I’ve always admired Nanowrimo and the concept of 30-day challenges. I love how Nano brings authors together too as a community and helps write more. So many success stories! This year, I’ve decided to join too… but by giving myself a challenge of making some nanowrimo book covers. Figured, why not! It can work for us designers too. I’ll try to do something that hasn’t been done yet (as far as I’m aware), I’m going for designing 500 Premade book covers in 30 days. Which is insane. But possible I think.
And I’ll keep a public accountability post here with all covers added here daily. It will track progress and probably feature shorts comments on how it goes daily. I honestly expect a meltdown in the middle at days 15-22 and then rush at the end. 😀 But it’s worth it if I can get there as I like to do things that haven’t been done before and I have my eyes on the prize – Microsoft Surface Pro 6 tablet. If these sell well in the first few months I can then upgrade my tech!
To achieve the goal I need to make around 17 covers a day on average. Below you’ll find the designs from each day. You can reserve any cover made too, just leave a comment below or get in touch with me from Contact page.
Day 1 (November 1st)
Premades done today: 17
Total for the challenge: 17
Notes: Excited to start, but also clearly see that this will be hard! Designs will come, but coming up with good titles will be super hard.
Covers:
Day 2
Premades done today: 17
Total for the challenge: 34
Notes: Waking up early and doing these the first thing in the morning is good, feels quite productive to have many done by 10 AM. Kinda winning the day. But it clearly does feel like a ton of work and this will be a big challenge.
Covers:
Day 3
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 44
Notes: Client work took longer than expected and set me back for today but I do like a lot of the premades made so I’m happy, better do less great ones than many average ones. I’ll try to pick up the slack mid-month.
Day 4
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 54
Notes: Swamped but 10 premades a day seem realistic still. Was a bit experimental with the designs, weird colors and shades… I hope this doesn’t backfire haha… quite a few romance premade covers too. One of the genres I do need to make a lot of.
Day 5
Premades done today: 0
Total for the challenge: 54
Notes: First day I didn’t get anything done for the challenge. Better be the last…
Day 6
Premades done today: 12
Total for the challenge: 66
Notes: Still swamped but getting back on track. Feel like some of these were really nice and should sell well.
Day 7
Premades done today: 15
Total for the challenge: 81
Notes: Today was a good day, 15 is a lot with custom cover work.
Day 8
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 91
Notes: Looks like 10 premades a day is a pace I can keep while having customs to work on too. I should be able to catch up once the schedule clears towards the end of the month. Hopefuly. 😀
Day 9
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 101
Notes: 10 designs done and I’m quite happy with them, lots of colors, different genres. If these don’t sell I’d be very surprised.
Day 10
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 111
Notes: 10 more Premades done. Had a friend’s Birthday to attend so less work finished.
Day 11
Premades done today: 5
Total for the challenge: 116
Notes: 5 designs done only because I was seriously hungover. Good party… not so good for working day after. 😛
Day 12
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 126
Notes: Still now 100% completely but 10 more Premade covers done and challenge keeps rolling on. Middle is almost there.
Day 13
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 136
Notes: 10 more designs done. The time for a serious push is right around the corner, or I won’t be able to get to 500. Really hope I can clear a lot of work during the weekend for customs and then focus on these.
Day 14
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 146
Notes: Feeling a little less creative and thinking it reflects on designs. Probably the middle of the challenge thing where it gets the weirdest… it’s come so far, yet is so far away still.
Day 15
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 156
Notes: Mid point! Far off my goal but still happy with the challenge. Still positive I can catch up.
Day 16
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 166
Notes: Friday… don’t want to work but chugging along!
Day 17
Premades done today: 5
Total for the challenge: 171
Notes: Feeling a drop in quality of designs somehow, takes longer to do a good one so made less today. Get some more off time. Dip in productivity is to be expected around the middle of 30-day challenges in my experience so I’m not surprised.
Day 18
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 181
Notes: Finishing the weekend well-ish. 10 more today. Getting close to 200 in a month which is my current record of premades created.
