Malinda Lo
Blog
Mar 11, 2009
Fantasy book cover meme times three
Everybody’s been through a Facebook meme lately, but here’s one I really enjoyed for sheer procrastinatability (I’m coining that word). Via Fuse #8, I discovered 100 Scope Notes’ Create Your Debut Fantasy Novel Cover.
I took it one step further because even in memes I’m an overachiever and I can’t resist (ack!), but mostly because I thought the results were awesomely bizarre. (To make it a trilogy, in step 3 below I made myself one year older for each book. I’m a pretty speedy pseudonymous writer, apparently.)
Without further ado, I give you my pseudonymous debut fantasy trilogy:
These covers raise all sorts of questions. Just why is the maiden so unholy? Is it because she’s being chased by elephants that have tuba-shaped heads? Is that the dream referred to in book 2? Because it looks just about weird enough. I also think that the golden stone referred to in the title of book 3 is the pit of that apple … which appears to be an insect.
Even more bizarre? Apples with insects have already occurred in the actual Untitled Book 2 I’m writing. The world is truly a strange and enchanted place.
Interested in making your own? Here’s how you do it (and I’d love it if you’d share your results):
CREATE YOUR DEBUT FANTASY BOOK COVER
1 – Go to “Behind the Name”. Hit “Generate a Name!” or click http://www.behindthename.com/random/
The first name you get is your author name.
2 – Go to “Fantasy Novel Title Generator” or click http://nine.frenchboys.net/novel.php
This is the title of your book.
3 – Go to Photobucket and click on “surreal art” or click http://photobucket.com/images/surreal%20art/
Add the two numbers of your age together (ex. 2 + 7 = 9). Go to that page of results. The fourth picture, no matter what it is, is your cover.
4 – Use photoshop, Picnik, or similar to put it all together.
5 – Post it to your site along with this text.
Procrastinatability — blogs have a very high procrastinatability factor, don’t you think? I *should* be studying Sign Language because the first test is tomorrow . . . but hey! Procrastination!
The book cover thing looks fun! Unfortunately, I was only procrastinating for the length of Ellen’s appearance on Jay, but hopefully I’ll remember to come back and make a cover tomorrow. I’ll need something easy to do after stuffing my head full of ASL . . . it takes up a lot of room.
*resisting the urge to click the links*
Oh, I almost forgot to say that your covers look great! Is it bad that I want to pick them up and flip them over so I can read the back of a non-existant book?
Back to studying . . .
Thanks, Heather.
Glad I could aid in your procrastinating, even for only the duration of Ellen’s appearance on Leno. And yes, the covers are bizarrely intriguing!
A trilogy, eh? These are great! I’ll add them to the gallery I have going on my site. Thanks for taking part.
Wow, my book cover is really bad. *Really* bad. I’m too ashamed to post it tonight. I’m going to work on it some more tomorrow.
On a somewhat random note (not so random if you were in my head, following my train of thought . . . but I’m pretty sure you’re not) how’s it going with your MacBook Pro?
I rather like The Golden Stone’s cover…
Possibly in Book 1 the maiden is that swan right beneath the down pointing tuba.