Create Your Debut YA Cover
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Usually I don’t do YA, but…
A few months back I posted the steps to Create Your Debut Fantasy Novel Cover. Now it’s time to do something for the Teens. Above is my debut YA cover. I had to modify the rules for this sort of cover to ensure the appropriate YA clichés were represented:
What will yours look like?
CREATE YOUR DEBUT YA COVER
1 – Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
The name that appears is your author name.
2 – Go to “Random Word Generator” or click http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml
The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.
3 – Go to “FlickrCC” or click http://flickrcc.net
Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.
4 – Use Photoshop, PicMonkey, or similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.
5 – Post it to your site along with this text.
Filed under: Articles
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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Heh. Perfect cap to the coverFAIL 2009 kerfuffle. Here’s mine.
Awesome! Mine’s here.
cool idea, i made one, it’s up on my blog!
Fun fun FUN! here’s my attempt!
I just couldn’t resist…
Keep
Man, these are lookin’ good. I’ll be adding them all to the gallery.
I had fun with it. Thanks for the diversion!
Okay, I had to LOL at this, given that my debut YA, RAMPANT, actually does have:
1) a one-word title
2) a cover with a face on it.
So I did two mock-ups, one for a girl book, and one for a boy book. I am surprised how realistic these look, and I really, really want to read YANK now!
My “girl” book, REMINISCE:
http://bit.ly/e8d6R
My “boy” book, YANK:
http://bit.ly/iEksY
Ha – yeah, these turned out great! Keep Yank in your back packet for future use – I can foresee a banned book in the making.
Here’s mine. Warning: it’s really creepy.
My faux cover is at http://nbplteenbookblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/create-your-own-ya-book-cover/
Mine is really weird:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3jJtonujxLQ/Sm9I9VYn-VI/AAAAAAAAAgc/n7Lnk-3Qbzo/s320/GuzzleBookCover.jpg
Sorry I have no clue how to link.
🙂
A fun break
Scorn
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.
Here’s my book, WHISK
Reading posts like this make surfing such a pleasure
Way awesome! Mine is here
http://emilysreadingroom.blogspot.com/2009/07/wonder-my-debut-ya-novel-cover.html
Loved this. Mine wasn’t as cool as yours. But, still so much fun. See it here
That was fun! Here’s mine: http://hollysredbike.blogspot.com/2009/07/elude-my-fake-ya-novel.html
Haha, too fun! Mine is here: http://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/create-your-debut-ya-cover/
Sarah
Your YANK cover is amazing. I would definitely pick it up in the store. Possibly to mock it, but still — into the reader’s hands is half the battle, right?
This is a perfect idea. I can’t resist these. Here’s mine:
http://writingya.blogspot.com/2009/07/create-your-debut-ya-cover.html
Fun! Thanks for the idea.
http://maplesandfiddleheads.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/my-debut-ya-title/
Fun stuff!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spinningjennie/3767347255/
Fun stuff. I’m not convinced that mine will sell, though…
http://seagullboy.blogspot.com/2009/07/showcase.html
What a fun meme! Thanks! The gallery looks amazing. Most of them look as good or better than a lot of what’s on the shelf! Here’s mine.
Mine is another “Pluck,” although I used a different picture and completely different style. Cool idea!
I had fun making mine, although I didn’t realize at first you were supposed to put a person on the cover.
http://notemilybookblog.tumblr.com/post/151637237/fake-cover-time
Intriguing challenge. I really like the one I ended up with, although I have to say it looks too creepy for me to read.
This girl has obviously been through something incredibly traumatic. And for reasons I cannot articulate, I think there’s definitely something supernatural going on here.
This challenge was awesome. It was fun being artsy and just having fun. I don’t have a site or blog, but this is my cover.
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z294/ill_be_waiting_18/?action=view¤t=image.jpg
Argh, I messed up by reading the instructions too quickly and not realizing the photo had to contain a person so the result isn’t as YAish as it could’ve been. Still fun though.
http://theportableartist.hypermart.net/ck/archive403.htm
Oh, this was great. Presenting: Pitch.
