Picking A Cover

Trying to find a good cover for your e-book can be a challenge. There are lots of ways to go about it, and I considered three different methods:

1. Create my own
2. Hire someone to create it
3. Find something already created

 I seriously thought about number one for a while. I'm not an artist, but I could use photographs. I had some decent ideas but I realized I would spend as much on props as I would to buy rights on a stock photo or to hire someone. Going forward this is something I will consider. I'm going to keep my eyes open if I'm at a yard sale or antique store. If something's the right price and it might fit a theme for a cover I'll go for it.

I didn't consider hiring someone for too long. I've tried this before with mixed success. Partly because I've gone with people I know. I know a couple of people who do graphic design, and I want to support them. Unfortunately it never worked out quite right, even when I was offering to pay for their work. If I try this in the future I'll go the route of searching out someone who is specifically looking for freelance work. I read somewhere that Deviantart was a good place to find artists.

So this leaves us with something already created. The route I chose was to use a stock photo. There are lots of websites out there where you can buy stock photos. I searched through istockphoto.com, depositphotos.com, and freeimages.com. I ended up going with a photo on shutterstock.com.

I had originally found a photo I liked at depositphotos, but it was going to cost something like $40 for the image. I found my way back to shutterstock and found a similar picture, plus the price was a lot better. Once I bought the license it was time to upload!

Once you've got your cover image, you can use photoshop to adjust the picture and add your title and name. Since I am publishing through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, they actually have a cover design program you can use. I was able to upload my photo, add the text and customize it as I saw fit. One thing I didn't realize was offered is that this tool allows you to create a cover without a picture. You can use color design and add in text to build your cover.

Picking a cover can be a pretty important part of your book, right up there with the title. People are busy and are scanning through thousands of images. You need something that will stand out. The right colors, the right image can grab the attention of someone who is looking in your genre.

"All is not as it Appears" is now Available

This morning I woke up and my submission to the Kindle Direct Publishing program had gone live.

My collection of short stories, "All is not as it Appears" is now available on Amazon.  A direct link is below:

I'm Officially Going Live!

Wow, I ended up making a big push today and got the formatting done for my short story collection.  Honestly, the editing and formatting was one of the most challenging parts of this whole thing!  I've saved plenty of links and I'll be posting how it all went down in the coming days.

And of course I'll have a link to my short story collection "All is not as it Appears" as soon as it goes live!

Two of the hardest things about writing and self publishing

For me, there are two really hard things about writing and publishing (OK, there's a lot more than two, but these two are affecting me right now).

The first is inspiration and ideas.  The problem isn't necessarily coming up with ideas, it's more about coming up with original ideas.  I try to avoid watching much TV or movies when I'm writing because I'll find themes or scenes from the things I've watched showing up in my stories.  It's even worse with books.  I try my best to avoid reading when I'm writing.  Otherwise I'll be working away on a super clever section and suddenly realize it came from something I read the week before.  The hardest part about it is that I love reading, I love watching shows and movies.

A good example of this is that I was traveling a lot in the past week so I watched the movie "Pacific Rim" a couple of times during my flights.  And since then I've been having lots of giant monster type ideas pop into my head!  Fortunately the things I'm writing right now do not include giant monsters, so it hasn't been a big issue, but the basic idea remains the same.

The other hard part about right, and probably for me the hardest part, is the editing.  Like a lot of people I find it hard to go back and read my story and be unbiased.  Of course it's brilliant and it all makes sense!  So I end up asking someone else to read it and at least help with some basic editing.  And that's terrifying.  My wife is very supportive and she is the one who will read through and edit for me.  Even though she is always going to support me, there is still the worry that she will come back and say that it's horrible.

I suppose that there is always the risk that people won't like what I write, but that's a risk I'm willing to deal with.

Capturing my journey to self publishing

I've been toying with the idea of self publishing for a while now.  Well, it's been in my head for a couple of years anyway.
The idea came when I wrote a short story a few years ago.  Life got in the way and I never really followed up on anything.  Until a few weeks ago.
I'm not sure what the driver was, I think I was hit with some inspiration.  I've jotted down ideas for stories, but I had one that I really liked.  So I went with it.
As I worked on it, I realized I had two full stories.  Another one or two and I can self-publish.
Along with it, I've decided to capture story here.  As I progress with finishing the stories and move toward actually publishing I'll update here on how it goes.  The plan will be to keep it going even after I've put out the first group of stories and move forward.

I've already made the decision to go with Kindle Direct Publishing.  I'm already very familiar with Amazon, and I've always enjoyed picking up self-published items on my Kindle.

Some research has been done already: pricing, formatting, etc.

In the coming weeks I'll post the links of the places I've done my research.  Lots of other people out there have done this, so I'm hoping to learn from them.

So for now, welcome!  I'm looking forward to this journey!