On the Art of Book Cover Design with Eric Labacz

Kathleen and Adanna welcome award-winning cover designer Eric Labacz to Talking Book Publishing for an engaging discussion on the art and strategy of book cover design. From his beginnings in graphic arts to becoming a trusted designer for publishers and indie authors, Eric shares how his experiences shape his unique approach to every project.

This conversation explores why a book's cover is often its most critical selling tool, especially in an online-dominated market. Eric discusses the challenges of balancing creativity with practical marketing needs, how he adapts designs across genres, and what authors should know before working with a professional designer.

Take advantage of Eric's upcoming webinar on December 5 at 11 a.m. Pacific Time! Attendees who register at wpnwebinars.com before November 31 will have the exclusive chance to submit a book cover for Eric to critique live during the session.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:02 SPEAKER_01
Hello, and welcome to this edition of Talking Book Publishing. I'm Kathleen Kaiser, your co-host, along with Adanna Moriarty. And today we have a really special guest, Eric Labacz, who is a cover designer. I've worked with Eric on several clients, and I just love his work. It's so different. He really catches the spirits of the book. So welcome, Eric. Thanks so much, Kathleen. It's good to be

00:00:26 SPEAKER_02
It's good to be here. Thanks, Adanna.

00:00:31 SPEAKER_01
So, why don't you start, because I always love to ask creative people this. How did you find, through your journey in graphic arts, how did you end up a cover designer? I'll

00:00:43 SPEAKER_02
give you the brief edited version because it's a super long story and I know we don't have a lot of

00:00:50 SPEAKER_02
time, but I studied design at art school. My first job out of school, I was I work for a packaging firm. I was there for about a year, then I moved on to another packaging firm in New Jersey, and I was there for about six, seven years and became an art director there. We did a lot of really cool stuff there. But when I got into my 30s, I had some health issues, and I got out of design for a while, and my life just took this crazy path where I was teaching myself music, I was working at a nature center, I was working for the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, Native American tribe, doing artwork for them. And one thing led to another and I eventually met my wife. And when we had our first son, we have two sons ages nine and two, when we had our first son, I was kind of just doing A lot of different stuff and I just decided to get back into design and at that point I was just working from home doing freelance and focusing on a lot of branding projects and small business branding and things like that. And I happen to be working on this one branding project. for a local woman and she introduced me to Karen Hodges Miller of Open Door Publications. She's a local indie publisher and Karen's just started giving me some cover projects and I fell in love with it. It was so much fun. It was so creative. Each project was different and me and Karen, we just formed this great relationship and she just started giving me all her cover projects and then I eventually build up enough of a portfolio where I can go out and get additional clients. And now I have a few publisher clients across the nation, as well as working with self-publishing authors and stuff like that. So that's the lowdown. But I've done art my whole life. My dad was a painter. My grandfather, he also painted. So I grew up watching my dad paint. And I was just drawing all the time. And art was just a natural fit for me. I just figured that that's what I would be doing with my life. So there you go. That's the

00:03:10 SPEAKER_00
lowdown. I resonate with that because I always knew I would do art my whole life, like as a web designer. I don't know. I love it, too. Every project is

00:03:21 SPEAKER_02
different, right? It's not boring. It's like one of my favorite things about cover projects is you get one project in, the other project is out, and something new and interesting, something you haven't worked on before, keeps me from getting

00:03:40 SPEAKER_00
bored. I get bored pretty easily. Yeah, me too. I like variety. Yeah, I get bored really easily. So now all you do is cover design. Do you

00:03:49 SPEAKER_02
still do other graphic? No, I do some other stuff as well. We're doing a lot more illustration these days, but yeah, I'm doing covers and illustration, but I do get the odd branding project from time to time, which I won't turn down because I have two

00:04:09 SPEAKER_01
kids. Good enough reason right there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So when you're working on a, cover? Do you like read the book or read the synopsis or do you talk with the author? Tell us about your process. Well, it depends

