Unflinching History. Unforgettable Fiction.

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Anatomy of a Book Cover, Part 2

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Are you ready for the real designer wizardry?

To quote Desdemona in Othello: “O, these men, these men!” The male characters on the ebook covers of Necessary Sins and Sweet Medicine were particularly challenging to represent with stock images. No single image would do; my cover designer, Damonza, had to combine multiple images and make them look like they belonged together.

Joseph Lazare, the protagonist of Necessary Sins, is multiracial: White French, African (Yoruba), and Native American (Dakota). He’s also a Catholic priest, and this is his primary identity. There were no images of appropriate men in cassocks on stock sites. Lots of White men and a few dark-skinned Black men, but none with curly black hair and the right skin tone.

Do any of these men say “tortured priest” to you?

A couple of Latino priests seemed promising, and in fact Joseph’s racist great-grandmother tells Joseph and his father that they’re part Spanish. But the Latino priests didn’t work because they either had a modern hairstyle (cropped too short); they had beards (until modern times, Catholic priests weren’t allowed to grow facial hair); and/or their expressions were simply silly (see above). For serious historical fiction, I needed a serious expression. Their short hairstyles, facial hair, spectacles, and silly or smiling expressions also prevented me from finding any White man who could “play” Joseph, whatever he was wearing.

In addition, most cassocks (a.k.a. soutanes) on stock sites weren’t appropriate for the early 19th century. The buttons couldn’t be plastic, and the priestly collar couldn’t be the starched modern kind (see above). I found an acceptable cassock at last, even if the man wearing it was White. Fortunately, given the right two images, my designer was able to do a “head swap,” combining the head of an appropriate Black man with an appropriate cassock like a digital paper doll.

Let me show you the original stock images I suggested to my designer for Necessary Sins and then the final design. (My designer sourced them from Shutterstock. I’ve purchased the same images from Depositphotos, which is more reasonably priced for small-scale users like me.) First, Joseph’s head:

You’ll notice that I had my designer lighten this man’s skin. Considering the history of Black people chemically lightening their skin to fit in with White culture, this bothers me. But as I indicated above, I just couldn’t find a White or racially ambiguous man who was right for Joseph; their expressions, hairstyles, and/or beards were always wrong. This man’s curly black hair is perfect for Joseph. (My designer filled in the top of his head from another shot of the same model.) I also like the way his full hair echoes the shape of Tessa’s bonnet and vice-versa. His features are really “too African” to pass for White as Joseph does, but using a Black model felt more truthful than using a White man with modern hair. Like all of my female cover models, this model (or at least the photographer) is Russian too!

Joseph’s body, the same model who appears on the paperback and hardback covers of Necessary Sins, there with dramatic lighting inside a confessional. Note the cloth cassock buttons and soft collar. While this photo wasn’t taken in Russia, it was taken in Ukraine. (I dearly hope that both the model and the photographer are safe right now.)

The unhelpfully captioned “A young girl in a hat stands against the background of the forest” by Darya Komarova. This woman is really too young for Tessa; I’d guess she’s in her mid-teens. I wish there wasn’t so much hair in her face, but at least it’s the right color. Her dress is on the ugly side, but her silhouette is unmistakably 19th century even at a small size. Those poofy “leg-of-mutton” sleeves are distinctively 1830s, and Tessa and Joseph meet in 1835 (when she is 19). The way she’s holding that book allowed my designer to have her holding onto Joseph’s arm instead:

The final cover, thanks to the magic/talent of the designers at Damonza. The sunset with flying birds was their idea. I think it evokes the cover of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, also set in antebellum (pre-Civil War) Charleston. I asked Damonza to add the palmettos, the state tree of South Carolina with a memorable place in Charleston history.

If you’re thinking “That’s not a Charleston house,” you’re right. This is Dunleith in Natchez, Mississippi. Mansions with columns all the way around the outside are typical of Natchez and Louisiana. When I was experimenting with my own cover mockups, I tried some actual Charleston homes available on stock sites, but none of them said “antebellum American South” at a small size and at a glance the way this one does.

