|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 20, 2024 0:45:02 GMT
I am currently reading an SF book by an award winning writer, and it says the publisher, a major one, did the cover, which is just a sort of metallic horse on a black background. But it mentions Shutterstock for the tail and mane. A cut and paste job!
It's also disturbing that you can get a cover designed for a fiver, and on a site of that name. I asked one of the service providers how, and he said, oh they are just fast cut and paste jobs.
It reminds me of the amazing chap who used to hand paint photo-realistic posters for the film industry. I am sure you will have seen many of them. Eventually they told him they no longer needed his, no doubt not cheap, services, because they could do their own using software. and this was back in the 1970s!
Whatever happened to artists?
|
|
|
|
Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Mar 20, 2024 18:02:33 GMT
What happened to artists? The simple answer would be too many people not wanting to pay for their services.
Forty-odd years ago I used to make blades people would consider art today. I quit making them [for the most part] because it got quite tiresome hearing people say the work is both beautiful and functional, yet they'd only pay $5 for one because they don't and can't take long to make [anywhere from 40 to 60 hours] and any idiot could do the work just as well.
I suspect artists can't work for free and pay their bills with exposure.
|
|
|
|
Post by BlueAndGold on Mar 20, 2024 21:58:35 GMT
Wanna buy a homemade book?  hee hee |
|
|
|
Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Mar 21, 2024 0:25:20 GMT
Wanna buy a homemade book? hee hee I would, but the spouse watches me like a hawk. For that matter the local hawks watch me like, hawks. |
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 21, 2024 1:12:49 GMT
Very few artists, and writers in fact, can give up their 'day job'.
I used to make stuff that friends and whatnot were impressed by, and welcomed them, but would never pay money for.
There's few people can afford to pay for skilfully handmade objects. They prefer to pay a lot less for stuff churned out in a factor, which unfortunately is often just as good. Robots are quite clever.
Although, apparently, Etsy can be useful for selling hand-created stuff.
As to artists. Skill does not seem to be appreciated. My son's girlfriend is a good example. Fine art degree, can draw photo-realistically. "What's the point?" people often comment "you may as well just take a photo." Instead what she does do is A4 sized abstract paintings she sells on Etsy for as little as £15, perhaps around one a month.
|
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 21, 2024 1:15:58 GMT
I watch hawks like a hawk. They try to attack the birds in my aviary. When you paint wire-netting black, they cannot see it, apparently. It can be amusing to watch a falcon bounce off it. But it dunna half scare the birds!
|
|
|
|
Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Mar 21, 2024 18:26:58 GMT
Very few artists, and writers in fact, can give up their 'day job'. I used to make stuff that friends and whatnot were impressed by, and welcomed them, but would never pay money for. There's few people can afford to pay for skilfully handmade objects. They prefer to pay a lot less for stuff churned out in a factor, which unfortunately is often just as good. Robots are quite clever. Although, apparently, Etsy can be useful for selling hand-created stuff. As to artists. Skill does not seem to be appreciated. My son's girlfriend is a good example. Fine art degree, can draw photo-realistically. "What's the point?" people often comment "you may as well just take a photo." Instead what she does do is A4 sized abstract paintings she sells on Etsy for as little as £15, perhaps around one a month. True, skill generally isn't appreciated, neither is the time it takes to do something, until someone has to do it on their own. While factory made goods can have quality, many aren't just as good. |
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 22, 2024 0:22:42 GMT
Very few artists, and writers in fact, can give up their 'day job'. I used to make stuff that friends and whatnot were impressed by, and welcomed them, but would never pay money for. There's few people can afford to pay for skilfully handmade objects. They prefer to pay a lot less for stuff churned out in a factor, which unfortunately is often just as good. Robots are quite clever. Although, apparently, Etsy can be useful for selling hand-created stuff. As to artists. Skill does not seem to be appreciated. My son's girlfriend is a good example. Fine art degree, can draw photo-realistically. "What's the point?" people often comment "you may as well just take a photo." Instead what she does do is A4 sized abstract paintings she sells on Etsy for as little as £15, perhaps around one a month. True, skill generally isn't appreciated, neither is the time it takes to do something, until someone has to do it on their own. While factory made goods can have quality, many aren't just as good. |
|
|
|
Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Mar 22, 2024 0:56:52 GMT
True, skill generally isn't appreciated, neither is the time it takes to do something, until someone has to do it on their own. While factory made goods can have quality, many aren't just as good. If you pay for shoddy and / or mass-produced cheap work because the cost of good quality custom work is too dear, you got what you paid for and have no basis for complaint because it was your choice. |
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 23, 2024 0:08:34 GMT
"If you pay for shoddy and / or mass-produced cheap work because the cost of good quality custom work is too dear, you got what you paid for and have no basis for complaint because it was your choice."
Just because an item is mass-produced does not mean it is shoddy, and not always cheap! and handmade items are not necessarily better just because they are handmade. Take cars for example. The Morgan, hand built and very expensive. Toyota, built by machines and robots and relatively cheap, and often much better.
|
|
|
|
Post by cadbob on Apr 15, 2024 1:48:23 GMT
I look at the covers for books for some large publishers and I just shake my head and how cheap, bland, dull and badly done they look.
|
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Apr 16, 2024 23:43:12 GMT
There's a lot said about how important cover design is, and one chap who used to use Lulu's forum a lot insisted that it was pretty much all that sold a book, and a lot of How To on line follows that principle. Maybe it once was, but not for a while has that been true. But the saying Don't Judge a Book By it's Cover is a very true saying because many covers are, frankly, as said above, rubbish, baring no relation to the contents of the books. I have to assume that accountants have too much say in how much money and time is spent on a cover.
Even looking at the covers of some classics you have to wonder if it was the cover that sold the book because the further you go back, the less is on the cover. I have some old books that are cloth-bound and all that's on them are the titles, and yet they sold in their 10,000s.
|
|
|
|
Post by BlueAndGold on Apr 17, 2024 13:42:09 GMT
Back in the days when there were real book stores, it was the cover that grabbed my eye that grabbed my dollars.
I suppose that still holds true with online book sellers. The thumbnail image means a lot.
But when it boils down to it, the cover is just one aspect of marketing. MARKETING is what sells books. If you don't advertise and actively MARKET a book, you do not sell a book.
There are writers, and there are marketers. Not every writer is a marketer, and not every marketer is a writer. If you can do both, you win. If you can do only one, you need a partner who can do the other.
|
|
|
|
Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Apr 17, 2024 23:59:14 GMT
Exactly. There's so many avenues products can be marketed via nowadays a cover could be blank! Just the ISBN on the back, or at least just the title on the front as in days of yore. But, even though I do design relative covers, with great thought and care, for my books, it's not how I buy books. Often they are recommended word of mouth, bought for me by people who know my taste, or I am already familiar with the writer and know I like their stuff. In reality, when you go to browse in a bookshop, all you see are the spines. Well-known writers sort of stick out! The blurb on the back is perhaps more important than what is on the front, but even so, it's usually a famous name, or at least one you have heard of, on the spine that makes you pull it off the shelf to read the back.
|
|
hee hee
