One of the
less lovely aspects of self-publishing is that the author has to do it all.
There’s no publishing house to provide the backup of cover design, writing the
dust-jacket blurb, formatting the book for printing, etc. You can, of course,
hire people to do some of this, but the results can be unsatisfactory.
I’ve always
taken the lead role in designing the covers of my mystery novels. I flatter
myself that I have an above-average visual sense, and I have worked with
photographers and graphic designers throughout a 40-plus-year professional
career. So I usually come up with a concept for the cover, along with
supporting items to get the project started, before turning it over to my go-to
graphic designer.
One of the
things I like to do in this regard is take a photograph that can serve as a
basic template for the cover design, and it was in the course of doing so that
the story you are about to read unfolded.
The Best Laid Plans
For the
cover image for my fourth novel, I needed an image of a football field. I
wanted the image configured in a certain way, with the field in the foreground,
a yard-line number showing clearly, and the goalposts in the background.
Such a
photo no doubt exists within the stock archives available to graphic designers,
but it could be hard to locate, and subtle distinctions in terms of what I
wanted could result in a number of false starts.
So I
decided to take the picture myself.
One of the
high schools in our area has a football field with southern goalposts backed up
by a row of trees. With no identifiable background, it could pass for anywhere.
Monday night after dinner, Linda and I set out for that field to get the photo
from the exact angle I wanted.
We got to
the high school, parked, and walked up to the athletic field. It was nearly
deserted, the light was perfect, yet the picture I wanted was impossible. With
football season long over, the field had been converted to soccer, and a huge
soccer goal directly under the football goalposts ruined the shot.
Marines to the Rescue
Off to the
side of the field, on the track that circles it, I saw a group of young men in
shorts and T-shirts, with a slightly older man holding a clipboard. Thinking he
might be a coach at the school, I went up and asked if he knew how long the
soccer goals would remain where they were.
It turned
out that the clipboard man was not with the school, but rather was a Marine
Corps recruiter, who was testing several applicants to see how physically fit
they were. He asked me what I wanted, and I explained that I needed to get a
photo of the football goalposts without the soccer goal underneath them.
“Oh, we can
move that for you,” he said. And he ordered his recruits to push the soccer
goal out to the 30-yard-line so I could get on the field and take my picture.
The goal was on rollers, but was big enough and heavy enough that Linda and I
couldn’t have done it. For seven husky Marines-to-be, it was a piece of cake. I
got my cover photo, they pushed the goal back, and we all got about our
business.
So when
Book Four comes out this fall, there will be a line in the acknowledgements
reading, “Thanks to the U.S. Marine Corps, Santa Cruz Recruiting Office, for
visual assistance with the cover image.” This is the story behind that
acknowledgement.