In Necessary Sins, Tessa marries into the Stratford family, who do own a home like this with columns all the way around the outside. I gave the Stratfords a Louisana connection so they’d be inspired to remodel their South Carolina home in this style. With its wraparound verandas, its spaces that are both outside and inside, public and private, this architectural style fits perfectly with the duality at the heart of my family saga. The Lazares themselves are simultaneously Black and White, happy and miserable, pure and wicked…

Fun fact: Once upon a time (two decades ago), I slept in a four-poster bed inside this very house, Dunleith. Built in 1855, it became a National Historic Landmark in 1974 and a bed and breakfast in 1976. I was in historical heaven that night. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Another bit of fun: Before I had my designer combine images, I tested my concepts by creating mockups in a program called Canva. I needed to make sure the man and woman were about the same size, so I duplicated his head and brought it closer to hers for comparison. I was sleepless and stressed out at this point and a little bit bonkers, so I thought it would be funny to put his head in her bonnet. The result gave me some sorely needed laughs. Designing covers is long hours of hard work, especially when you’re doing it for the second time around. This bit of silliness helped. Did I make you laugh too?

On the cover of Sweet Medicine, Joseph’s nephew Dr. David Lazare is also comprised of three stock images. I asked my designer to add a medical bag to fit the title and his profession. I also wanted David to be wearing his signature Vandyck beard. The original model was clean-shaven, and here’s proof! 

While I purchased the rights to this image, I’ve purposefully posted the low-resolution watermarked version to prevent piracy per the FAQ at PeriodImages.com

Yep, David’s facial hair is transplanted, likely from this model whom I sent my designer as a reference. David’s beard is probably my favorite bit of Photoshop wizardry on my covers. Victorian men took pride in their facial hair—unless they were priests or American Indians. 😉 This Vandyck really makes David look like David. 

As for the building on the cover, that’s another story. My designer and I went through several ideas for the setting image. My characters take a cross-country journey in Sweet Medicine, so my first thought was a train or a stagecoach. But a train isn’t specific to the United States, and there aren’t any good stagecoach images on Shutterstock or Depositphotos. Furthermore, a method of transportation made David’s medical bag look like a suitcase by association.

I also considered pretty mountains, perhaps a mountain lake. Again, not technically specific to the United States. As I stared at the four new covers of The Lazare Family Saga lined up together, mountains didn’t quite fit. They didn’t say “American history” in and of themselves the way the setting images on the first three covers do. In their lower images, Necessary Sins, Lost Saints, and Native Stranger all feature predominantly white man-made structures that say “19th-century United States” at a glance and at a small size. I decided we needed another white building to echo the one on Necessary Sins. 

What’s special about the structure I chose for Sweet Medicine is that it’s actually doing double duty. The novel begins in South Carolina, and this building looks like it belongs there. In fact, this Greek Revival structure is the oldest Wyoming building still standing—the officers’ quarters at Fort Laramie, constructed in 1849-1850 and nicknamed “Old Bedlam” after its raucous parties. The architect was a New Hampshire man, Lieutenant Daniel Phineas Woodbury, and the blocky wings were part of his original design. They contain kitchens, storerooms, and cooks’ quarters. 

Here’s a photo I took on a research trip to Fort Laramie back in 2006, when the building was decorated with bunting for Independence Day.

Although my point-of-view characters don’t know the name Old Bedlam, the building makes an appearance in both Lost Saints and Sweet Medicine when they visit Fort Laramie. This military post was an important stop along the overland trail, within sight of the Rocky Mountains. I like the way Old Bedlam evokes both of my saga’s major settings, the Old South and the Old West. 

Old Bedlam also gave me an opportunity to include an “Easter egg” on the cover of Sweet Medicine, a “Waldo” hidden in plain sight.

These ebook covers’ primary purpose is to shout “I’m historical fiction!” at a small size. But I couldn’t resist asking my designer to add a second character besides David, a character discernible only if you view
Sweet Medicine at a large size. Even then, the second character will be tiny. Can you find him?

