As the eBooks start to pop up in the shelves of my Smashwords store, I figured now was a good time to take a moment to go over why they look the way they do.

Unlike most of the eBooks out there, my covers aren’t very artistic– and there’s two very good reasons why:

1. I’m not a good enough artist to create something that shrinks well (from 1800×2400 to 71×94!)
2. I don’t have the money yet to pay someone that is.

So instead of picking up a paintbrush, I picked the simplest way to present the information so that you can read it in any scale. Rectangles and text FTW!

Once I had the basic idea roughed out, I created a template in Paint Shop Pro and started playing the ‘what shrinks best’ game.

It’s not fancy, but it’s legible and right now that’s a winner in my book. 😉

The top square will stay the same color all year and the bottom four rectangles alternate between a set of complimentary colors. They yearly collections have a slightly different design and will have a different top color to help set them apart.

I may go back and set the yearly collections to be the same top color as the year they were in. But the plan is to come back later and hire someone to make them something a bit more shiny. *crosses fingers*