Day 19
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 191
Notes: Finishing the weekend well-ish. 10 more today. Getting close to 200 in a month which is my current record of premades created.
Day 20
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 201
Notes: And I made more covers than any month previously now. Previous 30-day record was 200. Now only 300 left to get to 500… in 10 days… Aaaaaaa!
Day 21
Premades done today: 15
Total for the challenge: 216
Notes: Trying to ramp up creation of premades. Custom designs are finally getting close to done for multiple clients so some more time available. Looks like I’ll be pulling all-nighters at least few times over next week.
Day 22
Premades done today: 15
Total for the challenge: 231
Notes: Another 15 designs done. Doesn’t look like I’ll clear up more time for these tho!
Day 23
Premades done today: 15
Total for the challenge: 246
Notes: Another 15 designs finished. Got hit by the realization that I won’t get to 500. Sadly. 🙁 So I need to get to 350-400 premades. That’s still realistic.
Day 24
Premades done today: 15
Total for the challenge: 261
Notes: Getting into the homestretch… it’s getting harder to come up with different covers and not use very similar stocks for the same cliche. Altho most are still likely to sell as people need many versions of the same cliche covers over time but I don’t want to make most of them the same… oh and I’m completely out of title ideas for covers!
Day 25
Premades done today: 15
Total for the challenge: 276
Notes: Really struggling with title ideas for these. Designing isn’t easier but I can make due. Titles are really bugging me, esp. since they really don’t mean anything and will be changed by author most of the time, but I still want to have decent ones.
Day 25
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 286
Notes: Lots of custom cover work still so not an ideal day but keeping on keeping on.
Day 26
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 296
Notes: End of the month brings more work. Keeping pace at 10 daily would be good. Did only Romance covers today.
Day 27
Premades done today: 10
Total for the challenge: 306
Notes: More broad range of covers done today, really love some of these.
Day 28
Premades done today: 5
Total for the challenge: 311
Notes: Tired. Sums up the day pretty much.
Day 29
Premades done today: 5
Total for the challenge: 316
Notes: Almost there… swamped with work so not productive in terms of premades.
Day 30
Premades done today: 4
Total for the challenge: 320
Notes: And done. Decided to end on a round number of 320. It’s been fun, hard challenge. To reach the goal of 500 premades done I would have to clear up schedule pretty much completely from other work. Shame I didn’t get to 500 but 32o is still most I’ve ever done.
Hope you had a good Nanowrimo month and finished the book! 😉 I’m happy with the amount of Nanowrimo book covers I made.
EDIT: As an update, a lot of these book covers have sold already. Which is really awesome to see!
Best,
Adrijus
These are gorgeous! I love how you did the archway in Cursed Temple.
Thank you! I was worried it might be a bit empty but that’s a great view, so had to use it. Glad you like it!
These are amazing! O.O – Beautiful, beautiful covers, and on top of that, you title them too… I can never come up with titles (Much less covers >.< ).
Wonderful work! 😀
Titles are so hard!! Probably harder haha
Thank you! 😉
Amazing. Great work, as always.
jim
Thank you very much! 😉
This is so impressive and the covers are amazing. Great job!!
Thank you! I appreciate the kind words!
A lot of beautiful covers here. I’m curious though, why are there no African-American models on your covers. We are in the world, we write, read, purchase books, have and belong to book clubs. There is a huge market for African-American stories. As a cover designer, you have the right to create whatever you wish, but I think you do potential customers and yourself a great disservice by not including African-American models on your covers. To be honest, I see at least 10 covers on your site that I would purchase immediately had there been African-American models on the cover. I write across multiple genres. Fiction, Non-Fiction, Romance, Mystery, Thrillers, etc. I’ve also purchased from you in the past and had the same question. Now, that I see that you have created so many new covers and still no African-American models on the cover, I wonder if I would ever purchase again.
There aren’t enough great stock images with them. It’s not my choice it’s what photographers choose to get pictures of. I have some thriller covers that will be made into premades soon with African-American folks but there aren’t enough of good shots so there is limited availability of covers. All designers have the same issue. It’s not our preference to not have them….