Click on the cover for the file, where you can zoom in.

Here are a few hints: This character’s name is Allister, and he also represents his distant cousins Mignon and Reinette. He belongs to E. P. Vaux, but Allister has been visiting one of Old Bedlam’s kitchens in hopes of a treat.

Or click here to cheat and see a closeup view of the character. 😉

I hope peeking behind the scenes of my cover redesign has been a treat for you, dear reader. I’d love to hear what you think!

Anatomy of a Book Cover, Part 1

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After five months of research and revisions, the ebooks of The Lazare Family Saga have brand-new covers at last! If you’re curious why and how they look the way they do, make yourself comfortable. The creation of these four covers for my fictional family saga is a saga itself, so I’ve split it into two parts. You might also want to check out this prequel post on why my original covers needed an update for the digital world.

In short, I think of these as my “billboard covers.” Their purpose is to shout “I’m historical fiction set in the 19th century United States! If you like that, check me out!” as potential readers scroll through Facebook, Amazon, and anywhere else they appear online.

In my cover breakdown, I’ll be speaking from the point-of-view of an indie historical novelist whose books are intended for an adult audience. Also keep in mind that whatever I chose had to be sustainable over a four-book series. The covers have to follow the same “branding”; at a glance, the books must visually belong together.

There are three main routes in book cover design:

  1. Hire an illustrator to paint or otherwise create a custom illustration for your book cover. This method was popular in the past and includes the original covers of the books that inspired me to write historical sagas, books such as Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds (1977) and Brock and Bodie Thoene’s Zion Covenant series (1989-1991). Back when I thought I’d be traditionally published, this is what I expected my books to look like.

    But times change. Not only is custom illustration prohibitively expensive for an indie author like me (you’re paying not only the illustrator but also a designer to create a book cover using that illustration), such book covers have become rare even in traditional publication, at least for serious historical fiction aimed at adults. Custom illustrations can look cartoonish and give the impression that the book is Young Adult or another genre like fantasy in which illustration remains popular.
Where it all began: My mother’s copy of Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds with its original illustrated cover. Thanks, Mom!

2. Hire a photographer who hires models who resemble your characters. The photographer would find costumes appropriate to my book’s time period and do a custom photoshoot, probably incorporating period-appropriate props like jewelry and furniture. They might even take the photos at a historic 19th-century property. All of these elements cost heaps of money, so again, not in my budget for a four-book series.

3. What most indie authors do is choose a talented designer to combine and manipulate existing stock images available on sites like Despositphotos and Shutterstock. Because the first two cover routes weren’t financially feasible, this had to be my choice both for my original covers (now limited to the paperback and hardcover formats, created by Bookfly Design) and for my new covers (ebooks and forthcoming audiobooks, created by Damonza).

Using stock images is easier in some genres than others and easier with some characters than others. Since my fiction is character-driven, I wanted to put people on all the covers this time around. But if some of your characters aren’t White, you have fewer options because there are fewer non-White models on stock sites. In addition, decent images of people wearing historical clothing are few and far between.

Sure, there are women in “vintage dresses,” but these are usually painfully bad approximations of historical clothing. Since the contents of my books are meticulously researched and accurate, I didn’t want cover models in clothing that is glaringly wrong for my setting—or any historical setting, only a fantasy version of past fashions. Furthermore, these models in “historical” clothing almost always have modern hairstyles and/or makeup, which ruins the effect.

An even worse example of cringe-worthy stock photos are the results for “Native American.” Almost all of these are so atrocious, they are offensive to anyone who knows anything about Native culture. Think naked White women lounging in fields wearing eagle feather headdresses. Shudder.

Do you see what I had to wade through? Imagine HUNDREDS of pages of these.

I should note that an indie author doesn’t have to find stock images before approaching a designer. But designers appreciate it because it saves them time, as long as you give them a few options and don’t insist that Images A and B must appear on the cover even if they don’t work together. The lighting may be incompatible, for example. Moreover, I know 19th-century clothing and American history—not to mention my characters—better than my designer, so I know better which stock images are rubbish and which are close enough.

