Cover-a-go-go

The cover of a book is vital to its success especially in the small press. When I comb the shelves at The Book Cellar or Quimby's or especially Border's, the spine draws me in, the cover makes me look inside and the first paragraph of the story brings it home. Maybe it is just me, but I really think this applies to most book consumers.


When selecting who would help create the first cover for Orange Alert Press, I had a few different artists in mind. All of whom had been featured on Orange Alert, and who's work I respected deeply. I had no concept of cost or ability to pay what these individuals would deserve for their work. However, I approached them honestly, respectfully, and the response was very positive. The artists I reached out to included Jennifer Davis, Nick Volkert (the OA banner designer), Tony Philippou, Leanne Biank, Chris Szostek, and Michael Paige Glover.


As you can tell with that group, the selection of Michael was not an easy one, but Ben and I both wanted a cover that was clean, classic, and with a unique style. Michael's work contains all of those elements, and he is from New York which is where Most Likely... takes place.






Within a week, Michael had a background concept, and he began reading the current edition of the book and working on the images of Geoff, Jen, Paul and Rhonda.

Font, positioning, general design, cropped, negative space.... choices and more choices. Michael gave options and all of them quality. The original cover design featured the four characters, but we all thought that the two center images may be a little dark. Michael went back to the drawing board, and just this week presented the perfect cover. Here are a few of the options we had.

The font on this one was a little too much, but I did like aspect of this cover.



Here are the lighter images with the negative space. The front cover is complete, and now we flip the book over!