Andrew Merkel – On Animated Book Covers

If you are on Twitter, you might have seen some animated book covers! I have been fascinated by them and finally have Andrew Merkel with me to tell me the secrets behind these artistic endeavors. Drew is an author and “retired” musician. When he is not repairing automobiles for a living he can be found infusing music and history into fantastic new magical worlds. A founding member of Qi queerindie.com, Drew and the community have a growing directory of books that both feature queer characters and books by allies. Every book has a home.

Welcome to The Creator’s Roulette, Drew! What got you interested in doing animated book covers?

Definitely Morgan Wright‘s work was the first I saw. She is kind of the queen of this field. And at first, I got in touch with her about my own covers. She did some for me and in the end I decided to look around for my own ways to do them. (I feel I had a hard time asking for what I wanted because I didn’t even know yet) I realized I could save them as video and put my own music behind them. And my own take on this medium was born. 

Do you ever judge a book by its cover? 

As much I hate to say it, yes. I do. Covers are important to conveying the mood of the story. They also have to pop and catch the eyes. As we sit here I’m on the third cover for Her Name Is Murder. Lol the one I have now doesn’t pop like the previous one. But, I do feel it matches the feeling and mood of the book better. 

What do animated book covers bring to promoting a book and the artist’s work who made the cover?

I don’t know about the cover designer’s take on these magical entities we call animated book covers. I do know I now have quite a few animations on my site and a fellow author (S.V. Filice) said my site was “made of pure magic” since my book is a magical book… highly appropriate. Definitely have sold books right after sharing the site. I also animated pieces for the trailers Anna Mocikat made for my book and then for her own trailer for Behind Blue Eyes (which is out tomorrow! 5/20) I have read it, and it is awesome!  I have since learned an animated cover is great and a trailer featuring them is even more special. 

What kind of tools do you use to make these animations?

I mostly stick to the Werble app. It’s overlays. Anyone can go into the paid iPad/phone program, apply something and have something fun to look at. But… the real fun comes when you start modifying things. 

Can you walk us through the process of making an animated cover?

• I think of it like coloring. For my own first book cover animation design, I was looking for a big burst of green magical energy. This required purchasing some overlays. The tools are a lot like digital editing apps like Photoshop and PicsArt (which I also use in the creation of animated covers.)
• The animation from my trailer started in PicsArt for the text. 
• Moved to Werble for an animation overlay. 
• And then went back to Picart for the film effect. 

Sometimes you need other apps too to get the desired effect.

This one for my website is similar to the video made for the trailer. That one is a video. So this is missing the cracked film effect mentioned. 

These are absolutely amazing!

In other news, today is also a special day for the protagonist for Drew’s book – Her Name is Murder (animated cover above). Tell us more about that!

So Her Name Is Murder tells the tale of an immortal woman with a long history and some tragic backstories. None more tragic than the one of her parents. It’s a bit of a spoiler but I haven’t been too tight on that detail. In recorded history that story ended today. 484 years ago.  In the secret history of Murder LaVoe that’s just the beginning of the tale.

That is really cool! I love reading about history secrets and the animated cover speaks to magic and past centuries! How did you stumble upon this one?

Back in October I was doing vss365 (very short story 365 days a year) posts on twitter. And preparing a sci fi story for NaNoWriMo. October 5th the vss prompt word was Murder. I wrote about a determined woman named Murder Ashley LaVoe “no more running.” I didn’t tweet it. I saved it. By the time November hit I had a cast and had decided where Ms LaVoe came from. I drafted the book (and completed NaNoWriMo) in 21 days. This story begged me to write it.  I had research to do at that point. Timelines. Added a flashback. Etc. but there was never a question bout where she had to come from. I’m a big fan of the Renaissance and Tudor era (same time period essentially just different countries) and thought the reformation fit pretty well with the division we were facing in America at that moment. 

Fascinating. Thanks for joining us today, Drew!

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Do you like animated book covers? Do they play a role in whether you choose to read a book?

Interested in connecting with Drew? Find him on his website and on Twitter!

Banner image from Unsplash.