The problem of finding the right images is exacerbated by the fact that most of the best-for-historical-fiction photographers on stock sites, the ones who have images of models in decent historical clothing, are Russian. English isn’t their first language, so these Russian photographers label their images with generic or misspelled keywords that make the photos hard to find.

For example, the stock image I chose for Tessa on my Necessary Sins ebook cover is titled “A young girl in a hat stands against the background of the forest.” (She’s wearing an 1830s bonnet and gown.) The image we used for Tessa on the paperback and hardcover is “Beautiful woman with long hair in a long white dress. He [sic] sits at the vintage table and looks away.” She is wearing a Regency gown from the early 1800s. It’s truly a mislabelled needle in a haystack situation.

“Beautiful woman with long hair in a long white dress. He sits at the vintage table and looks away.” By Darya Komarova. This woman’s hair is perfect for Tessa, so I’m glad we get to keep her on the paperback and hardback covers. Cropping her not only avoids her modern eye makeup but also disguises the fact that her dress is a couple of decades too early for my character.

This is why I spent weeks searching stock sites for models who might “play” my characters, using every keyword I could think of. Ninja Tip: I found some photos by clicking on every vaguely decent image of a person in historical clothing that came up in my search, no matter the era, and then viewing the photographer’s other images. This is how I found “Girl in a hat.”

My main goal in redesigning my ebook covers was to say “I’m historical fiction!” at a small size. I knew the best way to do that was to include images of people in historical clothing plus distinctive setting images like an antebellum mansion and covered wagons. Because of branding, before I approached a cover designer with this idea, I had to find usable images of all five of my major characters as well as four good setting images.

The character who initially worried me most was Ésh, my “White Indian.” He couldn’t be wearing a feather headdress (he’s not a war leader), and he needed to be wearing a shirt (he’s not in a bad romance novel kidnapping a White damsel). As you can imagine, I was over the moon when I found this stock image:

This man isn’t 100% right for Ésh. His hair is too dark (my designer lightened it) and too short, and Ésh’s preferred weapon is a bow and arrow. The decoration on his head is called a “roach,” made of porcupine hair. This kind of headdress wasn’t typically worn by the Cheyenne, but it’s possible when you factor in trade and personal preference. At least it’s not an eagle feather headdress. As stock images go, this man is awesome. And yes, even “Ésh” was taken by a Russian photographer!

This is the image that made representing my central characters on my book covers possible. Since this is the only image of this model that I really liked, this man’s position also dictated that the other characters would be seen from the front. Most of my final character images weren’t uploaded to stock sites till 2020, so they weren’t available when my first designer and I were working on my original covers.

A slightly more useful caption: “Beautiful girl in historical dress, gloves, near the house,” also by Darya Komarova.

My designer lightened the hair of this model for me as well, so she would better resemble my character. Her hair is far too short, and Clare would wear it pinned up, but those aren’t things my designer could fix.

This is another case where only one shot of the model expressed my character; in the other shots of this woman, she looks snooty. Here, she simply looks spunky, perfect for Clare.

On the cover of Native Stranger, I’d hoped to make Clare’s skirt white so that it could better echo the tipis and vice-versa. However, the title had to be legible, and we had to keep a light-colored title for series branding. Therefore, the woman’s skirt had to have some color. My designer went for layering the skirt over the tipi image, which is a cool effect. Here are the final covers:

You’d never know it, but originally the stock image of the wagon train and landscape was black and white; my designer colorized it. That’s only the beginning of what a good designer can do. Next week, I’ll take you behind the scenes on the two most complex covers in my new set: Necessary Sins and Sweet Medicine. Psst: Joseph and David were each created from three different stock images!

Necessary Sins Has a New Cover!

