Making the Cover for My Next Fantasy Book (Kingdom of Dragons)
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2024
- Here's a full behind-the-scenes look at my cover design process for Kingdom of Dragons!
Get the book on Kickstarter (launches November 2nd): www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
A massive thanks to Yasu Matsuoka for his incredible cover art!
yasuartstudio.com/
⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
00:27 - What’s the book about?
01:14 - Starting the cover design
02:36 - How to find a cover artist
04:50 - Making the design brief
05:48 - Sketching initial concepts
07:18 - Looking at the first designs
08:02 - Interior artwork
09:14 - Picking the concept & sending the contract
09:53 - Developing the concept
10:24 - Coloured draft
10:50 - Refining the design
11:52 - The big reveal
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Hello Jed, I just came across your channel by pure luck. I am an illustrator myself, and I just wanted to thank you, truly thank you from the bottom of my heart, for supporting real artists instead of using AI "art", specially if you're doing a big investment yourself in the cover art of your book because you're self-publishing. A lot of authors and even publishers are using AI now, even for popular book series, and artists are losing their income and jobs because of it, in a work environment where it was already hard enough to make it as an artist. Saying out loud that your cover art should be one of your biggest investments when self publishing, to an amazing audience of 37k people that want to learn how to publish their books too, is a big thing for us artists in these trying times. Again, thank you so much, you don't know how much we need more people like you.
Hello! I'm actually looking for a cover artist for my book. I'd like to see your portfolio and what genres you work with.
Thank you!
Amazing and I liked the original fire of something (forgot) cover tbh
Fires of the Dead
The full wraparound looks amazing! I love all the little dragons soaring in the background. Can’t wait for the Kickstarter!
The cover art looks amazing! I’m intrigued to read this story!
Great breakdown Jed! Personally, I'm really not a fan of Fantasy novels that use the word 'Dragon' in the title or are about Dragon Riders, but it seems like you're doing a good job making your take on the trope interesting.
I’m with you, I’m done with dragon stories. So over done, too many out there.
I'm so excited to read this!! I appreciate all of the hard work and time you've put into this novel for your readers. The cover is perfect!
This story seems so interesting!
Can't wait to read your book Jed
Can't wait to read it
Tomorrow gonna go insaneo style
Just started working with an artist for my novel. Super excited! And also really anxious about pushing through to actually put the book out. Do you think we could get a video on advice for how to publish/advertise a 1st book in the near-ish future?
Não gosto desse estilo de arte, mas ver que ela foi tão bem feita, planejada e detalhada mostra como você dedicado e cuidadoso com seu trabalho. E a capa ficou linda!
i'm about to watch it
love the old fashioned typeface
I subbed recently due to looking into making a book series. I love story telling since I was but a thirteen years old. I did several practice drafts for fiction, mystery, horror cause h.p love craft and more importantly fantasy for the sheer joy of immersion.
This sounds interesting. 👏🏾👏🏾
Will it be available on kindle or Audiobook?
I kinda prefer the old Fires of the dead cover, tbh. The yellow writing on the new one is barely readable against the redish background.
Jed, is it too late to contribute? I’m not familiar with Kickstarter, I only saw an option to be notified.
The Kickstarter will launch on November 2. It is not too late.
One Question tho, sorry if it sounds dumb but did you include character and scene descriptions that youd want or did the artist recieve a summary of the story,. Id just like to know how the artist knew what to draw and how to draw them.
For those who've read Jed Herne's books, how does his storytelling quality compare to Adrian Tchaikovsky?
Any sort of comparison, welcome.
2:19 I just kept "dragon" my feet....
Speak for yourself. If I did a cover design, it would be damn good. I'm a great artist and I'm humble too. I'm the humblest person in the world!
"Kingdom of Dragons"
You really spent all night thinking of that title, huh
He has good tips but yeeeeah, that’s a painfully generic name. Doesn’t pull me in at all.
