Video summary
Jackie, the author of the upcoming science fiction novel *Powerless*, shares an exciting cover reveal for her book, which centers on the only girl in a family of superheroes who lacks powers. After being kicked out of her home with an ultimatum to acquire abilities, she must navigate a gritty new world while deciding how far she will go to get them. As a writer rather than a visual artist, Jackie faced the challenge of collaborating with a designer without having a specific image in mind. To overcome this, she created a comprehensive 64-page briefing document that outlined her requirements, including deliverables for various formats like ebooks and print editions, as well as assets needed for social media marketing. This detailed guide also provided context about the book's setting in Sudovia, a fictional version of Estonia, and included examples of other covers she admired to help the designer understand her aesthetic preferences.
The briefing document served as a crucial tool for aligning expectations, particularly since Jackie did not have concrete visual ideas initially. She included sections on technical specifications such as trim sizes, bleed areas, and margin requirements for different publishers like Amazon KDP and IngramSpark, ensuring that the final files would be perfectly aligned despite variations in paper thickness. Additionally, she provided reference images and explanations for why certain styles appealed to her, noting distinctions between serif fonts suitable for fantasy and sans-serif fonts preferred for science fiction. This level of detail was so thorough that an initial designer rejected the project because he felt it wasn't a good fit, but this ultimately led Jackie to work with a former colleague who appreciated the depth of information. Their collaboration involved further refining the brief with additional details about significant locations, character descriptions, and conceptual ideas for the cover art, such as representing the duality between Hannah's sterile lab life and her violent reality on the streets.
The final cover design successfully captures the complex themes of the story through a series of symbolic elements. The central image features two hands holding a beaker in one hand and a gun in the other, symbolizing the contrast between Hannah's scientific aspirations and the dangerous world she now inhabits. Subtle details within the artwork tell the story further; for instance, fire on top of the beaker references her sister's powers and an early lab accident, while drops of blood around the rim hint at the book's violence and the protagonist's tendency toward self-harm. The text on the beaker is written in Cyrillic script to nod to the Russian influence in the setting, and the background silhouette shows Hannah's head with a sterile laboratory inside and a medieval city outside, visually representing her internal conflict. Perhaps the most significant element is the DNA strand that acts as handcuffs, illustrating how the very thing that fascinates Hannah and defines her future also imprisons her as an outcast within her own family.
Jackie expresses immense gratitude toward her designer for his incredible work in bringing these intricate concepts to life, noting that he even suggested using DNA as a symbol of imprisonment, which became the core concept for the cover. The final design avoids looking like playful jewelry by giving the DNA strands sharp spikes, emphasizing the debilitating nature of her restraint rather than bondage. Through this process, Jackie demonstrates how a writer can effectively guide a visual artist by providing extensive context, technical data, and conceptual direction even when lacking specific artistic ideas. She invites readers to explore the book further by pre-ordering it on Amazon or visiting her website for a sneak peek of the first three chapters, hoping that fans will appreciate the depth and symbolism embedded in the cover art as much as she does.