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Being an independent author means a constant, steep learning curve. Most recently, what’s literally kept me up at night is the realization that my beautiful book covers are nevertheless preventing The Lazare Family Saga from reaching readers. In the 21st century, books—especially indie books like mine—are competing in a crowded digital marketplace. A book brand-new to a reader browsing Amazon or Facebook has literally two seconds to communicate “You would like me!” before that reader scrolls past, never to think of it again. Book covers communicate “You would like me” by reminding readers of the books they love and by communicating genre. Beautiful as they may be, my current covers aren’t doing either of those essentials well.

I thought I understood good cover design. I planned my covers for years as I was writing. I even based my cover concept on other historical novels I’d seen. But those covers came from traditional publishers with marketing budgets and/or authors who were already established. I’m trying to reach people who’ve never heard of me, so my covers have to work harder.

I didn’t fully appreciate The Two-Second Rule or the importance of a cover looking good at thumbnail size. In a digital environment, a book isn’t a physical object to be leisurely admired but a tiny postage stamp that needs to work at a glance. My current covers from Bookfly Design are beautiful and they illustrate my books well. Between picture research and fine-tuning, these covers represent years of painstaking labor by both my designer and myself. I love them, they’re works of art, and I’ve got them hanging on my wall.

The four original covers of The Lazare Family Saga

Alas, I’ve learned the hard way that a beautiful work of art does not necessarily make a good book cover. At thumbnail size, these covers aren’t doing their jobs of attracting new readers. There are too many focal points: top image, decorative title plate, and bottom image. People don’t know where to look, so they look away. To quote a marketing adage: “The confused mind says ‘No.'” The first cover, the most important one, is also communicating the wrong things. It’s not saying “antebellum American South” or even “historical fiction” clearly, and many people are mistaking it for genres it’s not.

If you’ve read Necessary Sins, you know why I suggested to my designer that we feature the hands of my priest protagonist, Joseph Lazare. When he’s ordained, his hands are anointed; and when Joseph and his soulmate Tessa touch hands in the book, the moments are erotically charged. But that eroticism is apparent in the cover only if you’ve already read Necessary Sins. To people brand-new to my work, those tender joined hands apparently indicate “This is sweet and clean Christian fiction”—in other words: “There is no on-the-page sex and this book will confirm your faith.” Which is not at all what Necessary Sins is about!

Therefore, in the short term, I worked with my current designer to revise the cover of Necessary Sins so that it more clearly communicates “forbidden love in the antebellum American South involving a Catholic priest.” I was happy to find stock images we could use for both Joseph and Tessa. These images were just uploaded to stock sites in 2020, so they weren’t available when we were designing the first Necessary Sins cover back in 2019.

The new Necessary Sins cover

Can you make out the Spanish moss and the parterre garden behind the woman, typical of my Charleston, SC setting? They aren’t as clear as I’d like, but that’s a saga in and of itself. The woman’s barely-visible attire might also be mistaken for a nightgown. In the original image, she’s fully dressed.

As you may know, chopping off people’s heads is standard practice in historical fiction covers, and it certainly has its advantages. I love the dramatic lighting in the image of this priest in a confessional, but the top half of the model’s head is all wrong for Joseph. The model is a White man with brown hair in a 21st-century style; but if we crop him correctly, he’s more racially ambiguous and can “pass” for Joseph, my black-haired priest who has French and African ancestry and passes as White.

The right mood for Joseph, but the wrong looks (from Depositphotos)

As of this writing, the new cover is live only for the ebook of Necessary Sins. My designer is currently at work on the paperback and hardcover versions. The “hands cover” has become a limited first edition—so if you love it like I do, now would be the time to buy it. 😉

Prefer the ebook? You’re in luck: my shiny new cover and all its contents are on sale for just 99 cents/pence through December 8, 2021. I do like how the man and woman are separated on the new Book One of the series and united on Book Four. It’s great symbolism.

The Lazare Family Saga with the new Necessary Sins cover

However, this new version of Necessary Sins doesn’t solve the thumbnail problem or pass the Two-Second Test. In order to fix those, after much figurative hair-pulling and literal gnashing of teeth (damn TMD), I have decided to hire a new cover designer to completely redo the whole Lazare Family Saga series. I hope we’ll end up with people on all the covers, and that we’ll be able to include their full faces. After weeks of searching, I’ve found some promising new stock images.

