Time to Write the Cover Copy... Err, Maybe

It's time once again to create attractive and alluring cover copy that will encourage people to buy my book.  And once again, I am dreading it.

Or as I joked to Hubs a minute ago...

"So, you see, it's like this fantasy.  And there's a dude and a girl... well, they're twins, you see, and they have magic... Well, she doesn't, but he does... and they go to a school to train... but it's totally not like Hogwarts..." and this point I chortled and guffawed like an inbred idiot. 

Hey, he laughed.

But yeah, I feel like an inbred idiot every time I try to start writing this damn cover copy.  Is it too much to ask that people just see the title and the cover and go 'wow, I totally want to buy that'?  I mean, SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD totally says awesome fantasy novel.  Add that to this awesome cover...

And readers should already know it's gonna be good.  Right?  RIGHT?

Okay, maybe readers need more.  And I'll produce more.  Maybe not today, but definitely soon.  When I have it, you'll know.

The Fun of Being an Author

There are sites where it is, apparently, great fun to publicly poke fun at the covers of books.  I landed on one once with the original cover for Wish In One Hand.  It was humiliating.  Especially considering I'd paid a supposed artist a heaping helping of money to create that cover.  It wasn't what I wanted, but I allowed myself to be bullied into accepting it.  I was backed into a corner, with my release date fast approaching, so I went forth with a cover I was not proud of.  

If you saw it, I apologize.  Once I finished licking my wounds and refilling my coffers, I paid another artist to create the covers you see now for it and it's sequels.  

I create my own covers for the non-fantastic books I write.  They're not bad.  Okay, maybe a couple.  Oddly enough, Accidental Death is the first cover people point to off my bookmarks and say that's the one they're interested in reading.  Doesn't sell well online, but in person, it's da bomb.  It's sequel is also not a great cover.  :shrug:  Maybe someday I'll do new covers for them now that I'm better at it.

Of course, now, I have a fantasy novel in the works.  And I'm trying to do the cover myself.  I made a dragon.  She's pretty cool and I'm proud of the effort.  Unfortunately, every time I try to incorporate her into a cover, she looks like a bad photoshop job.  

I worked on it for about 2 hours last night, so maybe it was staring at it for all that time that finally made me throw my hands up.  I'll try again today.

Oh, I could probably find a cover artist for this.  My other artist, the one I like, is super busy and fantasy ain't her bag anyway.  There are others.  But 1) I'm gun-shy after my encounter with the dude who shall remain nameless (mainly because I'm repressing that and because I do not wish to get sued at this late date). And 2) I want to do this for myself.  

But yeah, the fear is there that I'll end up on another one of those sites that pan bad book covers.  That can't be good for sales.  Nothing like being the target of ridicule.  Woohoo.

Of course, I've also been working on titles.  I'm leaning toward Shroudlands: The Battle for Kingshead, but again, I spent so much time looking at that in various fonts that I now kind of hate it.  Or maybe I just need to rename the city.  Or maybe I should've just spent last night reading a book.

It's so much fun being an author.  Derp.

Working on It

 I finished that round of edits on Untitled Fantasy on Saturday.  Right now, it's 368 pages long and just a hair under 108K words.  Publication day is getting closer.  Not sure when it will be, but it'll definitely in sight now.  (If you have a good pair of binoculars.  LOL)

So, that means I need to get moving on two things... 1) a cover, and 2) a title.

I started something the other day with regard to the cover.  Spent copious hours on it, then scrapped it.  Yesterday morning, I hit it again with all new images and I've got something.  It's not quite right yet, but I think I'm getting there. 

What I did worked like this... scour Morguefile for free images of lizards, found ones I thought could work as a dragon and saved those.  Open the files, erase all the background around the lizard.  Find wings that were the right size and orientation to fit said lizard.  Find teeth that were the right size and potentially the right orientation.  Take those and erase the backgrounds.  Cobble them together so they look like they actually belong on the same animal.

