Category: Book Cover

Book Cover

My first pre-made book cover

by stephaniehaggartyLeave a Comment on My first pre-made book cover

My first attempt at buying a pre-made book cover has been a great experience. I wasn’t intending to buy one but as I was looking at covers for inspiration; I came across the one I wanted. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to get it.

I found this one by simply searching for pre-made book covers and found the website The Book Designer. I searched for witches and boom. This one came up I think on the first or second page. The text was not the same but damn the picture spoke to me. I paid US$95, which worked out to around £75 and I got it done in under 48 hours. I’m very satisfied with how everything went and I will do it again with either the same website or a different one.

 

Good Witch, Bad Witch, and the Undead

Book Cover, Feet or Fins, Publishing, writing

Looking back on my first book

by stephaniehaggartyLeave a Comment on Looking back on my first book

Feet or Fins was first published four years ago. It entered the world quietly because I didn’t market it and that was a good thing because of how bad it was written. I had to have a friend point it out to me and I went back and was like, ‘Yeah, your right. Good thing no one bought it.’

That was my first foray into the self-publishing world and boy was I glad no one noticed. I did like 14/15 drafts of that book and it still wasn’t good enough 😦 But the next draft was immensely better. Thank you, friend.

For the longest time, it was only on Smashwords and then I got over the idea that Amazon was somehow lesser because it was a global corporation and knew that it would help me if I joined. Then I used the site to create a paperback version. By this stage, I had created a second cover image and when I finally got around to ordering a physical copy for myself I saw a few formatting issues. I used asterisks to separate some scenes instead and a few of them were out of place. Recently I updated my cover image again! I think this one is a lot nicer, and it features two mermaids.

Book Cover

Feet or Fins cover re-done again.

by stephaniehaggartyLeave a Comment on Feet or Fins cover re-done again.

For those who’ve been following Feet or Fins from the beginning, you know that I barely have any graphic design knowledge but at the same time, I was too broke to afford to hire someone. I pretty much went and did the most I could do with what I had. I picked an image that I thought represented the story and only fiddled with a few things while adding text.

For the longest time it was good enough for me and then I changed my mind. I created a second book cover and then, later on, reverted back to the old one. But I still knew that it wasn’t the best I could do, but I moved on to other things.

Today as I was looking through a few websites that featured pre-made book covers I began to wonder again if I could do better. I spent a few more hours looking on iStock to see what I could find. And voila! I found something interesting. So I fiddled around a bit and created this 🙂

Zodiac-sign-Fish-or-Pisces-on-blue-mystic-texture-background-929897332_3308x46792

Book Cover

Feet or Fins new cover, again.

by stephaniehaggartyLeave a Comment on Feet or Fins new cover, again.

I’ve been thinking about the book cover of my first book Feet or Fins for a while now. I have been humming and haring about whether I should go back to my old one. I thought that the old one looked better, so I went looking for it, but I couldn’t find it as I think it might have been on my old laptop. Anyway, I went and made up a new one and here it is.

Footprints-to-the-sea-477768183_2848x4288_3

 

Book Cover, editing, Publishing, writing

Save One is available

by stephaniehaggartyLeave a Comment on Save One is available

Misty-summer-mountain-hills-landscape.-613864370_3000x1926 (edited-Pixlr)Save One is out 🙂 It is 32,230 words long and it sits in the Young Adult and Dystopian genres. It can also be a little bit of a Coming of Age story as well.

It follows one individual Sauska Morin as she is accepted into the cryptanalyst school to become a code breaker. Her country has been at war with the South for the last few decades and she is needed to help break the codes. There she makes a close friend who is not having as good a time as her. During this time her younger brother is sent to army boot camp with the intention of becoming an infantryman. This does not bode well with Sauska because her two older brothers have died while in the army and as she experiences her life she begins to see that maybe her country isn’t as great as she thinks it is.

Screenshot_2I began Save One around July of ’17. While it took two years to complete, I was not actively working on it all the time. In fact, I would do a few drafts in close succession and then nothing for months on end. The reason this story took a while to come out was because of; burnout, other stories taking my time and, the fact that it was not my most prized story at the time. I was constantly suffering ‘Shiney New Idea Syndrome’ during this time and it took a bit of a backburner until I finally decided to finish it.

Beautiful-African-Woman-174795229_2560x3835_preview4largeAnother reason why it took so long was that I was a bit hesitant in putting out the story was because I made the main character black and I am white. I made her a different race simply because I’ve always written white characters and it was a bit boring. And the idea of having more diverse characters was starting to become a thing that needs to happen. I’m worried that it’ll come off wrong, but I’m not writing a contemporary story from the black experience. That’s why my first book cover was the black and white one. I changed it to the one above because I didn’t want to seem like I was using race to my advantage. Also, I like colour more than black and white and there is a forest scene near the end of the book.