Read the full video transcript
hello and welcome back to my channel my
name is Jackie my first book powerless
is coming out this year and in this
video as you know from the title I'm
going to be revealing the cover
so powerless is a why a Sci-Fi about the
only girl in a family of superheroes who
doesn't have powers and when she is
kicked out of home with the ultimatum to
get powers she needs to decide how far
she'll go to get them if you are curious
to learn more about the book it is up on
Amazon for pre-order now it should be up
on other retailers in the next few weeks
and you can also get a sneak peek of the
first three chapters on my website so
the link to that will be in the
description so in this video as I
mentioned I'm going to be doing a cover
reveal however I thought it might also
be interesting to talk about the way I
worked with my designer given that I am
not a visual person and I had no idea
what I wanted to have on my cover
and depending on the designer you work
with that may or may not be a problem
like one of the designers I reached out
to
actually had an inquiry form on her
website and one of the fields was
something like please describe what
you'll see on the cover and she gave an
example of a woman riding a unicorn
through a forest like looking over over
her shoulder because she's being pursued
and I had no ideas like that and I
imagine that's the case for a lot of
authors because we are writers rather
than visual artists so how did I
approach things well I didn't have a
specific image I wanted on the cover but
I had put a lot of thought into it I
knew what was appropriate for the genre
I had examples of other covers I liked I
knew the text that needed to be there I
knew the dimensions of the book so I
basically created a briefing document
with all of the information I did have
this document is now 64 Pages I'll need
to double check to see how much of that
is actually brief because my designer
and I ended up using it as a working
document so he added all of the concepts
to the end but I'm guessing the original
brief would have been somewhere between
20 and 30 pages so there was a lot of
information in there this information
included first the required outputs so
this is the different deliverables I
wanted the designer to give me so that
included the artwork for the cover so
whatever the illustration was I was
hoping to get that separate to the cover
itself I obviously needed the book cover
so in my case I'm going to be publishing
powerless as an ebook a paperback and a
hardcover so I would need a JPEG for the
ebook cover and then for both the
paperback and hardback I'd need a print
ready PDF that included the front cover
back cover and spine I also liked the
idea of working with the same designer
on my marketing content so one of the
things I included in the brief was all
of the social media and marketing assets
I required so in the required delivery
holes I had Facebook cover LinkedIn
cover Twitter cover advertising so
images for Instagram and BookBub and I
also had a book trailer which probably
not going to do just because there are
so many other things to do but it was
one of the nice to haves and I included
examples of other book trailers in there
the brief started with this list of all
of the things I wanted the designer to
deliver to me and at the end I had a
comment saying for all of the assets I
wanted the files to be provided as a
Photoshop or InDesign file so there were
editable layers so what that means is
when it came to things like advertising
I could always change out the text to
see which artwork might get better
results after the deliverables the next
section of my brief was about the book
so this is all background that um gives
the designer context they need to create
a good cover now ideally the designer
would read the book but depending on the
designer they may or may not my designer
ended up reading the first eight
chapters to get a sense of the book so
what I included in this section was the
genre a little bit about the setting a
bit about the main character and what
she looked like in case she appeared on
the cover and then the book description
which is the text I'm currently using
for the blurb if I don't come up with
anything better and the target audience
so what we have so far is required
deliverables about the book and then the
next section is specifications so these
are all the Nitty Gritty details so it
included the text that goes on the cover
so for me that was title author had the
publisher name and logo had the back
cover copy and then the specifications
for each of the three formats I'm
publishing in so I'm publishing through
Amazon KDP as well as ingramspark and
each of them has the required
specifications on their website so for
the ebook it needed to be a high-res
JPEG there were certain dimensions
needed to hit for the paveback I needed
to provide the trim size of the cover
how thick the spine was what the
required margins were so margin is the
space between the edge of the design and
any key elements so a key element is
most likely going to be text and also
the bleed so this is the amount you want
the design to extend beyond the edge of
the design so it can be trimmed so if
you imagine you've got this bit of paper
with your design and then it gets
Guillotine to size if the design you
provide is the exact size that it's
getting cut there's a chance it might
not get cut exactly at the right level
so you could end up with little bits of
white around the edges so if you have
the bleed around the edges once it's
printed and once it's trimmed the color
will go all the way to the edges I also