But wait... in my particular art program, when you save an image as a jpg, it gives the damn thing a white background.  So, I spent some extra time erasing the lizard's background again and then saving it as a mic file (Microsoft Image Composer).  Okay, so now my 'sprites' are happy and I can play with them.  Of course, once I get a beast cobbled together, I'll have to save it as a jpg so the sprites work together as one image, and then I'll have to erase the damn background again.  (Yes, there probably IS an easier way, but I haven't found it yet.  I suspect it lies within software I don't have, don't want to buy, and don't want to learn.)

The super easier, and also more expensive, way is to pay someone else to do this for me.  Umm, yah.  Umm, no.  I love my go-to cover artist, but she is super busy, as in like booking for next year, and I don't think epic fantasy is her bailiwick.  I could look for another artist, but I keep having flashbacks of the first cover for Wish in One Hand.  OMG, that was SOOOOO bad and an incredibly expensive lesson to learn.  Like with getting a haircut, I hate paying for bad service, so I do it myself.  If this cover is going to be bad, at least I didn't pay for it, eh?

Anyway, I think I have the setting image - all tweaked and ready to go - all I need now is a dragon.  I think it's a bearded dragon base with flying fox wings and snake teeth.  Right now, it looks like the weird mating of a gargoyle and that gremlin in Gremlins 2 who grew wings.  But I can work with that.

Oh, yeah, and #2... the title.  I've been playing with stuff in my head, trying to find something that makes me stand up and salute.  I thought up Mageborn... but it's still not right and of course, someone else is using it.  (And yes, I know, finding a title someone else HASN'T used isn't necessary, but I want what I want, so I'll try my damndest.)  Thinking about it now, maybe Mage Against the Shrouds... which could make the next book Mage Within the Shrouds.  That seems interesting...  Has that fantasy ring to it.  And it isn't already used.  Hmm.  Ooo, maybe Twins Against the Shrouds... eh, mage seems better.  

Okay, well, time to toddle off.  Work to do.  Calls to make.  

Anyway, as you can see, I'm working on it.  What are you working on these days?

Another Duke Underway

Duke Noble 2 got its start Friday night.  It's standing at 4441 words right now.  I like the idea and I like where it's going.  

For those of you who aren't aware, I never know what's going to happen in a story until I write it.  It's my process.  And for me, doing it this way keeps it fresh and it keeps me interested.  The one time I mapped everything out in a story before I wrote it*, the writing bored the hell out of me.  I knew what was going to happen.  It comes out better if I don't know ahead of time.

Sure, this means I occasionally write myself into a corner and have no idea how to get out again.  Generally, I cut a window and climb out.  Sometimes I walk across the paint and start anew.  Either way, I'm not bored.  And if the writer is bored writing the story, the reader is going to be bored, too.  None of us wants that.

So, I'm feeling my way through another Duke book.  And like I said, I like where it's going.  Right now, it picks up after Rumor Has It - with Duke arriving back at his office in the city where he gets a call that sends him racing out the door to solve another mystery.  A dead body, a mistaken identity, a missing man... and that's all I've got right now.  Should be fun finding out what happens, though.

I've started gathering things for the cover shoot.  Right now, I'm thinking a drink and a cigar.  Maybe an old revolver, if I can find one that won't break my budget.  

In other news, I set up a sale.  A Model Curse will have all its books on sale starting tomorrow.  99c each.  I'll post something about that in the morning.

If you're a writer, do you know what's going to happen in your books before you write them?  If you're a reader, what do you like better: mysteries you can solve or ones that keep you in the dark until the end?

*My second book - Nature of Fear (aka Caldera) - which probably won't ever see the light of readership.  I'd read some stuff that suggested a writer needs to know where the story is going in order to write it.  Man, was that ever bad advice for me.  It might work for some, so I'm not trashing it for everyone.  Just for me.  Bad idea, B.E... and I haven't done it since.

Rumor Has it is Live

I did it.  I finally sat myself down and did the formatting and did the uploading and RUMOR HAS IT is live.  It's $2.99 and it's available through Kindle Unlimited for those of you who might have a subscription.  I already sold a book to someone who wasn't me.  Yay.  (I always buy the first book, so I can check how it looks on my actual Kindle.)