@@snickerbobble I envy his belief in himself
Again this looks magical but I have question on writing tho character internal conflict how?my character is a knight and how do I create his motivation,goals. Because i think it would be same and not different/unique and finally I hope your book does well.All the very best
Look it up on youtube, there's a lot of videos on how to write internal character conflict. Lots of people explain.
@@antanowrites can you give an example
@@amankhadka9622The conflict really depends on the plot. For example, your knight could doubt himself or maybe he becomes a knight because he couldn't save someone close to him and that motivates him to become a knight.
I have a better suggestion….read good fiction, write diligently and figure it out yourself. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but you won’t become a good novelist if you’re using someone else’s ideas on writing as your own. It’s not a formulaic practice, it’s an introspective one.
@@matt_jude A little bit of inspiration is important.
AWESOME BOOKCOVER! VERY APPEALING. MANY THANKS FOR THE VIDEO, AS ALWAYS VERY INDPIRING AND MOTIVATING!
And then you have gorge r.r martin with his crappy covers being a best seller. What a world to live in
This is a YA novel, yes?
this book seems scarely similar to the inheritance cycle...
I would have colored the original sketch and called it a day.
Hey, something I just realized is that the title of my book is similar to yours.
Mine is “Trial of Dragons”.
Quick question, how do you create a concept cover for someone else to create if you can’t draw?
I'm an artist and I'd say (from the top of my head) I don't remember a single client having sent me a sketch ever. Usually I just talk to them, go a bit back and forth with some simple sketches I made to ensure I understood what my client wanted from me composition and pose-wise. Once they've approved that's when I move forward with a more detailed sketch. So in short, you really don't have to be able to draw at all to work with an artist, at least not in my opinion. And if you do want to send them some kind of visual inspiration, there's always the option of making a collage of art you do like and which capture the vibe you're looking for. Hope this is helpful!
@@Daneypastry that is helpful, thank you.
Cover looks cool and the amount of work put into it is commendable, but the name and concept sounds pretty generic and kind of puts me off a bit
Thank you for hiring a real artist and not using Ai for your cover art.
Sincerely, a Graphic Artist/Designer
0:18 “he steals a egg”
Hope that typo won’t be on the cover.
Fire of the dead had a better cover in the beginning lol
With all due respect, you need to go back to the drawing board before you worry about covers and publishing your book. Your synopsis sounds a little too convoluted. It's not really an "epic" (look up what that means in historically when it comes to literature); you go from a "dragon rider seeking vengeance" to a "crusade of destruction" to "two nations on the brink of war" to Zora with a "dream of revenge" to a "son Warden killed her father when she (Mary Sue) saves a town from Bandits alongside her fellow ranger's apprentice" to a dragon egg to "she may finally get her chance (obviously for vengeance [who was stopping her in the first place?]" to "Rovan's best friend" to some vendetta against a dragon who killed Rovan's best friend" to "apprenticing himself to a sun Warden" to stealing a dragon's egg" to "infiltrating a floating city of the Dragon Riders and plans to destroy it" to "training dragons to master magic" to "grow closer together, i.e. falling in love" to "questioning everything they once knew" to "how will they deal with the weight of their past?" Dude, you're all over the place, and you sound like you're just throwing darts and pretending to check off a list of bullet points that Sanderson wrote, (who isn't that good at writing prose or give any moral conflict when it comes to his magic systems). If your book is a sprawling story and multiple main characters, at least focus on how the "fate of the world hangs in the balance" so your readers will care. Saying "two nations on the brink of war" won't cut it, and vengeance is meaningless unless the main character pays the ultimate price for it, like in the movie Gladiator. I'll give you credit for the effort and how you included the tragic event of your main character losing a relative, but a tragedy that would stand out more would be something where one of the relatives was partly to blame, otherwise, you'll miss an opportunity to get some sort of catharsis for your reader, which is the real reason why you use such plot lines to garner sympathy for your characters. In other words, study Aristotle's Poetics and not some prolific "B" writer like Brandon Sanderson.
