Cover Design for Newbies - Make the Kids Do It

I settled on a title for my new novella yesterday.

Today I spent many frustrating hours designing the cover for: "Make Willing the Prey". I already had a concept in mind, and figured I could easily use public domain clip art and The Gimp. I quickly learned just how wrong I was.

Two of my teenagers were within hearing distance of my various rants, and each time I complained, they offered to design it for me. Finally, I offered them a dollar figure, and pit them against one another to see who could design the best image.

B. hand-sketched a brilliant image, a loose interpretation of my original concept, but one that captured the idea better than I could have myself.

With a good image file, the rest was easy. I'm confident enough with graphics software that I was able to crop and make adjustments, add a title and byline, and have a completed image within a few minutes.

What do you think?