Sara Hughes is Dead.

Sara had plans to take her own life. The coroner claims she died in her sleep.  Her daughter fears she was murdered.  Once Duke Noble, P.I. confirms his suspicions, he's hot on the trail of a killer. But with so many likely suspects, who will get nabbed for the crime?  The bully who expects to inherit everything?  The spineless toady with the grasping wife?  The outrageous divorcée?  Duke's a guy ready to tackle anything the world throws at him, but this time, he's facing something much harder to dodge than bullets and fists… His past.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen.  :hugs:  You guys rock.

Now I have to update the back matter of all my books, which I'll do sometime today.  And I need to format this for paperback printing (and do all the other stuff involved in creating a paperback), which I'll do soon.

I've updated my blogs, including adding a new page to this blog for the series.  Which reminds me that I need to get to work on the next book.  (I'm already planning the cover.  Heh.)  

Anyway, I'm kind of excited right now, can ya tell?  I hope you'll all be excited when you read it, too. 

It's Getting Closer

I had hoped to have a blurb ready to share with y'all this morning, but my attempts at one were lame and I gave up.  

In case you missed it yesterday on The Writing Spectacle, here's the final version of the cover:

without the Coming Soon banner across it.

:shrug:  I like it.  Sometimes.  Sometimes I want to fiddle with it some more until I'm 100% satisfied... but that'll never happen, so I'm not touching it again.

Anyway, it's getting closer.  I got my first bit of feedback since one of my readers inhaled the book, and she loved it.  With exclamation points.  Yay!  And she didn't figure out the whodunnit until it was revealed.  Double yay!

As always, I'll wait until all the feedback is in before I dive into those edits, but publication is so close I can taste it.  It's yummy and frightening.  Like a chocolate truffle that may or may not be laced with arsenic.  

I'm thinking about what to write next.  Part of me wants to dive right back into another Duke.  Another part of me remembers what happens when I don't take a mental break from my characters - they get boring and stale.  We'll see what happens.

The Making of a Cover

So yesterday morning I said I needed to work on the cover for Duke Noble P.I.: Rumor Has It.  Well, I had some free time and decided to use it to do just that.

I grabbed my camera and some props and went to work.  

Actually, the first thing I needed was a dust rag.  Man, that table was dusty.  So, I dusted and then moved some things off of it that are usually on it and started snapping away.  Just to get a sense if this would work.

Eh, needed to be darker and portrait instead of landscape.  So, I adjusted some things and lit the cigarette.

Looks kinda like a paining, doesn't it?  I was totally jazzed.  

And then I added words...

Good, but something still wasn't right.  I shifted the ashtray to the right, added another prop, and lit a new cigarette (cuz I smoked the first one*).  Huzzah.  

There you have it.  The cover for my upcoming release.  Might still need a tiny bit of tweaking.  The title banner needs to move a smidgen to the left, I think.  

Anyway, that table belonged to my parents.  It used to have Dad's beer stein collection on it.  And the vase once had flowers for my great-grandfather's funeral in 1957.  I got the ashtray at a thrift shop and it's mine.  The cigarette is Hubs' brand because my brand has white filters and I thought the brown filter would look better for this shot.  Threw in a couple of his spent butts, too.  Grabbed an old prescription and scattered the pills.  Voila!  The only thing I think might be an anachronism is the pill bottle itself, but I'm not going to worry about that at this point.  And the lamp is probably not of an age to be in the book.  Which is why I covered the base with a lacquer base filled with potpourri and the top of it is behind the title.

Cover creation magic, I say.

I still need to create cover copy, but that'll come along soon enough.  Excited yet?  I am.

Update and Stuffs

Yesterday, I finished this phase of edits for Cinder Ugly.  It was the phase where I read the book on my Kindle, making notes along the way.  I ended up with 9 pages worth.

Today, I will begin inputting those notes.  Once that's done, I'll send the book to my Kindle again... lather, rinse, repeat.  

