Tara Maya's Tales

Let's say you have to make a cover on the cheap. You're an indie author, for instance, and you foolishly blew your cover art budget on a bowl of instant ramen noodle. Tsk tsk tsk. Always thinking with your stomach! Your first plan was to hire Stephan Martinière to paint an original scene from your novel. That fell through when you found out it would cost more than your monthly mortgage payment. So now you're back to making your own cover. Anyway, you figure, no biggie. You don't need a scene from your novel anyway. What could be simpler than throwing the title over a moody picture and calling it a day? Lots of covers are no more than text over a vague scenic background or abstract pattern... right? Right! But if you want to go this route, you have to realize two things: 1. You'll be using text as art. 2. That's a lot harder than it sounds. So you can't just slap your title up in Times New Roman or Papyrus and expect that to look good. In a sen...