You've seen the cover. Now it's time for me to talk about the crazy drama behind it.*
This post is not really about the cover of Coyote, but about the man behind it.
A lot of times, I'll try to design my own stuff. I do this because I'm cheap and, like many people, I think I'm better at photoshop than I really am. The stuff I do myself is fine, I guess, in that it get's the point across and it saves me money.
I actually tried to do the cover for Coyote myself, and the cover I created was OK. I'd like to think it wouldn't have ended up on Lousy Book Covers, but that's probably just wishful thinking. And even if it was OK, I didn't want a cover that was OK. I wanted a cover that was fantastic.
Ben Rebant crawls heroically out of a bone-dry gulch in the desert while researching for the Coyote cover
So let me tell you about this guy I work with. He keeps the schedule of a senior citizen and can be found home in bed most nights before 9pm. He ranks restaurants based on the quality of their nachos, delights in watching bad movies, tweets only about the weather, and is the nicest guy I've met. He also happens to be my favorite graphic designer. I'm talking about Mr. Ben Rebant.
Ben often tweets about the weater
I'm lucky enough to work with Ben and I know he's a really busy guy who likes to be in bed by 9:00 at the latest, 8:30 if possible, even 8:00 if he can manage it. Which is why I was feeling like an asshole when I asked him to help me with my book cover. But Ben told me (lied?) he was excited to do it, and long story short, I ended up with a cover that's so fantastic I'm not sure the story it advertises does it justice. I don't know if it's the most commercial cover (it doesn't follow a genre formula) but it's exactly what I wanted: A cover for a book that I would pick up if I were at a bookstore.
Ben really screwed himself over with this one, because now I'm going to beg him to do my next cover, and the one after that, etc, not to mention many other things, like the kickass bookmark he made for me to give out to people.
By the way, if you'd like to print out that kickass bookmark on card stock and use it mark your pages, you're completely welcome to do so. Just click here for the full-sized pdf.
So anyway, this post is just a long-winded way for me to say THANK YOU to Ben for making a cover I love.
If you've written a book and are looking for a fantastic cover, you can't do better than Ben Rebant. He's super easy to work with, his rates are reasonable, he's got a ton of experience, and his taste is impeccable. If you'd like to hire him, shoot him an email at bjrebant@gmail.com.
Also, You can buy Coyote here.
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*I'm lying, of course. There was actually zero drama behind the Coyote cover. All that happened was I asked my busy designer friend Ben to do the cover, and he came with several really cool options that were hard for me to choose between. But I did choose an option, and then Ben made some changes that made it even better.
Download the bookmark to go with your print copy of Coyote