00:04:26 SPEAKER_02
on who the cover is for. If I'm working with a... I have certain publisher clients that I don't communicate with the authors at all and everything is through the publisher. So everything is obviously like a detailed brief through them. I really like projects where I get a lot of info on the book ahead of time. So a detailed brief could include sample covers that the author and the publisher like, sample chapters that have key plot points, key events in the story for me to focus on, character descriptions, obviously all the like the genre info that I need to know and the audience information, like the demographics that we're looking to connect with. So the more information in the beginning of a project, the better. So, but then there are instances where I work directly with the themselves and they're not going through a publisher. So I kind of have to get them to give me all that information. To answer your first question about reading the book, you know, this depends on if I'm able to get the gist of the story through the synopsis and through the information that I received. There are definite times, thinking of this one book in particular, that I had to read. the entire book and it was like 600 pages. I've gotten really good at speed reading. I do read a lot of my clients' books. I never read anything else other than clients'

00:06:11 SPEAKER_02
books. But yeah, I needed to read the whole book just to understand the story because there was just so much going on and I was really lost in regards to what to do for the cover. It really depends project to project. If I needed to read the whole book or just sample chapters. So it really just depends on each project, individual

00:06:37 SPEAKER_01
project. So tell us how things are different from genre to genre. That's a good

00:06:44 SPEAKER_02
question. Well, I guess I'll go from, let's start with like fiction and nonfiction. You really, fiction, say nonfiction, It's more about relaying certain information about a particular field and you really need to convey, you really need to have the cover say, okay, this is not a book of fiction. This is about relaying a certain type of information to a certain audience that are looking for whatever it is, whether it's about cooking or whether it is about your business. Nonfiction tends to be a little bit more straightforward than fiction covers. You kind of want you don't want the information to become obscured at all. You just want it really clear what it is they're getting, what this book is about. Otherwise, people are going to walk away confused. Whereas with fiction and everything that's included in that, like fantasy, mystery, all those things, you can get a little bit more creative with it, I suppose. You can take certain chances where You're doing a little bit things interesting, but the title or images and. And where where the reader really has to kind of look at the coverage is to kind of see what's going on with nonfiction. You definitely don't want to confuse your you definitely don't want to confuse your reader. You're going to you're going to lose a reader.

00:08:10 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they don't need a lot of imagination with nonfiction, where with fiction, you're playing on their sort of, Oh, this will be a fun read for a couple night type of

00:08:20 SPEAKER_02
couple night type of thing. Yeah, exactly.

00:08:23 SPEAKER_00
Exactly. Yeah, you have like, prefer genre that you like to work on. I mean, like you, you kind of work on everything. But like, yeah, there's something that you

00:08:35 SPEAKER_02
prefer. Yeah, I prefer fiction over nonfiction, but I'm not complaining about working with fiction projects. I'm lucky, really lucky to be able to do what I do and be able to work from home doing it and stuff like that. But yeah, I prefer fiction over nonfiction. I think I'm drawn to something, to covers where I can get away with being a lot more creative, maybe I've been getting a lot of projects lately where I've been doing a lot of illustrations. I'm kind of drawn to that right now. Like, how can I approach this cover illustratively? Kind of projects where it's an

00:09:11 SPEAKER_02
Kind of projects where it's an interesting story. There's interesting characters going on. It's an interesting plot. Interesting themes that lend itself to doing something a little bit different on the cover. Something a little bit more creative.

00:09:27 SPEAKER_00
Okay, I have a question just, just because I think our audience will be interested in it is that, I mean, you know, you started out as like a traditional graphic artist, you know, working in packaging design, right? So, like, morphing into the into the book cover world. I mean, you know, there's like formulas that go for it for science fiction and romance or whatever. Like, how do you how do you stay up on what's current? I mean, are you like constantly researching like what's new and what's selling? Or is it just pure creativity from your side? I

00:10:06 SPEAKER_02
do a lot of research when I'm at the start of each project just to see what's out there that's similar on the market, that's doing really well. I spend a lot of time in bookstores and coffee shops where I like to go and I like to

