• US$130

• 25 designs

• 11 designers

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Book Cover Design Brief

We're looking for a book cover for our upcoming title "Chickens and Hens" ("Chickens & Hens" is also acceptable) by Nancy-Gail Burns. This cover will need to be suitable for print and ebook use.


General Design Notes:

This is a work of women's fiction, and evokes themes of family, strong women, and historical events from the 60's. The cover should appeal to women of all ages. In addition, the cover art should look appealing and interesting - as well as relatively easy to read - at a smaller thumbnail size, as you would see when listed on Amazon or another retail site.


Deliverables:

1. Native Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign file WITH LAYERS for use in layout processing. Files should be in CMYK color mode, 300DPI or better. Vector art preferred if possible/available for scaling purposes.

2. Any fonts used in the cover should be either embedded in the final file or will need to be delivered as well for use in layouts.


Size:

- Paperbacks are 5" x 8" PLUS a .125 bleed margin on all sides
- Hardcovers are 6" x 9" PLUS a .125 bleed margin on all sides
- Spine dimensions are currently estimated at .653" x 8" (paperback) and .688" x 9" (hardcover). Final exact dimensions will depend on final interior layout.


Genre: Women's Fiction, Family Life


Blurb/Description:

To journey forward you must sometimes take a step back. Chickens and Hens transports us to a time when the eagle has landed, but contrary to the myth of the sixties, not everyone forged ahead. Many footsteps remained cemented in the dregs of the fifties. Share the lives of three generations of women whose love transcends age. They will make you laugh, make you cry, but most of all they will make you proud to be a woman.


Endorsement:

"Nancy-Gail Burns has a winner of a book in [italics]Chickens and Hens[/italics]. Funny, smart, and thoroughly uplifting while at the same time poignant enough to warrant a Kleenex box nearby... it's a wonderful story of the life of these women."

- Jason Kristopher, author of [italics]The Dying of the Light[/italics]


We're open to multiple interpretations and styles, design choices, and features. We're interested to see what you come up with, so be creative, but please don't feel slighted if we don't feel your design isn't right for the book.

Target Market(s)

Female readers between the ages of 25 and 70.

Industry/Entity Type

Events

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Font styles to use

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Look and feel

Each slider illustrates characteristics of the customer's brand and the style your logo design should communicate.

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Requirements

Must have

• THE COVER MUST INCLUDE:
• 1. Image, font, color, or other choices that evoke the following important themes from the book, from most to least important:
• a. Women's Fiction
• b. Sense of Family
• c. 60s "feel" - be it fashion, architecture, or other (SEE "NICE TO HAVES")
• 2. The description and endorsement on the back cover (please note the use of italics in the endorsement). It would be great if there were enough room for two short endorsements, but this isn't required.
• 3. The title "Chickens and Hens" or "Chickens & Hens" as well as the author byline "Nancy-Gail Burns" and "A Novel" on the front cover.
• 4. Obviously, one or more chickens. THE PRIMARY FOCUS SHOULD BE THE WOMEN, NOT THE CHICKENS.

Nice to have

• Possible ideas:
• 1. Three generations of women (one youngish girl, a mother and the mother's sister, and a grandmother) around a table preparing a meal.
• 2. Background images of an important 60's event against an older woman getting on a train in the foreground (part of the book takes place as the now-older main character is on a train).
• 3. A 1950s/1960s era house as the main focus for the cover (wrapping from front to back), and three generations of women standing and talking in the driveway (to represent Marnie, her mother, and her grandmother). This main photo could be in black & white or sepia to give it the appearance of a memoir of sorts. The women would be in period clothing, too. Also in the shot would be some chickens - heck, the women could even be running after the escaping birds.

Should not have

• THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT CHICKENS. At least, not in the way you're probably thinking. "Chickens" refers to a staple of the family's diet, and the "Hens" refers to the women themselves.
• 1. Too much focus on the extraneous historical events, such as Apollo, the riots, etc. As pivotal as those events were for their time, they're not a large part of this story, and we don't want to draw the reader's focus away from the women who are.
• 2. Technological, thriller, mystery, suspense, or other unrelated themes or motifs.