The other day it occurred to me that some of my covers were a bit lack luster and I thought I should update them. My meager image editing skill is slowly improving and so I went about and did some tweaks.
Updated some covers
Category: Book Cover
Becoming Stardust ebook cover + synposis
This is the cover image I created for Becoming Stardust. For the longest time I didn’t know what to use. I had over 200 images saved in my iStock folder and I just kept adding more. Eventually I was like, don’t overthink it! Just pick something with a bit of action in it that has a major sci-fi element and involves space and space travel.
So not four hours ago I went on an image bing and found this one. I thought about it for a while and experimented with in on Pixlr and decided that this would be the one I choose.
So I bought it for one credit and put it together. I had a few issues when downloading the final produce because for some reason my computer is automatically formatting the 300 dpi image to 96 dpi. But when I open it up there seems nothing wrong with it 🙂
So here is my cover for my free prequel short story. I have also written up the synopsis for you guys.
Before Ilona took on the identity of a dead girl, she was a hunted girl. Her mother and she had known nothing but running until the bounty hunters finally caught them. Wounded and orphaned, Ilona sneaks her way onto a smuggling ship. Subsequently becoming part of the crew. This appears to be the break that finally gives her a safe upbringing. However, it is just the beginning.
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.
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.
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 🙂
Chip Kidd: The art of first impressions — in design and life
The hilarious art of book design | Chip Kidd
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.
Save One is available
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.
I 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.
Another 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.
New cover image for Save One
I’ve created a new book cover image for Save One. I changed because I wasn’t fully happy with the black and white one. I like colour and I think that it shows the tone of the book a little more. I’m also doing the eleventh edit and I’m hoping that this will be the last one 🙂
