Earlier this week I posted an advert at Student Gems. It read:
I’m publishing a rather dull academic textbook. It’s going to need a nice dust jacket to sell it. I need someone to design me one.
Something like a picture of the Greek islands and some text.
I’ve had about 10 responses. Four of them seem like people who know what they are doing and would be usable, and I have messaged them some more details:
The book is an edition and translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s “Gospel problems and solutions” (=Quaestiones ad Stephanum et Marinum) Greek text + translation ditto Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic fragments.
I’m being influenced by the dustjacket for the following book:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/item/FREONOMAS (left)
where the cover made *me* buy it, and I never do buy books.
My thinking is for a photograph as cover, with the author name and title on it. Something like the following photo:
http://www.vidasvillas.com/index_files/page20_1.jpg
(I want to avoid pictures of ruins, I think).
I’m open to other ideas, of course.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.
Meanwhile I have been looking for a licensable cover image. No luck so far, tho. Shutterstock.com seem to have the right sort of stuff. I haven’t quite seen one I like.
Roger, I have a collection of photos I’ve taken in the Greek islands; it’s unlikely, but on the off-chance that any of them would be even remotely suitable, you’re welcome to them.
http://s1187.photobucket.com/albums/z390/jb-greek-islands/
I appreciate the thought — thank you very much! They’re very nice photographs but I suspect I do need a professional photograph.
“I want to avoid pictures of ruins, I think.”
Good idea, and not something I’d have thought of.
I think they’re just so hackeyed these days. How many books on ancient history or archaeology have you seen, with a photograph of some bleached and not very interesting lumps of rubble and a column or two on the cover? They are legion.
There’s always the “beautiful people in period clothes, possibly looking decadent” option, if you have any friends doing Byzantine reenactment and/or costuming. 🙂 But beautiful landscapes really are nice, on scholarly books.
Re: link to example cover — it seems to be dead.
Thanks — that must have been a dynamic url. I’ve fixed it now, and added the image to the post.