00:10:20 SPEAKER_02
I like to just grab a cup of coffee and just walk around the aisles and just look at covers and just see what pops out and take pictures of them. My phone live photo library is full of covers that I just think are just so cool. But yeah, I think When I get a project, let's say it's sci-fi, there's so much already input on a given project. Let's say if I'm working with Kathleen on a project and a publisher, there's already information that's coming in in terms of what they're looking to do, the look that they're going for. Here are some sample books that we like the look of that maybe we could do something similar. I'm never really starting a project, just out in the cold and I don't have any input. There's always something to look at in terms of what it is, the direction that we're looking for. But yeah, I just spent a lot of time researching covers and looking around and going to bookstores, like I said, just seeing what's out there, what trends, what's popular, things like that.

00:11:32 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I've seen like a real evolution of, especially with well-known authors, that their name is at the top of the page and the name of the book is smaller and down below with, you know, something in between. It used to be the name of the book was big and the author's name was down below. There are two lines of author names.

00:11:54 SPEAKER_02
of author

00:11:56 SPEAKER_01
You know, of course, those people are well known, but it's it's impactful as you walk through a store. Because I love to do that, too. In fact, sometimes I've had clients that think they can design a cover and it's like, oh, my God. And so I say, print it out to the real size. It is in for color. Have a local printer. Do it. Don't do it on your inkjet. Then, you know, glue it onto a piece of cardboard. Go to the bookstore and put it up next to books in your genre.

00:12:26 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I give the same advice. That's awesome

00:12:28 SPEAKER_01
advice. Yeah, it is. It's like you can see immediately. I also think I

00:12:31 SPEAKER_00
I also think I mean, these people who, you know, are self publishing and want to do their own cover, like it's more than just the cover. I mean, you have to know the size. You have to be able to know the spine with like you got to be able to do the full wrap. Like, I mean, you're not just creating a cover. You're creating the entire casing of a book. I mean, sure. you know, like, I mean, there was a moment where I thought about doing it. And then, I mean, every book, like the spine has to be different. Like you have to get those measurements. Perfect. When you're sure. Yeah. I'm not even

00:13:08 SPEAKER_02
not even sure how, how individuals that are doing it themselves, like what they're even using to create it. I talked to some people who said they can creating their book cover in Canva. I'm like, how is that even possible? You know, I mean, I use like Adobe software. I have a home back. I do like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and InDesign and stuff like

00:13:29 SPEAKER_00
like that. So when I download... Canva has book cover templates. Yeah, I

00:13:35 SPEAKER_01
know. Yeah. But is that for a full wrap or

00:13:37 SPEAKER_00
a full wrap or just... I don't know. I've never I've never actually

00:13:37 SPEAKER_01
or just...

00:13:40 SPEAKER_00
never actually opened one and looked at it because like, I just feel like that, you know. More care needs to be taken sure you put so much time into writing a book like to pop into canva and i mean i use canva all the time but like to pop into canva and pull you know somebody else's pre-made template and pop it on your book cover like why would you spend so much time writing to do that

00:14:10 SPEAKER_02
It's a great point. I mean, a lot of, I think a lot, the biggest reason that authors are facing issues like that today is probably money. You know, they just don't have the resources to pay a cover designer to do it for them, which is just trying to save costs. But

00:14:28 SPEAKER_01
yeah, it is complicated. Yeah. The problem is, though, today your cover has to pop at a two by three inch look, because most books are bought online. It's not like you're walking through a store and it's really big there. It's this little teeny image. And especially if you're going to try and promote your book with like e-book promotions and stuff, that cover's got to pop. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I tell my

00:14:53 SPEAKER_02
my clients, like, it's not, I don't think anyone's going to buy your book just solely based on the cover alone. I think the best argument for a good cover is that

00:15:05 SPEAKER_02
People will hear about your book or if you're choosing to work with a marketer or a publicist. If your book is really well written and it's a great story and it's catching the attention of a large audience, people are going to hear it and they're going to buy it even if they don't like the cover. But it needs to be

00:15:26 SPEAKER_02
good. You're not going to sell books just based on your cover alone. People want a good read. The best argument for a good cover, though, is, and this kind of mirrors what Donna

00:15:38 SPEAKER_02
of mirrors what Donna was just saying, or Adanna, sorry. I keep repeating the Adanna thing in my head.