included links to my barcodes here as
well as links to templates so both
ingramspark and Amazon will create
templates for your print ready files and
if you do distribute through multiple
platforms like I'm doing it's really
important to check the specifications of
each because in my case my spines are
two different widths even though the
book has the same number of pages
clearly Amazon uses different paper to
ingramspark so Amazon's spine is
slightly thicker than the Ingram spark
one so if I had the same cover file for
each it wouldn't have been properly
aligned so after the cover
specifications the next section was
reference images so these are a whole
lot of images of covers of books with
the same audience as mine why a girls as
well as in the same or similar genres
mostly science fiction some fantasy
while it's possible to just provide the
images in no context I really wanted
whichever designer I worked with to
understand why I liked certain things as
well as any thoughts I had on how
different styles could be applied to the
cover of powerless so under each
reference or each group of references in
the case where I had a whole series I
had a paragraph or two explaining why I
liked it and how I thought it would
apply so one example is I had the Legend
born series as an example of reference
covers and I wrote that the reason I
liked it was because I really liked the
character design and if we had Hannah on
the front cover I'd like her to be drawn
in a similar way however I noted that
the font used on the cover of these
books wasn't really appropriate for
powerless because it used serif fonts
serifs to me feel like they're far more
appropriate in fantasy whereas sci-fi
tends to use Sans serif fonts so this is
something I wanted the designer to be
aware of after that I then did the same
thing for social media so for each of
the social media assets I wanted I
included the specifications and then I
included some reference images and in
these cases I went to the social media
profiles and websites of different
authors that I like and I just took
screenshots of some of the different
images and Banners that I thought had
been done well and then the final
section was for advertising where I did
the same thing so I want to advertise on
both BookBub and Instagram which will
require designs so I had the
measurements for both of these as well
as some examples of BookBub ads I
thought had been done well so how did
this massive document work out for me
well what's interesting is the first
designer I sent this information to said
that this showed him he wasn't a fit for
the project which is actually a really
good result you see almost all of the
covers I shared had Illustrated artwork
and I originally expected powerless
would be an Illustrated cover and what
this designer said was he's not an
illustrator basically if I had someone
else do the artwork then he could create
the cover layout using it but he
wouldn't be a fit for this project so
that was a really good result because if
I hadn't done this document and had
potentially started working with him I
probably would have ended up very
disappointed when it came to the
designer who did end up doing the cover
he was actually a former colleague of
mine from back when I was living in
Switzerland and the first thing he said
when he saw it was oh I've missed these
detailed briefs so this level of
information might feel like Overkill but
it is appreciated especially if you
can't give concrete Direction when it
comes to the specific visuals you want
on your cover which was the case with me
so the way he and I worked was I sent
through the briefing document he said
yes I'm happy to work on this with you I
think I can achieve what you want we had
a kickoff call and at that call he
basically asked about different things
that were missing so he wanted some more
information on the setting so I'd
already included a little bit about the
setting the book is set in sudovia which
is fake Estonia whereas living and what
I added was some locations that are
significant in the book where key scenes
happen and I added reference photos for
those so one example is the main
character spends some time in the
country estate of Russian mafia family
so I went Googling like Russian oligarch
mansions and included a whole lot of
photos of these places with white marble
and gold leaf so very fancy similarly
another part of the book takes place in
an underground Vault it's a converted
Cold War bunker that is used for the
storage of precious artwork before
auction so I had a bunch of reference
photos of the bunker that had inspired
this he also wanted to know more about
the characters so I added about a page
about her and her personality and then
reference photos for what she might look
like now obviously she's an imaginary
person there's no real world parallel
for her but I was able to do photos to
show things like coloring face shape
hairstyle and clothing and then the
final thing here was actually ideas for
what could be on the cover and like I
said earlier I didn't have any ideas but
he sort of pushed and said look just see
what you can come up with because it's
really helpful and this was actually how
we worked together in the past where
every time I briefed him for some design
work for a marketing campaign I'd
include a couple of different ideas to
get started and we often didn't even go
with those ideas but it was a starting
point for his own brainstorming so this
time
I thought about okay what could work for
a cover and I had this idea of The
Duality between Hannah's two different
worlds because at the beginning she
starts in her father's lab she's very
