I promised I’d be back with some more useful hands on tips for creating your own book covers; here you were, doubting me, weren’t you. The following post will likely be broken into two pars and feature some NSFW bits.
I promised I’d be back with some more useful hands on tips for creating your own book covers; here you were, doubting me, weren’t you. The following post will likely be broken into two pars and feature some NSFW bits.
Currently I’ve been working with my graphic designer to redesign my book cover, trying to more accurately capture the feel of of the book, both in genre and in content. Along the way I came up with the brilliant idea to try my hand at some fantasy photo-manipulation and without the guidance of my sainted graphic artist, set out to try my hand at some.
At first glance, photo-manipulation is scarier than it is in practice. You too can create epic scenes and fantastic vistas with a little skill at the image editing software of your choice, a slew of awesome stock art to choose from and a little time and effort. Still not convinced? Well I created the image at the bottom of the post (hidden behind another more tag, to protect the innocent since it features incredibly mild artistic nudity) in less than one day with absolutely no experience in this kind of photo-manipulation whatsoever! To create something similar you’ll need only 3 things (besides Photoshop or a comparable image editing software).
Sometimes as I struggle to wrap my mind around the whole process of being a novelist, I embark on learning something new and interesting and vital (that I’ll certainly master because I’m so frelling awesome) and find myself totally – lost.
Are you feeling a little overwhelmed? Feeling like you’re working all day and half the night and only getting half of what you need to get done to be a successful self publisher? That feeling of being stretched a little thin, apparently, is normal.
What seems like ages ago I came down on the side of shilling out the extra bucks for a professional looking bookcover. Unless of course you think you’ve got serious skills and really think you can go it alone. This post is for the writer who also has awesome skills in image editing.
Tools of the Trade
We’ll start out with something simple – everything you’d need to assemble first.
Every now and again I feel it’s vital to recite my goals and put them all out there for the world to see. That way I can use the goad of the probable humiliation involved in failing to reach these goals to keep myself slogging through the jumbled muck of all the voices in my head.
Every now and again everything I’m trying to do catches up with me in bad ways. I’d describe the feeling that results as drowning, like waking up already underwater. The depth doesn’t have to be much but that kind of blind, breathless panic – that’s just about right.
Let’s see, there’s the writing which anyone will tell you is plenty hard enough. There’s trying to become better than you already are which, anyone but the self help guru who wants to sell you their magic twelve step program, will tell you seems damn nigh impossible till you’ve done it and come out the other side. There’s marketing, socializing and dealing with the backend that never ends. Somehow in all of that there’s the foibles of just living, court cases that pop up out of no where, utilities that need to be paid, mouths that need fed and asses that need clothed in ever larger swaths of fabric.
So what to do when you’re feeling like you’re drowning in it all? Drown.
Sorry, there is no magic bullet here. Struggling when you’re underwater and without any kind of anchor is only going to speed up the effect of drowning. So go with it. Let yourself hit the bottom so you can crawl back up out of it, one tiny task at a time. Cry, feel sorry for yourself, whine, walk away from your manuscript (resist the urge to burn it for good measure) do what ever you need to do at bottom so you can climb back up.
Blargle Splect: Writerly Musings & Blather 