00:15:44 SPEAKER_03
the Adanna thing in my head.

00:15:48 SPEAKER_02
is that it's a reflection, a cover is a reflection of what's inside. And if you have a bad cover or a cover that you do yourself, that's not really well done, or like, like you said, like a template cover, it's just going to, it's going to say to readers, well, there, I didn't put a lot of energy into the cover. So I assume that that's what's going on in the inside as well. So I'm not even going to give it a chance. So the cover as the first

00:16:15 SPEAKER_00
as the first impression, it's like that thing that makes somebody pick it up. I mean, obviously the rest has to be good. You have to have a good back cover description and, you know, blurbs are always nice. And, you know, to be able to catch someone on that first page, but if your cover is. Nobody's going to pick it up off the shelf or pick it when they're scrolling through. I mean, Think about how many books are on Amazon, like when people are scrolling through Amazon, looking at books, it's the cover that is going to grab somebody's attention and make them, you know, click and pop over to read about

00:16:53 SPEAKER_02
it. Now, you you both will probably know more information about this than I do. But when like what's the percentage of readers that are out there that are just kind of going blind into like, let's say, an Amazon kind of site where they're just they don't know what they want, but they're kind of just looking around. And like, what's what's the percentage of that that's happening out there? That's the that's where the Amazon algorithms come

00:17:16 SPEAKER_01
out there? That's the that's where the Amazon algorithms come in, because they'll just go up there and

00:17:23 SPEAKER_03
go, I want a crime

00:17:23 SPEAKER_01
mystery. Yeah. Or I want a legal thriller. And then Amazon starts bringing them

00:17:29 SPEAKER_00
up. And then that is like, you know, a whole different thing, because then it's about like, You know, did you write a good description and did you pick your right categories and keywords? And, you know, do you have a bunch, a bunch of reviews? Like, are you running ads? Like all of that kind of stuff, but still even in that moment, like if I was going to search legal thrillers, right. Think about all of those books in a legal thriller category. What is the thing? I mean, you're not gonna sit there and read all of the hook lines and the short descriptions. You're gonna look at all of the covers as you scroll on the left-hand side of the page. And that is the thing in a massive category like that, that's gonna pull you over. And if you see a really cool cover that really stands out

00:18:20 SPEAKER_02
that really stands out out of that group, you're probably gonna be drawn to that one first.

00:18:26 SPEAKER_01
Right. Yeah. And then you click on it and you read the description. Yeah. And you look and see what the reviews are

00:18:33 SPEAKER_03
are

00:18:34 SPEAKER_01
are that, you know, it's like, oh, OK, this is good or oh, this is a part of a series because, God, people nowadays are just loving series. I'm I'm one of the hopeless. And I have authors that I read all of their books, but because I love the way they write and I love the stories. But if I'm looking for somebody new, I actually don't do it online. I go to a bookstore. Yeah, there's

00:18:59 SPEAKER_00
there's something about touching the

00:18:59 SPEAKER_01
there's something about touching

00:19:01 SPEAKER_00
book. I want to know what that percentage is now. I'm going to have to look it up because

00:19:06 SPEAKER_01
to look it up because that's a good thing to know. You guys talk. I'll look it up.

00:19:12 SPEAKER_01
But yeah, it but the cover, I know, like we do a lot of ebook promotions for our people. And one of the covers you did just, you know, was went crazy. People loved it, which was Julie Summers off my knees. The palm tree. Yeah, that was a cool

00:19:28 SPEAKER_02
knees. The palm tree. Yeah, that was a cool one. That was very provocative.

