Drawing Inspiration

India by Faith

Last week I worked a little more on my book cover and I'm pretty pleased with it.  It exceeded my expectations on what it would be.  Originally I planned to use a photo from my travels to India but none of them worked quite right.  So I found an image that would work as a cover and purchased it.  After a little playing around, I have the basic design.

I may make my name bolder, perhaps do a color bar at the top to make it stand out.  As a thumbnail, it's hard to see.  The subtitle may change as well but otherwise it's good to go.

One thing to consider with ebook covers is the importance of the thumbnail image.  A reader will not see your book on a shelf and hold it in their hands.  Rather, they will browse online through thumbnail covers which may or may not be in color.  Make sure your title is clear and the image eye catching in the thumbnail size.

My cover is now inspiring me on the last leg of editing.  I've even made it my wallpaper on my phone, so I'll see it every time I use it.  It's a good reminder to myself that I'm almost done, that it's almost there.  And it's going to be a beautiful book.

It's Cover Art Time!

A simple yet effective book cover

I've spent some time looking for stock photos and today I found one that I love.  At first I was going to use a photo that I took in India but none of the shots represented what I wanted to convey.  A stock photo is a small price to pay to make a book look polished.  I'm convinced that the cover art for Knitting by Faith has helped it sell so well.  Of course the inside had to be good too but in order to get people to look on the inside, the outside must beckon them in.

Think of your cover art as a store window display.  The window should display a sampling of what a shopper can expect to see inside.  It doesn't have to show all of it, just a teaser.  The display should also be eye catching and clean so that a passerby will want to come in.  It's really worth the extra effort to make the cover look good.

This is especially important for ebook authors.  A thumbnail picture of your book cover may be all a potential reader may see.  Scale down your cover art to the size of a thumbnail image and see what it looks like.  Is it clear what the book is about?  Does it create an odd image you didn't intend to make?  Is the title or subject clearly shown?

Most ebook readers won't see the full size cover art more than a handful of times.  When they open a book on their ereader, most of the time the book opens to the first chapter.  They have to deliberately look for the cover art.  And if they are reading on an eink screen, it'll be in black and white.  So although the full size cover is important the thumbnail can be more important in the long run.

The best thing to do to start is look at other top selling books in your genre and get ideas.  From there, play around with name and title placement, color and other things.  Don't forget to check the size guidelines on your cover too.  When in doubt, get the opinion of others or hire someone to do it for you.

Book cover work is also a great way to spend an afternoon if you don't feel like editing.  Just sayin'.

How I Designed My Cover

I'm pretty happy with my cover design.  It may not be great by professional standards, but not too bad for a novice's first time out.  It also was fairly simple and cost less than $20.  Here's how I made mine.

1. Went to KDP page to find the info on the size the cover needs to be.  You can find those here.

2. As recommended by the ebook, How To Publish An Ebook On A Budget by Stephanie Zia, I browsed through Shutterstock and bought a cover image I liked.  The one I chose was not a literal interpretation of the content of my book, more symbolic with the hands forming a heart over the yarn.  Also, there is room to put words in the lighter areas.  See the original at right.

3. I opened up MS Publisher, added the pic, and then played around with Word Art and deepened the colors.  When I had things where I liked them, I asked for opinions from several groups of friends.  I kept tweaking until satisfied.

4.  Back in Publisher, I grouped all objects together and saved them as a picture, and converted that image to a jpg.

That's all there is to it!  Use whatever publishing program you have at hand, though I wouldn't recommend MS Word.  There are stock covers available to use on KDP, but in my opinion, they don't make me want to buy the book, even if it's free.  Just a little bit of time, effort, and the amount of money equivalent to a lunch out with your hubby and you're done.

Closing In

My first book cover

Last week was difficult as I brought closure to a few large parts of my life.  It was difficult and sad and then came Monday.

Monday found me hopping out of bed, doing morning exercises, cleaning like crazy and getting my book done.  I do believe that in the letting go of the past helped to free me up to go forward.  Suddenly I have traction on my book again and actually have something to blog about.

Monday - cover design and uploaded a draft of the book do KDP
Tuesday - book description written
Wednesday - writing group critique.  For the most part it was a success, some comments were "bravo" and that it was fresh, new and inspiring.  Some even mentioned they wanted to knit now.  Most of the critiques were small things, so it was reassuring that I am mostly on track with it.
Today I fiddled a little more with the chapters.  I had to replace some parts of chapter 11 since my research fell through on an important point.  So much for internet only research and a good thing I looked for the original attribution.

Each time I comb through the book, I tweak it a little here and there.  It will never be perfect because I am not hiring a line editor for this one.  After all it's only about 10,000 words or 31 pages.  But at some point, I need to just let go and put it out there.

Before Easter would be a good time to get out a book on faith.  So I counted back to Good Friday and then thought that maybe another few days and hit on my birthday.

Warts and all, the book is going out on my birthday on Monday, March 25th!  It will be one of the best gifts I can give to myself, ever.  And I do believe that I will make my husband take me out to dinner that night and bask in the glow of being published.

Things have been happening pretty fast with the book this week, so I'll come back later and explain all the steps.  It's like a cork has been pulled up and momentum has come.  I even have a couple ideas for the next books.