isolated very naive and then she gets
thrown out into the real world where she
Tangles with the Russian mafia and is
suddenly in this sort of gritty violent
world so the first idea I had was like
Hannah looking straight at the camera or
the reader wearing her lab coat and in
one hand she had like a test tube or a
beaker and in the other hand she had a
gun because I thought that would help
symbolize the Two Worlds
the next idea was similar like the same
split between the two worlds but it was
about people so I thought like close-up
of Hannah's face or eyes and behind her
we'd have two other characters one is
Maria who is her older sister who's a
superhero with fire powers and who sort
of symbolizes the world she left behind
and then there's Lisa who is the
granddaughter of the boss of the Russian
mafia who sort of symbolizes the new
world that Hannah's found herself in and
then the third idea was more symbolic so
I thought we could lean into the fake
science of the book and we could either
have like a stylized DNA illustration or
an image of what it looks like when
you're looking at bacteria through a
microscope so those were the ideas I
added to the brief we caught up a week
later I had added to the brief he'd read
through the first eight chapters of the
book and he had all of these ideas it
was great and one of the ideas he had
that I really loved was the idea of
using DNA as a symbol of like Hannah's
imprisonment or being trapped one of the
ideas he said was using DNA like
handcuffs another one was using it as a
cage or a prison cell so as soon as he
said that I'm like yes let's run with
this about a week after that he sent
through three concepts one of them was
just the concept there was no contest
and we ran with that direction so now
let's reveal the cover
foreign
[Applause]
so much I've never seen anything like it
I think my designer did an incredible
job and I thought I'd just break down
some of the little bits and pieces that
are significant but you won't know
they're significant if you haven't read
the book so first we have the two hands
holding a beaker in one and a gun in the
other and this is to symbolize The
Duality of the main character's life
because at the beginning she starts in
her father's lab which is you know very
sterile she's very locked up it's almost
like a Cinderella element because she's
treated so badly by most of her family
and then when she's kicked out of home
she finds herself on the streets of
sudovia and ends up tangling with the
Russian mafia and finds herself in this
world which is much more gritty and
violent than what she's used to but if
you look closely this is where you get
some of the really cool details so the
beaker on the left hand side this could
have just been like a beaker or test
tube that had some sort of chemical
mixture in it but you can see there's
fire on the top of it and that relates
to Hannah's older sister Maria who's a
superhero and who has fire powers but it
also links to a lab accident that
happens in the very first chapter so
really cool little detail there and then
around the rim of the beaker there's
actually drops of blood and this links
to the violence that there is in the
book because it can be violent at times
but it also links to Hannah's tendency
to self-harm and then if you look at the
text on the beaker it's actually in
Cyrillic not the Latin alphabet so a
nice little nod to the fact that this is
Northeastern Europe it is said in a
country that borders Russia there are
Russians in the books so great little
detail if we look at the background
behind the hands we can see like the
silhouette of Hannah's head and inside
the head you can see the background of
the lab whereas outside the head you can
see more of the Cities so there are some
shots of caxliner sudovia where the book
is set this is based on Talent Estonia
so you have that beautiful medieval
architecture and then the final bit I
wanted to call out was the Cuffs that
are holding her rests because if you
look closely these actually DNA and I
love this idea so much because first
people in this book who have a gene
mutation get superpowers so there's a
DNA element to it there but also
Hannah's father is the geneticist who
discovered the gene mutation she wants
to be a geneticist when she grows up so
you know DNA is actually really
important to her it's something that
interests her it's her aspiration for
when she grows up but at the same time
it's you know this chain that's keeping
her locked up because she has this
mutation she should have powers and she
doesn't and she is seen as an outcast
within her own family because of it so
there's this thing that really interests
her and that she wants to pursue but
it's also keeping her imprisoned so
that's why we've got it as the cuffs and
also why we've got like the spikes on
the end of the DNA in the first draft of
this kind concept and my designer had it
without the spikes and it felt a little
bit too much like jewelry it felt a
little bit like I know something you
might see on a 50 Shades of Gray type of
cover and I want it to be like spiky to
create that sense of conflict so it's
not like oh playful bondage restraint it
was like no debilitating restraint so
that is the breakdown of the cover of
powerless I hope you love it I love it I
think my designer did an amazing job if
you're interested in learning more about
the book you can get a sneak peek of the
first three chapters on my website
Jacqueline pretty.com and the ebook is
also already available on Amazon other
than that I hope you're having a great
day great night whenever it is wherever
you are and I'll see you next time bye