Oh, this was way too fun 🙂 Thanks Travis!
Mine’s up on my blog http://boniashburn.com/blog/
Hey Travis- I added a cover that my son Henry did to my own blog post (he doesn’t have a blog). If you could add it too, that would be cool 🙂
http://boniashburn.com/blog/
Thanks!
It has been added – very nice.
I found this from Alyson’s post on our Youth Services blog : ) So here’s the one that I made: http://twitpic.com/c332g. This was pretty much the most entertaining part of my day.
Amazingly accurate!
http://blogwasstar.blogspot.com/2009/07/thrash.html
Hilarious and wonderful!
We’re a bit late to the party but we’ve put a couple up on our blog.
I did one too, and had so much fun with it! My verb was sober!
http://infiniteshelf.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/sober-by-hellie-p-hart/
Here’s mine, thanks!
http://www.teacherninjas.com/2009/07/betray.html
The gallery is amazing!! 🙂 I love seeing how everyone did their own! I’m going to post it on my book blog where hopefully more people will see it. May I link them back to you or let you know so you can do what you will with them? My friend Sara Dragonfly Book Review did one too. I didn’t know where the comment thing was for your gallery thing so I posted here. Nice work!!!
-Margo
Link away – thanks!
Fun! Here’s mine.
This was so much fun! Thanks for this!
I have two up on my blog (I couldn’t resist).
Thanks for a fun activity! =) Now I want to write a book. Here’s my cover. http://libridilectio.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-debut-ya-cover.html
I made one!!
You can see it here:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BQQ2F2rxi9E/SnMluLb909I/AAAAAAAAAJ8/QmwX6tsR_v8/s1600-h/YA+book+Focus.jpg
This was fun 🙂
My debut YA cover: http://bookatopia.blogspot.com/2009/08/create-your-debut-ya-cover.html
Can I play too?
http://ajbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2009/08/debut-book-covers.html
My ‘random VERB’ was ‘afraid’, though.
??
Oh…the ‘person’ rule. Duh. Read the instructions.
O well. It was fun anyway.
Awesome challenge. I had so much fun that I made 4 more!
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z294/ill_be_waiting_18/?action=view¤t=weep2.jpg
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z294/ill_be_waiting_18/?action=view¤t=mime.jpg
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z294/ill_be_waiting_18/?action=view¤t=end1.jpg
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z294/ill_be_waiting_18/?action=view¤t=burn-1.jpg
I think, although I forgot to keep the names the same, End and Burn could be part of a series. The feel of the covers kinda makes me feel that one’s a sequel to the other.
http://exitofhumanity.blogspot.com/2009/08/bit-of-departure.html
Great challenge!
Mine is here http://willingtoseeless.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-debut-ya-novel.html
This was so much fun!!
http://ilratb.blogspot.com/2009/08/create-your-debut-ya-novel-cover.html
What fun! One more safe addiction . . .
http://zqueenbees.blogspot.com/2009/08/create-your-own-ya-novel-cover.html
Ha! This is amazing. Aren’t we all a sucker for YA fiction?
Here’s mine… Bluster! (with a rather English pen name too.)
http://divinest-sense.blogspot.com/2009/08/little-fun.html
Fun!
Excellent site, keep up the good work
My cover is at http://tiffanygholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/widget-wednesday-create-your-own-young.html and because I liked the concept so much, I have included it as my Widget Wednesday generator for this week.
I hope it’s not too late to join the party! I just found this and your fantasy book cover and had a great time with them. I really like how you tailored the instructions for this one to generate a very YA cover.
Mine turned out pretty creepy, so check out Order, the latest in the deluge of dark, dystopian, disaster books being published for young adults!
I had so much fun.
http://meghangunz.tumblr.com/post/539926715/http-100scopenotes-com-2009-07-28-create-your-deb
This is great! I’m going to use this in one of my programs with my teens at my library!!!