There's nothing stopping you giving that a go here. Look at threads on here that just go "plz draw my character" and get it. And people are desperate for reviews around here. If you made a thread saying "I will review your comic/novel if you make me a cover/draw my character" well the worst that'll happen is no one will do it and really what will you have lost? Nothing. You'll be no worse off than you are now.
I haven't seen people doing it here, so I assume it is not done. Also, I don't even know how to start critiquing comics. Not being an artist or having had read many.
If you do a bit of searching there's been a good handful of "I'll draw your OC type threads" (although they've probably gotten buried by promo threads) but there's really no harm in trying to see who bites for a "reviews for covers" type of exchange thread all you've gotta do is try
Hence why a lot of people's advice when it comes to creative pursuits like comics and novels is to create for yourself first and foremost. Because making something commercially viable is a monumental task, and a gamble. Even if something looks like it can work on paper, life is unpredictable and it can turn out to be a flop.
Like all of my work comes out of my love and passion for each story. Sure, any money I can get from it is nice, but even if I never saw a cent, I love my characters! I don't mind dropping like $50 to get an awesome drawing of them. (my ipad's lockscreen and background for example are images that I commissioned from an artist 2 separate times. I just love their style and how they depicted my characters.)
It’s a good cover! Honestly for me I less a cover is either REALLY GOOD OR REALLY BAD it doesn’t matter to me.
Ahhh true, and if you don’t like how the characters look on the cover it can mess with your enjoyment, never thought of that!
Well if you are putting abs on the cover and saying you're still not getting those reads, maybe common wisdom is wrong and abs on a cover is not what you need. Is there abs on a god forsaken 50 shades of grey cover? No it's not.
No one is saying it's not something that attracts readers though, just saying there are other ways too.
I kindda just don't feel that way, I suppose? I like the lovely drawings, but I don't really need my characters drawn? I imagine them as my favorite figure-skaters for the most part or not at all and it doesn't bother me that they have no specific appearances. I am all about the text, the inner workings and the adventure. But, obviously, I want to be read, so covers is a must.
Yeah, the covers are my nightmares.
Guest artist stuff would be really cool as a promo or limited time idea! Even tho it’s not your work, it’s nice a kind of cool switch up of ideas ^^
I would think it would count as content but I supposed it depends on how you swing it, stuff like this has lots of loopholes but I would hope they would bundle everything the story involves cover title and insides, would be classified as their content.
It is nice to see. Not that I want to encourage people going after people because they used an image that wasn’t theirs. It’s really hard as a writer, and although I am in no ways encouraging people to steal art, I know what it’s like to be i that headspace where are very popular stolen content that’s loved and trying to play by the rules when others aren’t. It’s why the very few times I’ve caught people using my art I ask them nicely to take it down.
Something I didn't notice (mainly since I'm guilty of not looking before) but the novels section on Tapas show the covers and the description at the side so even if a cover isn't what immediately grabs a reader there's still the opportunity to have an interesting blurb, no?
Like with all this I'm near tempted to just offer basic covers (photo editing) in exchange for like ink or shoutouts or some ko-fi.
Thinking even more I wonder if people consider bookstores and libraries where all a person has to go on is the appearance of a books spine if they're quickly browsing. The covers is only the addition to that and then what's got the main juice or fuel or whatever would be the back cover which gives the blurb
Just same with me. I would love to read the summary to decide should I read the novel ather than looking at its cover
I think I get this because I’m my mind there are way more users on Wattpad, so if half of Wattpad migrated to tapas, suddenly the original tapas group would be almost a fraction on the site. Not to say its likely to happen, possibly not? But with tapas being as popular as they are (and honestly I like it WAY better than Wattpad in the way it present itself and supports its creators) I could definitely see more people switching given enough time.
In a library, I would still pull the book off the shelf when i am picking, plus they display Staff picks always with the covers facing the readers. There is really no denying that a cover draws eyes.
Personally, a photo-realistic cover puts me off the book, but my taste is weird. I like colors and drawn stuff. That's why I lean toward doing a cover in Canva. Lol, the very first cover i did for my Wattpad book got 3/10 in a cover rating thread.
Cover art on Wattpad that Never has a credit and is clearly just a cropped image of someone else’s work used to drive me crazy. But For example a REALLY POPULAR well written work that people may or may Have not heard of called “White Stag” originally used an image they did not make. Then the book got really popular and was even published by Wattpad. the original creator of the image didn’t want their drawing used as the cover and told them to cease and desist but by that time the cover had already done a lot of work In making people interested in the story. This is by no means a call out, but if you can see big published authors in the online writing community stealing art without any consequences, it’s telling of how much people don’t care what right artists actually have to their work once they’ve made it available online.
And honestly with this I'm the same but I also won't be completely put off by photos or photo realism. Even when browsing comics what's going to hook me the most is the blurb which is why for a time people were sharing and exchanging critiques to improve theirs so that it better represented the story in a catchy but succinct manner. If I had to put it into percents the cover is only about 10% of the rest of the work be it comics or novels (like an elevator pitch)
There is no universal taste in the loglines either. I groan when I see questions as a part of the summary, particularly the rhetoric ones (what will she chose? Love or career? However would we know?) and don't like quotes. But tons of popular books use them and attract a huge following.
I use a quote instead of logline on Tapas (unlike Wattpad) because people responded enthusiastically to it.
Ideally, everything has to be top-notch. But, as a writer, I have infinite control over my logline, can change it as I see fit, but I have pretty much no control over the cover, unless I use Canva. In the end of the day, a writer is always at a disadvantage where the cover is concerned.
