I’ve updated my anthology and gave it a new cover. I’d been meaning to do it for a while but just haven’t had the motivation. Then the other day I started experimenting with images and started the create something I liked.
Getting the free trial of Canva was worth it and I’m going to buy a yearly subscription.
Had a supremely productive day today. I created two new ebook covers and went through my works with Grammarly. I feel like with each new cover creation I get better at design. Plus a Canva subscription helps 🙂
I’m hoping in the next few months I’ll get my writing mojo back and maybe finish at least one story I’ve got going on.
From the Mountain is no longer free. In the month that it was, I sold nine copies, less than the 14 for The Witch Room. I think maybe that was because of its cover. The Witch Room had a better cover than From the Mountain.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 🙂
Stephanie Haggarty 