Designing the look of a genre, by accident: Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations

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If you look at the top selling New Adult books on the market, you may be surprised to learn that they are almost all created by the same cover designer, one Sarah from Okay Creations.  Sarah is so identifiable and that there is a goodreads list designated just for her.  Her client list reads like a Who’s Who of New Adult (Colleen Hoover, Abbi Glines, Kim Karr, Courtney Cole, J. Lynn, A. Meredith Walters, Chelsea Cameron) which basically means at any given time, an Okay Creation cover is on the top ten of the NYTimes and USAToday Bestseller List.

I understand that you have a background in Fine Arts and mylar balloon design and that cover design grew out of a conversation you had with author Colleen Hoover and friendships you made with other authors. What did you know of the publishing world at that time?

I was merely a reader.  I have been an avid reader for my whole life, but had never heard of self publishing.  Amazon recommended n The Island” by Tracey Garvis Graves to me, I did not even know it was SP.  When I finished OTI, I looked Tracey up on Facebook because, honestly, I wanted to see where she was from in Iowa.  From there I then read Beautiful Disaster and then Slammed and POR.  When I first messaged Colleen, it wasn’t even about her books.  I had noticed her Amazon bio mentioned John Green, who is my personal hero.

What was the first cover you created?  Was it the KA Linde “Avoiding Commitments?”  What do you like about that cover today and what, if anything, would you do differently?

– I don’t think I would change anything.  Those covers have quite a following and changing them in any way would take away from that.  In the beginning of any design career, it takes time to learn about the printers, and how things print.  It took me awhile when I did balloons to “get” how the colors printed on balloons.  Same goes for Createspace.  They print dark, so I always keep that in mind when creating the print file.  So while I wouldn’t change anything, I do have a better understanding of Createspace now and what to expect from there presses.

Do you read every book for which you create the cover?

-No, I read none.  The only exception to this is Hopeless and Avoiding Commitment.  I have already read AC on fictionpress when I met Kyla.  And I beta for Colleen so I read her stories as they are written.  That book and cover have a very special place in my heart.

Your covers are primarily New Adult right now. Is that because of the success of the books you’ve designed for or because that’s a primary area of interest for you?

-Honestly I am a through and through YA reader.  I have obviously read some NA, but it’s not my primary genre.  I think I am know for my NA covers because of the success of the books they are on.  I get really excited when I get a paranormal cover to do, I love photo manipulation.

Is there a difference between designing a cover digitally and one for print?  How do you take into consideration things like thumbnail size versus a larger sized image?

-Secret:  even if you order eBook only, chances are I will design the whole thing because 99% of clients think they only want eBook and come back for print.  It’s also easier for my to see the whole thing as one from the get go then come back to it later. I always minimize the cover to see what it will look like on Amazon.  And while I think the title being somewhat visible is important, I truly believe a striking clear picture is more key.  Most people will read the title that is next to the cover anyway.  A good picture makes them click to begin with.

Do authors ask you to create a cover similar to X bestselling book? I’ve seen quite a few that remind me of J. Lynn’s “Waiting for You”.

-Actually not all that often.  They say “I came to you because I loved….” but don’t ask me to recreate my own design.  I think there are only so many ways a kissing cover can look.  I like easy to read fonts, that is very important on a cover.  So yeah, you’ll see me use fonts over.

How do you keep the covers fresh?  Alternatively, are you worried about the sameness of the covers at all?  

-Each cover requires it’s own personal attention, and I rarely have a design in my head before I start working.  I do have a “moment” when I find the picture.  Something clicks and sometimes I have to convince the author I am right, lol (example – Shelly Crane hated the Wide Awake picture.  I did it without her permission).  I try not to be the same, but as I said before, there are only so many things you can do to couple pictures to make them different.  It was the same when I worked in balloons.  We had to create 60-70-80 concepts for Mother’s Day.  Or Happy Birthday.  There are only so many ways you can put confetti, or hearts, or flowers.  You just need to make each one pretty in its own way, and not think to hard about the rest.

Because of the success of the books on which your covers appear (basically your covers could be a list of who’s who of NA self published success stories), you are really defining the “look” of the NA genre. I’ve read that you are trying to “show hope… love, want, passion, but are a bit reserved.”  And I’ve yet to see you do what I’d term as a “clinch cover.”  What is it that you think readers are responding to in your covers?  (Sarah emailed me and said that she didn’t know what a clinch cover was and I had to email her example)

-Well, now that you have told me what a “clinch cover” is, haha, I can say NO WAY.  That is just not my style.  I think covers are sexier with clothes on.  Less is more.  Always.  Show me a secret kiss in public between two people before a guy with giant muscles grasping at a girls behind.  That’s my version of sexy.  I think I leave a lot up to the readers imagination on the cover, and that’s what sells.

If you could change the look of romance covers, which often show just the bared chest of a man, what direction would you go?

-I tend to like the girl only covers.  Let’s see HER emotion towards the story, which generally has some level of angst.  Let’s allow the potential reader to relate to the woman on the cover, and what she is feeling.  Because obviously the majority of romance readers are women.  Let’s leave the guy up to their imagination.

What other services do you provide other than book cover creation?

-I do swag for my clients, I also am now working with photographers to create custom shoots for covers.  I no longer do any design outside of book covers because of the volume I do, around 30-40 a month at this point and booked until November.

Finally, what’s the last great book you read and would recommend to my romance reading crowd?

-This is really hard to answer since I generally stick to YA, and the romance books I have read are easily ones all of your readers have read.  But to me, romance is the love between two people, YA or not.  I am gonna go on a limb and recommend “Just One Day” by Gayle Forman.  She is the queen of making a book romantic when the characters aren’t even in the same country.

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Sarah’s in such hot demand that she is booking 6 months out (so self published authors get your orders in).  Most of what Sarah does is New Adult but I’d love to see her do a historical or paranormal cover. In fact, I’m thinking of commissioning her to do a cover for something, just to see what fresh life we could breathe into the romance genre. Have any ideas readers?

You can see more of Sarah’s work at her website, Pinterest, Facebook or on Twitter.

Jane

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty. You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

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