Daaaaaaaaaaaamn why you rip into his ass like that hahah. Hopefully these are constructive criticisms I didn't read it so I dunno you're probably right you seem passionate about it
@@TUKMAK Yeah, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful or anything, but after you study Classical Literature and compare that to what most of these Booktubers are advising their subscribers to do, you have to realize that most of them have no idea what they are doing, let alone how to teach someone how to be an author. I'm sure he will keep learning and writing which is a good thing, but it's hard to improve as an author when most of your time is creating CZcams videos, it's like the Bible says, "you can't be a slave for two masters", and it's the biggest problem I see for independent publishers who believe they can both hone their craft as a writer and be full time business owner relying on marketing yourself by constantly creating CZcams videos.
This is an interesting criticism. I don't think his plot is terrible, nor has he revealed where the character arcs will lead. It would definitely fit in with many fantasy books today. But I agree that it wouldn't be considered epic based on what we know. It's strength would be in exploring two nations paralleled by exploring two clashing individuals and their relationship. He hasn't fully shown us it all though, even if we can predict how the plot might play out.
@@jjhh320 You may be right, after all, it could be the way worded this synopsis, for example "two nations on the brink of war" could very well mean the aftermath of such a war would mean one of the main characters would die, and if none of them do then at least many innocent lives are actually lost, which is still, as Aristotle would say in Poetics - "Now when enemy does it (destroy) on enemy, there is nothing moving us (reader) to pity except for the actual pain of the sufferer is concerned, and the same is true when the parties are indifferent to one another. Whenever the tragic deed, however, is done within the family,... these are the situations the poet (author) should seek after", otherwise it's just a lot of random people killing each other and the story will have to rely mostly on how good the prose are in describing the "Spectacle", which is still not enough for the reader to care long after reading it. This is why Disney Marvel and Disney Star Wars fail in comparison to the originals like the way George Lucas masterfully wrote his stories, or Tolkein, or further back Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey to Virgil's Aeneid, all following Aristotle's advice on Poetics and storytelling. This is why you remember those stories and the ones depicting so-called "epic" CGI battles like in the Disney Marvel movies or forgettable books written by overly hyped Brandon Sanderson, whose excuse for being lazy at writing compelling prose is no excuse at all. Sure, the prose is not as important as the story itself, but Sanderson's stories fall to compensate for his shortcomings when you compare his stories with the ones that follow Aristotle's advice.
@@TUKMAK If he doesn’t read criticism, how would he ever improve?
rather use AI for the cover
free and faster
That's Author suicide. Nobody is going to want to read an Author who relies on the 'quick, cheap, and easy' route over an Author who willing to put in the effort and resources to make their book look and read beautifully.
@@weismanwriter9426nobody can tell the difference unless hands are visible
Ai art isn't copyrighted people could steal the your cover. Also Ai art has less skill then an actual artist. Ai can make a beautiful drawn cover but, there will always be something off or wrong. Another problem when working an ai art is that you can't point it out the mistakes it makes, you'll have to renew the entire picture in order to fix it, in contrast to a real artist, who you can work closely with to get the cover you wanted. Ai art might be cheap, but it also has less spacial sense, memory, and control that you'd get from paying a real artists to work on the cover. Ultimately, by paying an artist, you are supporting a real person, and getting a better product then you would get with Ai art programs. This is coming from an artist and a writer. Imagine if someone would say to you, "Oh I'll just get Ai to write my story," I know you'll probably get defensive and say "I wouldn't mind," though. Sorry for the rant. I am a naturally long winded, person and I have to give all the facts.
Ai art is not much customizable
@@angelhurtado55 the hair is always visible and it's also always wrong. If you want people to support you as an author, which means your a kind of artist yourself, why can't you support fellow artists by hiring an actual illustrator?