Uniqueness —
How many of us remember our first books?
Dr. Seuss
Disney Classics
Golden Story Books
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
The Jungle Book
…other Children’s Book Classics
Even if you don’t remember the exact story lines, just the mention of the books conjure an immediate memory of the image or images and bring us back to that feeling… You know what feeling I’m talking about, but it is unique to you only.
A rainy cold and cloudy day perhaps or a bright sunny day after a trip to the supermarket.
A picture is worth a thousand words… especially if it is locked in the minds eye.
Visual branding is so important that corporations hire banks of lawyers to copyright and protect it as much as any physical asset that they possess.
The Cover Illustration needs to speak to your audience about the story and hint of things to come. Make sure that your publisher treats your written work as such a valuable asset and brands it with a valuable image to bring back that thought to your readers.
I’ve preached to the choir enough, so here are a few valuable resources to consider for your visual branding:
- Your family or personal photo archives
- Children’s Books from the Past
- More Current Publications
- Up and Coming from Book Marketing Network
- Society of Illustrators
Spend as much as you can afford on the Cover Illustration. If you can’t afford an initial outlay, barter with a quality illustrator for a percentage of sales. If you don’t feel comfortable entering into such a contract, consider doing the illustration yourself! You were creative enough to spend the time composing your manuscript or literary work, so don’t cut yourself short.
Here is an example of inexcusable visual plagiarism, where a publisher re-used the same stock photo’s for several book cover images:
Originally Posted on November 15, 2009 at 2:02 pm
