What's a fair price for a 500-page trade paperback?

[Elok]

Though barely a twentieth of its surface is habitable, Corban has always been a paradise for the descendants of its first human colonists. In its narrow valleys and fertile lowlands a perfectly balanced, engineered ecology allowed human civilization to flourish for eight hundred years--and then survive the most horrific cataclysm in human history, which killed ninety-nine percent of the world's population. Now it is the sixteenth century of the Offering, and the High Priest Ibraim rules over a worldwide empire. Ignorant of the past, confident of the future, the priesthood appears supreme. Yet there are forces at work which Ibraim cannot control, and the community of the faithful grows restless.

Out of this chaos appears sixteen-year-old Yunise Columabbi, the last living bearer of the Curse of Life. Her miraculous powers of healing come only at the expense of her own health. To her father's subjects, she is an angel, a sign of divine grace in an increasingly unhappy world. Others take a more cynical view of the matter. Whichever is right, Yunise will soon find that there are diseases which even she cannot heal . . .

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUNNNNN!

Anyway, what do I stick on the cover? It should be borne in mind (BK or others) that none of these people are remotely Caucasian.

[rah]

Just put an obscure symbol on he cover and decades from now when you're famous, lit teachers will all be making something up to explain it.

[Ben Kenobi]

It should be borne in mind (BK or others) that none of these people are remotely Caucasian.

Don't see how it would matter, it should still work. If you're going to put a blue skinned lady on the front cover, that's actually a selling point for that, "whoa, toto, we ain't in Kansas anymore"

[Jon Miller]

If you make it an ebook, I will purchase it.

JM
(Not sure what your feelings in regards to ebooks are.)

[Elok]

Eh, I'm ambivalent. I don't own a reader myself, so I have no experience with such things. They sound interesting, but also like a great way to encourage piracy. OTOH, the profit margins might well be higher. Dunno.

Re: cover, I'm thinking I might use thematically relevant real-world art, provided I can find a public-domain image at a sufficiently high resolution.

[Jon Miller]

I have a Kindle but end up mostly using my computer or cellphone, because those are what I have on hand.

My wife buys physical books but I pretty much only buy physical books if I am getting on a plane and my phone battery is almost dead.

JM
(Computer when I am suppose to be doing work (still happens), cellphone when I am travelling/on the bus/etc. The kindle has a nicer screen but just so much harder to remember to carry/etc.)
(The above is for novels, for non-novels I still sometimes buy physical books.)

[Elok]

I understand that they're way more convenient, and I think CreateSpace offers an eBook option. At least, they mention the possibility on the site, but so far in the process they haven't mentioned it. Are eBooks basically carbon copies of physical books, or what? If it involves reformatting yet again I might not have the energy for it. I want this dang thing done so I can focus on the sequel.

Question for lawyer and copyright types: would there be any legal obstacles to my using an image from Wikimedia Commons for the cover, provided I credit it in the acknowledgments? They have some awesome artwork on there.

[C0ckney]

yeah, i would definitely go with an e-book. many people buy ebooks these days, and i don't think fears of a piracy should make you cut out a large potential market. plus those of us in countries with crap postal services will be able to acquire it more easily.

another thing you may wish to consider is having it translated into different languages. it's possible to find people who will do this for very little/nothing upfront and a share of the royalties.

[Ben Kenobi]

I would not recommend he translate until he's actually got people buying it in English.

[Dinner]

I am currently looking into a tablet more robust than a Kindle.

[Ming]

I understand that they're way more convenient, and I think CreateSpace offers an eBook option. At least, they mention the possibility on the site, but so far in the process they haven't mentioned it. Are eBooks basically carbon copies of physical books, or what? If it involves reformatting yet again I might not have the energy for it. I want this dang thing done so I can focus on the sequel.

Question for lawyer and copyright types: would there be any legal obstacles to my using an image from Wikimedia Commons for the cover, provided I credit it in the acknowledgments? They have some awesome artwork on there.

Read this very carefully...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia

[DaShi]

I'd say $9.99-24.99, depending primarily on marketing.

[Elok]

Read this very carefully...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/C...side_Wikimedia

Thank you, that's just what I needed. So, if I find a work of centuries-old art and the info on Wiki says that they consider it public domain (with no link to creators, etc.), such as https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F..._Abrahama1.jpg , I'm pretty safe? Not that I necessarily want to go with that'n--it's thematically appropriate and dramatic, but I could probably find a better option if I dug a bit . . .

[Ben Kenobi]

Rembrandt? Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. You also might want to attribute that somewhere in the book. It's a cool painting. Educate your audience and all.

[Elok]

Okay, so I'd like to go with a portrait for the cover; I don't think I'll be able to find a painting of a girl resembling my protagonist, but I can at least get a girl of near eastern descent. The main obstacle here is that most such paintings are Orientalist, and therefore ridiculously eroticized, or else they're just a blatantly white woman in a silly getup. Or they're too small or low-res on Wikimedia (I'd need more than a thousand pixels to a side, essentially). Or they just have inexplicably pissy looks on their faces.

So, what if I went with this, only I cropped it to show only the face, not the diaphanous shirt slit past her boobs with a rather prominent nipple? It might not hurt to darken her skin tone a bit, but my pic-editing skills aren't up to that. Would that look good on a book cover?