00:19:35 SPEAKER_01
Very provocative. The title is provocative to begin with. You just nailed that one. In fact, Adanna was showing it to an e-book company we work with, one of the e-book promoters, and he loved the cover. He said, oh, this is going to work. And that's always interesting to know that it's what it is. Because like, say, if you do ebook promotions, which is a great way to get reviews, they're not expensive. And but what they do is they send out an email with six or seven books that are free or 99

00:20:07 SPEAKER_03
do is

00:20:07 SPEAKER_01
is they send out an email with six or seven books that are free or 99 cents. And they said they go by the cover. And if they like the cover, then they read the description or else they just keep scrolling. Nice. And so it's the cover then that that's why covers are

00:20:26 SPEAKER_00
important. OK, I didn't find out the answer to this percentage yet, but I just found out a really disturbing percentage, which is 46 percent of Americans did not read a book last

00:20:37 SPEAKER_01
year. Now that there there's a it's something large. It's something around 30 some odd have never read one since high school. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, sorry.

00:20:47 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Those kind of numbers are

00:20:48 SPEAKER_01
numbers are scary. There's a small group of us that buy all of them.

00:20:56 SPEAKER_01
And I'm one of those, so I must buy a book a week. I'm hopeless. I have so many stacked up. I've read 20, 30, 40 pages, you know, and it's like, oh, this is good. I'll read this later and never go back because, oh, another one came. But anyway, so on with with your work, with with working with the authors or with working with a publisher, how do you find I mean, is it a, do you, so let's go through the process. Do you give them like three or four comps or how do you do it for them to look at?

00:21:30 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I'll start with like thumbnails, sketches, get some ideas, kind of figure out I'm approaching the cover. With an illustration, we're using photographs. It all depends on what the book is, what the book is about, the direction that we're going to go. If I'm using stock photography, if I'm using a typographical solution. But yeah, once that's all figured out and I kind of have a sense of direction and the market and all that information, sit down and start just playing around with layouts, do some quick sketching. And then ultimately, I get the client, whether it's an author or a publisher, a minimum of three concepts to start. And then we go from there. So it usually falls within three to five, depending on how easily ideas are coming across. But minimum of three. And then we have rounds of revisions. And I know you I know you've been part of projects, Kathleen, where we just couldn't get it, and we just had to go back until we finally get it. It always works out. Some are harder than others. Sometimes you have lots of rounds. Sometimes the author has a lot to say, and we disagree, and we're butt in heads. There's definitely cases where that has happened, and then other cases where the author is just totally on board with anything we do. So it all varies.

00:22:53 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I know we shared one author, it was like I was trying to tell her that shadow has to go, we have to make it gone. And she just said, but I love the shadow. It's like it's too. But we went back and forth. And finally, she agreed that it looked much better that way. But it was because it's it in working with you. And, you know, we've worked together on things. It's like you start getting a feeling of what's going on. And It, you know, it's a real, it's a very creative process. I enjoy doing it. So do I. It's a lot of

00:23:28 SPEAKER_02
lot of fun. I like, I don't think there's anything cooler for me right now than just like starting a new project and like just really just diving into it and coming up with like concepts. And it's just, it's the best part of my job. How long does a project like typically take? I

00:23:45 SPEAKER_00
does a project like typically take? I mean, somebody contacts you or you know, one of the publishing houses that you work with contacts you and, you know, from that moment to when you're like, here's the final

00:23:59 SPEAKER_02
version. It's all different. I have, I have timeline. I had, I have like almost like a year timeline at one point with a certain project, six months, three months, every, everything is different. But I think that the quick, the fastest cover I've ever done was I had an author contact me and they're like, I want to get something out. In like a month. Can you do it? I'm like, yeah, sure. I'm up for the challenge. Absolutely. You know, so we bust something out in like two weeks. You know, I have an approved cover in like two weeks. It can happen. It's rare, but I'd say average. And you would know, speak more to this as well, Adanna and Kathleen. You like to give your clients how much lead marketing time before they release a book? Like what, three, four months ahead of time? Something like that? Because you guys do advanced reader copies and stuff. So sometimes I need to get a cover done for advanced reader copies.

