I haven’t done a links post recently, because honestly I haven’t had much to say, but I ran across a cascade of interesting links yesterday all relating to book covers and font choices, and I wanted to preserve them here.

Let’s start with this two-part series by author James A. West on the importance of book covers, Part One and Part Two. He talks about his own process in creating book covers, and gives useful advice for handling cover design in Photoshop. He uses his own covers are examples, and his designs are straightforward but effective, to my mind, and represent his books well.

Scarlett Rugers offers an even more in-depth look at cover design, with a (so-far) 14-chapter series on design. I’m still working my way through the materials, but she starts out by talking about how to find a designer, then goes into details of creating covers and other steps in the self-publishing process. Chapter 8 is especially useful, telling you Five Things That Shouldn’t Be On Your Cover. This series is well worth the time to read thoroughly.

Finally, some notes on fonts. In an earlier lifetime, I was a phototypesetter at a small design shop in Tucson. I’ve loved fonts ever since, and that is an obsession I share with a lot of people. If you’re one of them, you’ll enjoy The Cracked Guide to Fonts, bonfx on 23 Really Bad Font Choices and on 19 fonts most preferred by graphic designers. All the bonfx articles are particularly useful because they describe why one font works better than another, or is inappropriate for enhancing a given design.