We can’t use the shot of the priest in the confessional with the dramatic lighting, because I’m determined that Joseph will finally have the right skin tone on my upcoming covers. This is impossible with an unedited stock image, because light-skinned Black men in cassocks simply don’t exist on stock sites. But my new designer should be able to do a “head swap” and dress a light-skinned Black model in a cassock, given the right images. Have I found them? Will my designer find them? Will we go in a totally different direction with the new covers?

Only 2022 knows.

Your turn! What do you think of the new Necessary Sins cover? What would you like to see on my redesigned Lazare Family Saga covers? What are some of your favorite historical fiction or family saga covers? Are you an author with a cover revision saga of your own? I’d love to hear from you!

What’s Your Genre?

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Upmarket. Historical fiction. Family Saga. Mainstream fiction with a central romance. All these terms describe my work, which doesn’t fit neatly into a single category. I see this as a strength. Love beautiful writing tackling profound subjects? You’ll find it in my novels. Love history? I’ll wow you with my research. Love epics about multiple generations set in multiple locales? I’ll sweep you away. Love love stories? I’ve got you covered. My first two blurbers (published novelists who’ve read and endorsed my work) called it a drama, which is equally spot-on.

What my novels aren’t: Christian/inspirational fiction. Many of my characters are Catholics, and one is a Catholic priest. I explore theological questions because they impact my characters’ lives. But I am very critical of traditional Catholicism, and I try to show the harm fundamentalism can do. At the same time, my work is not a polemic against organized religion. I find the “bells and smells” of Catholicism fascinating and often beautiful. I try to be respectful of the Church’s good points.

Neither are my novels romances in the modern genre sense. While finding and accepting love is central to my work, while my couples experience intense joy together, not all of these couples get happy endings. I prefer love stories that are suspenseful and realistic, and I find tragedy cathartic. I think the heartbreak makes the happiness more satisfying.

My original inspirations for the Lazare Family Saga were doorstopper epics later made into television miniseries: Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds (1977), and John Jakes’s North and South trilogy (1982-1987). Also influential were Anne Rice’s The Feast of All Saints (1979), Lucia St. Clair Robson’s Ride the Wind (1982), Janice Woods Windle’s True Women (1994), and Clancy Carlile’s Children of the Dust (1995).

More recent historical epics with romantic elements include Sara Donati’s Wilderness series (1998-2009) and her follow-ups The Gilded Hour (2015) and Where the Light Enters (2019); Paullina Simons’s Bronze Horseman trilogy (2000-2005); and Jennifer Donnelly’s Tea Rose trilogy (2002-2008).

I love the scale of a classic multigenerational family saga, and I am awed by novels that tackle centuries instead of decades, like the work of James Michener and Edward Rutherfurd. These epics are a fantastic way to learn history and travel vicariously. However, because these authors have so much ground to cover, their characters are usually static. These characters witness dramatic events, but they rarely grow as individuals. Their internal conflict only skims the surface.

Much as I adore the sweep of history and external conflict, I also find internal conflict delicious. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to dig deep and really unpack the psychology and sociology of racism and Catholicism. I didn’t simply want to show Racists Being Racist and Zealots Being Zealots. I wanted to explore the implications of growing up in a racist society and a fundamentalist home on a person’s decisions and sense of self-worth. I wanted to write about flawed, struggling people like me. But I didn’t want to sacrifice the satisfying way one generation impacts and recalls another in a family saga. I also wanted to write about the American South and the American West.

I wanted to choose “all of the above” and find the surprising connections between them. How is being a priest like being a slave? How is being deaf like being a person of color? How is the spirituality of a Cheyenne Indian like Catholicism? Juxtaposition and duality are at the heart of my fiction. As one of my first readers put it, my work has layers. It’s not either/or. It’s and.