Topic: cover concept

[Defendi]

Would you like to see our concept test for the trade dress of our Echoes of Heaven products?

go to:

http://finalredoubt.com/images/Echoes-Cover-Concept.jpg

Let us know what you think.

[markc]

I like it.
Nice balance of artwork to words.
MDC

[munchy]

I'm not sure whether I like to read credits and the cover artists name on the front page. Otherwise it looks great.

[Defendi]

The artists name is there to give him credit for the concept.  In actuallity, it will probably be adventure stats on the left (like levels for the characters) or perhaps a little advertising tease (like the adventure series and the episode in the series) and the author's name on the right.  There is also likely some legal text that will go under the title for each license.  I think they all have that.  I haven't settled on fonts yet either.

[munchy]

Oh, I didn't mean to leave the artist uncredited, I just thought it to be nicer on the first page after the cover as it is done in most books you buy. Artists and people involved in such a project should definitely be mentioned!!!

[kasalin]

I like it.  Its not cartoonish, has an a nice element of darkness/foreboding to it. Based on your previews, it seems to display the tone you have been establishing for the setting.

[Defendi]

Yeah, tha back of the title page will have the normal credits like artists and the like.

[markc]

Maybe you could work a deal with the artist to have a whole page to himself as credit. Since I think you said most copies are going to be PDF files it will not cost that much and it gives him a lot of visability.
MDC

[Defendi]

That's an interesting idea.  We might still be doing Lulu, I have an issue that ICE hasn't answered on that I need to know before I can look into it farther.  At the very least I intend to but they're URL's in, but I think it's a GREAT idea to give them ads in the book.  Full paid ads if there are just two like I excpect, maybe two pages divided out by effort if there are more.  Every sentence I write I like that idea more, Mark.

[markc]

As long as thier are not too many total adds everyone wins. I can only see people who pay for it to be printed getting ticked if thier are more than 2-3 pages (4-6 sides) of adds as they are paying for the product by the page. For the PDF product I do not think people will mind the adds as they will only take up disk space and I have only seen people get red if thier are 10+ pages of adds. I would probably give them double billing such as on the product info page say what systems, mapping software, artist name as well as any other tools you used to design the game and then let them have a 1/2 page add at the end with links to thier web sites.
You might even be able to figure out a deal in which they pay you per product sold or on the website per link clicked. It will probably will not be much but every cent counts.

MDC 

[Defendi]

I think Artists are the only issue.  I use campaign cartographer of course, but the whole product is a CC2 add since you have to download the pirnter/viewer if you want to get fancy scaling and printing you're own maps (of course there will be JPG versions or the like in the pdf, but most people will probably want to download and print our bigger poster map on multiple sheets too).  So that just leaves the artists.  Since we are talking about 64-128 pages for most product bundles, that's 6-13 pages of art, knock off a few for maps and four artists are the most I can see needing for any one release (two if they are willing to put in some time).  Two pages should do fine.  If we have four artists I can do four 1/2 page ads.