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The Machine is Robbing the Book Cover Artist

A cartoon robot is holding and pointing to a pencil.
Credit: Pixabay.com



It looks like I’m going to have to outsource for the photographic version to the cover of “Circa Sixty Years Dead”. I tried getting together a digital cover during the week and I just couldn’t do it in the little time that I have. It’s a hell of a lot tougher than one would at first think, but a lot of the problem isn’t that it’s tough. A lot of the problem is that I’m just not a digital artist. I am a freehand artist. Yet I know the majority of the book market today does not call for freehand illustrated book covers which is a damn, sad thing because it is a result of the total reliance on computer technology that is robbing the freehand artist of what he/she does best and puts their heart and soul into.

So while I don’t embrace the digital trend in book cover illustration, I need to sell my books and so I am willing to have a digital cover edition of my book made. I won’t go into the details of this circumstance here because I’ve already done that in several past posts. Here are the titles and links to them:








When I make my book cover illustrations from my own hands, I do so knowing I’m not going to make big sales on the books that I apply them too. So, in a way, I’m sacrificing a bigger bundle of money I would get in order to help keep freehand art alive and serve the needs and desires of the minority readership. But to make sufficient money from the books, I’ll have to give into that capitalistic notion that says the machine makes the product “better”. And so I have to offer, as an option, a digitally produced cover illustration edition of the book.

If given the choice, would you purchase an edition of a book with a hand produced cover illustration over one with a digitally produced one? In doing so, do you believe you would be contributing to preserving freehand art?

Until next time . . .

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