00:25:02 SPEAKER_02
Between start and finish, it's usually like anywhere between, you know, three to six months sometimes. Yeah, that's

00:25:11 SPEAKER_00
crazy. I know. I feel like my I

00:25:13 SPEAKER_02
my I mean, I have like the

00:25:14 SPEAKER_00
have like the same lead usually with website clients, right? Like we have to get their website up for advanced reader copies. You say that's right, Kathleen. Yeah. Yeah, I would say that. And so like they will come to

00:25:27 SPEAKER_03
I would

00:25:30 SPEAKER_00
come to me. And I have like a four to six week timeline to get all of their everything together and get their website up. And that's, yeah, that's tight. It is tight. Sometimes I'm like this. Why did I say I could do this in six weeks?

00:25:47 SPEAKER_01
I have a question about fonts because I really love fonts. And I worked, I used to produce the Sebald shows that were the whole desktop publishing revolution. And so I've got to watch that whole You know, all of the everything go digital with what we were doing is the late 80s, early 90s. And I found the things with font so fascinating. Are there different like serif or sans serif or different boldness or thickness that are for genres that sell better or look better or are more popular? Well, I think you can take a look at a font and you're able to recognize the vibe that it gives

00:26:26 SPEAKER_02
at a font and you're able to recognize the vibe that it gives off and I feel like fonts too, Kathleen, they're really fun. We're in a time now where there are some font developers out there making some really cool stuff. I was just researching some modern art deco fonts for a project, for a book that takes place in the 1930s. But yeah.

00:26:54 SPEAKER_02
yeah. Again, it depends on the project. I'll just bring up this cover that I'm working on right now. It's like a steampunk fiction that takes place in the 1930s. So obviously, I wanted something modern looking, but that had that 1930s Art Deco vibe to it. If I'm working on something like a fantasy cover, yeah, I'm obviously going to lean to fonts that have a lot of flourishes. that have that fantasy vibe. It's a cool thing about fonts is you can just look at them and you just get a sense of the vibe that they're giving off. But something for non-fiction really, again, depends on the topic. If it's a business topic, I might start off with something that has a conservative business vibe to it. That might usually be like a bold sans-serif or a sophisticated business serif font. really just depends on the cover that you're talking about on the project. I have a starting point in mind with fonts, but I'm not always right with what I start off with. Fifty percent of the time, I may have a font in mind and it just doesn't work out and we lean it in a different direction than what I originally thought.

00:28:20 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, to me, it's always been fascinating because to me, a lot of it is the title of the book that pops at me when I'm walking through a store. The ones I love are on the discount tables. They're not propped up and looking pretty. They're all just laying flat and one will pop out at you. You know, and I've always been fascinated by what my hand goes and grabs. It's like, oh, well, this looks really interesting. And most of what I

00:28:49 SPEAKER_03
And most

00:28:49 SPEAKER_01
And most of what I read is nonfiction, except for Escaping on Weekends. But I read a lot of nonfiction. And it really is how it looks and the colors. Colors are really important. And it gives you a feel that they know what they're talking about.

00:29:08 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly. An authority. I just wanted to touch

00:29:12 SPEAKER_00
wanted to touch back. So according to Amazon, 57% of book buyers on Amazon shop without a specific title in mind. That is huge. Shoppers. That's more than I thought. Yeah. That's why I wanted to come back because it's really, that's a lot.

00:29:34 SPEAKER_02
I usually, my personal experience is I only, I go to Amazon when I know what I want. Like someone will tell me about a book and I'll see it somewhere and I just go and

00:29:47 SPEAKER_00
I look for it. Great. So, I mean, that's a large amount of Amazon shoppers that are looking at your

00:29:54 SPEAKER_02
cover. Yeah, cool. Like a

00:29:56 SPEAKER_01
book. Yeah. And the algorithms that get that book brought up when they do the search. Sure.

