It is with great delight that we have with us today on Naughty Nights Press, not only a talented scribe but an artist that is making his name synonymous with book covers and trailers, Mr. Willsin Rowe.
Thank you Willsin, for taking time out of your busy schedule and answering these questions.
How long have you been creating book covers for?
It’s around 2 years since I made my first cover, but it’s only been about 18 months since I realized it was something I could actually do as a professional enterprise.
What got you into creating book covers?
My publisher put out a call among their authors to see if anyone had the ability and willingness to create covers. Since I’ve been working in and around graphic design for nearly 25 years, I figured I could put my hand up for that.
Is there a certain medium you prefer to work with?
I definitely prefer pixels over all others these days. The flexibility and power are phenomenal, and I am so totally in love with “Undo” option! This is especially true now that I’ve been branching out into making trailers. In the real world, I used to be quite a dab hand with pencil sketching, but always in a reproductive sense (heh). I could reproduce just about any picture that I liked. But I haven’t done it for a long time.
How closely do you work with the Author and Publisher when it comes to creating a book cover?
I’ve not had to deal with a publisher for cover content so far. I’ve been doing a lot of work for indie authors, and my publisher has always been “hands-off”, happy to accept the author’s choice of artwork. I always work very closely with the author. After all, it’s their baby. My philosophy is that a cover should be a two-line blurb for the story, represented graphically.
Do you find that it can be frustrating at times trying to get the cover exactly right?
Oh, indeed it can. I’ve had next to no trouble from authors, though. It’s the search for appropriate imagery that can have me tearing my hair out. Because there can be so many factors which determine which stock image would be correct. In the case of a model, there’s any number of potential roadblocks: hair color, eye color, skin color, ethnicity, age, clothing (or lack thereof!). Some of those factors are reasonably easy to adjust digitally, but some are not. And all of that’s before you work out exactly what expression the person needs to have, or what pose they should be in. The possibilities are mind-numbing!
My blog page (which is my website): http://willsinrowe.blogspot.com/
My Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001049565188
Well there we go folks, Mr. Willsin Rowe. I do hope everyone goes and has a look at his blog and view some of the spectacular trailers he has posted, not to mention the amazing book covers he has produced.
Posted on behalf of Naughty Nights Press for our month of interviews with Editors and Cover Artists.