00:30:03 SPEAKER_02
And again, there's a lot more that goes with it, as we've already discussed, as it has to be. Number one, it has to be good. You know, it has to. And so if it's good, it's going to get good reviews. You're going to be Amazon. The more reviews it gets, the more likes it gets. Amazon is going to push it. So all that stuff has to kind of taken to considers take took into consideration as well. Yeah. I just I didn't want to like

00:30:26 SPEAKER_00
want to like derail the conversation. I just thought that it was an important It was an important number, especially, you know, with like, like your webinar coming up. So like, you know, people really understand that between bookstores and Amazon, it's a significant amount of people who don't know what they're going to read next. Right. Yeah. That's a great number. I will be sure to mention it

00:30:50 SPEAKER_02
I will be sure to mention it at, you know, during the webinar, which maybe we should probably bring up right, Kathleen.

00:30:58 SPEAKER_01
Oh, yes, we need to talk about that because that is going to be happening in the 1st week of December. I believe isn't it? The 5th December 5th

00:31:05 SPEAKER_00
I believe

00:31:06 SPEAKER_01
it? The 5th December 5th and. I, what we're going to be doing here, Eric has graciously said he's going to everyone who signs up can submit a book cover. and Eric's going to select a few of them to review and talk about so that you can see them on the webinar and you get an idea visually what he is talking about and saying and, you know, do a mini critique of them for people. And I think that's exciting, but he's going to go over a lot more than what we just covered here. But I thought it was a really it's an important part of what your whole package of the book is.

00:31:47 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that part of it. So as soon as you got those covers, shoot them on over so I can spend some time preparing my notes and

00:31:56 SPEAKER_01
and everything like that. Yeah. We'll be starting to promote after next week because we're still

00:32:02 SPEAKER_00
promoting something that's next week. Yeah. And I think, you know, I mean, this is really one of those, you know, the early birds get the worm kind of thing with the cover critique, I think. So, you know, the sooner you sign up and, and, and get your, cover your

00:32:18 SPEAKER_01
your cover. Yeah, I couldn't find that word

00:32:21 SPEAKER_00
find that word in my brain submit. And for your listeners, so it's

00:32:26 SPEAKER_02
when you provide the cover, if you sign up for the webinar, you provide the cover also provide as much as genre info synopsis if you're able to, so I can really I can really do the best job critiquing the cover. It's going to be very helpful if I know who the audience is, what the genre is, and what the synopsis of the book is as well. Okay, we'll have that all on the registration

00:32:51 SPEAKER_01
have that all on the registration form. So, I mean, we talked

00:32:55 SPEAKER_00
we talked about a lot today. What else besides the critiques are you going to go over in the webinar?

00:33:02 SPEAKER_02
Well, the title is just what to expect when you work with a cover designer like myself. Let me go over preparing that brief information. If individuals come to a designer like myself on their own and they're not going through a publisher, just how I work with them, the steps that I lead them through and the process, and how we end up coming up with the perfect cover for their book.

00:33:29 SPEAKER_01
Well, that's what everybody needs is the perfect cover. And I learned. Yes. Yeah, very much. But I highly recommend

00:33:33 SPEAKER_02
learned. Yes.

00:33:34 SPEAKER_00
very

00:33:36 SPEAKER_01
Eric's work. He's come up with some beautiful ones. I don't know how many books we've worked on together with the same client. But, you know, and like you said, some took a while and some were really, you know, came together fairly quickly. So, yeah. Well, and Eric's won awards for his

00:33:52 SPEAKER_00
yeah. Well, and Eric's won awards for his covers, correct?

00:33:58 SPEAKER_02
Not so much for my covers. I won an Emmy Award for a packaging design that I did. I also won an Art Directors Guild Award while I was in

00:34:09 SPEAKER_01
college. You know what? There's a couple of contests. If it's a client, I'd like to suggest we submit your cover, because some of them I think would definitely win.

00:34:23 SPEAKER_02
need to do make a correction. I had one of my authors submit a cover that I did for him, and he did win. It was like a cover of the week kind of thing, competition. I look around for cover competitions, and I was so busy that I can't even think about doing it. And there's so many competitions out

00:34:42 SPEAKER_00
out there. I mean, I do the same, like for web design and, you know, like when I'm doing websites and I have one that I'm like, man, I really love this one. I get bogged down and like there's so many that I never submit. Let's wrap, you

00:35:00 SPEAKER_01
know, we wrap this up. I think we've covered a lot and yet there's even more that people can learn in listening to the webinar coming up December 5th. And you can register at WPNwebinars.com. Everything will, is it up there yet or not? It is, it's

00:35:20 SPEAKER_03
up. Yeah, you can register now.

00:35:20 SPEAKER_01
you can register

00:35:23 SPEAKER_00
Excellent. Yeah, it's up. It's ready for everybody to register. And also, Eric, where can people connect with you? I mean, you know, do you have a website?

00:35:37 SPEAKER_02
Do you have social media? Yeah, I, uh, my site is labazdesign.com. L A B A C Z design.com. And I'm also on Instagram, same name and, and Facebook as well.

00:35:52 SPEAKER_00
Okay, and I'll have all of that in our show notes so people can easily find Eric and his work, which I love. I mean that, I think the first cover that we worked with Eric on was Off My Knees. Is that right?

00:36:08 SPEAKER_01
Well, it may have been Cost of Deceit. Don't know which came first, but

00:36:14 SPEAKER_02
first, but it was one of them. Yeah, I think Off

00:36:18 SPEAKER_00
My Knees came first. Me too, because I remember needing Eric to get pieces for her website. And it was so perfect because what he had created for her cover translated so wonderfully into her website. And it's like, I mean, the cover is so bright. And the website's dark, but I, it was, it's like, you know, the reverse, like we just, I took his parts and we inverted the colors and like, but I, I was in that moment. I was like, man, this cover is so

00:36:52 SPEAKER_02
awesome. Can I, do we have time for me to touch upon something here with that part? So to your point, Dana, I've, I work with other web developers as well. And when I do work with clients, I'm able to give. authors. So if an author does work with me, I'm able to give that book, give 3D mockups for their publicity and for their marketing and for their website, but then also kind of dissect, cover and give colors and fonts and anything that your website developer may need to develop the site around the book. And then even further, I've designed, I offer like author branding packages and such where I'm able to design business cards and logos and bookmarks and postcards and anything that's related to, you know, getting your book out there and have it all kind of vibe with the cover or kind of feel like it all fits together in one neat package. So thanks for bringing that up again. Yeah. And that's so

00:37:51 SPEAKER_00
And that's so great. I mean, from one designer to another and one designer who has a very short timeline for their projects, which is being able to like, tap, like just email Eric or, you know, other cover designers and say, I need this. Like, you know, can you give me your colors? Can you give me your fonts? Can, you know, do you have images that like I can, you know, use for the background or whatever? Like it makes my process go quicker. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's a wonderful thing to be able to, to take that aesthetic and pull it through, you know, the entire marketing package.

00:38:31 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And it's great too, that you do like bookmarks and things like that. So if they have book signings or if they're going places or they're at a book fair or something, they have all the right

00:38:42 SPEAKER_02
tools, complete branding. Yeah, absolutely. A bookmark makes a great business

00:38:47 SPEAKER_01
card. Indeed. I think they're better than a business card. Yeah. Well, because people stick them in their

00:38:53 SPEAKER_02
in their books. Yeah. They're actually going to use them instead of in a

00:38:57 SPEAKER_00
of in a drawer. Yeah. Well, This is wonderful. I'm looking forward to Eric's webinar. And, you know, I think I think that's

00:39:08 SPEAKER_00
that's it for this episode. Cool.

00:39:12 SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you. And we really appreciate it, Eric. And we'll be seeing you on December 5th for the webinar. And remember to go to wpnwebinars.com if you want to sign up. And all of Eric's contacts, if you didn't get it, will be with us on talkingbookpublishing.today. So thank you, Eric. And we'll be back with another episode in two weeks. You're welcome, Kathleen. Thank

00:39:38 SPEAKER_02
Thank you. And thank you, Adanna. Thanks so much.

00:39:42 SPEAKER_01
Thank you. Bye. Bye.