I hope to have the book ready to send to readers for proofing by the first week of October.  Should be doable.  Depending on schedules and my own gumption, the hope is to have this book in readers' hands before Halloween.  :fingers crossed:

In case I didn't post this before or you forgot, here's the cover:

I love how kickass Jeni looks here.

At some point, I need to sit down and write the blurb for this.  Maybe after I get this round of notes input.

Anyway, progress is being made.  Things are happening.  Certainly not on the timeframe I envisioned at the start of the year, but we can't sit around pining for what was lost during this chaos.  Moving forward is the only answer I have right now.

Onward!

Yep, Slight Delay

Okay, so the possible delay has turned into a definite delay.  Sorry about that, folks.  My grasp exceeded my reach this time.  Don't despair, though.  It'll be done by Monday at the latest.

It's a good thing I'm doing this.  Man, am I finding a lot of typos that I unintentionally inserted as I was fixing other things.  Blerg.  On the bright side, they're getting gone, bit by bit.  As of last night, I had done through pg 146 of 231 pages.  And I'm fixing the errors in batches along the way, so I won't have to do them all when I finish reading, which will save time. 

I'd be further along if I didn't blow Wednesday all to hell by going grocery shopping.  I was wiped out for the rest of the day there.  One thing I did get done Wednesday was the blurb - pre-shopping, of course. 

Jeni Braxxon’s life as a up-and-coming supermodel hit the skids when she found herself cursed.  The asshole who did this to her is rotting in jail, but the curse remains, leaving her as ugly as the north end of a southbound warthog.  Every damn night.  

As if this case of the gruesomes and her impending unemployment wasn’t enough for a gal with serious esteem issues, someone snatches her nephew.  The fight is on to find the boy before something seriously heinous happens.  With the help of her friends and a bit of beastly assistance, Jeni will face down anything this plane or the next throws at her.  If she’s lucky, she might just make it out alive.

And another thing I did was add a series title to the book covers.  I'm going with... drumroll... A Model Curse.  It was the only one I wrote down during brainstorming that didn't suck mightily and was short enough to fit on the covers without being super small.

Succinct and cute.  At least, I think so.  It's pretty much set in stone now, so if you think it's lame, keep it to yourself, k?  (Set in stone because I'm tired of thinking about it and I don't want to have to redo the covers again.)

Right now, it's sitting at about 65K words.  That'll expand some as I put in front and back matter during formatting, but that's the meat of the story without the sauce. 

Again, sorry about the delay.  I'd blame the chaos, but this last delay is on me.  I'll let y'all know when it goes live.  Until then, have a great day and an awesome weekend.  =o)

Flying Solo is Scary

Around this time sixteen years ago, I began writing what would become my first finished novel.  Back then, I did it all myself.  All the writing, the editing, the research - for the writing and for the submitting, the querying, the crying...  

Last week, I celebrated the 5th anniversary of the first novel I published and sent out into the world.  I still did most of it myself, but I realized I needed other people.  I needed a cover artist and an editor.  Which meant I needed money.  And Hubs willingly agreed to spend some of our savings to get my books out into the world.

I had expected for this venture to start paying for itself within the first year.  It didn't.  I had great hopes for the next year.  Not then either.  None of them have.  But I got tired of sucking off the savings tit, so I started funding this myself and stopped dipping into our nest egg.

With this in mind, I do most of the covers myself and what I couldn't do myself went to a less expensive artist.  And when it came time to edit, I still paid someone. 

As sales have dwindled and the money dried up, I was faced with a decision - stop trying to publish and watch my career swirl the drain, or stop paying an editor.  (I have two covers I've already paid for, so I'm set there for now.) 

It's a scary thing, thinking about flying solo.  For the past 13 books, I've had an editor.  One gal did the first two books.  Since then, I've had AWE (Awesome Wonderful Editor) as my co-pilot.  (She also walked in and saved my second book, which was really helpful.)  Taking off on my own without her in a seat beside me scares the crap out of me.

But she's been super-supportive of my flying alone.  She's praised me for my clean drafts before and now tells me I can do this.  With her blessing. 

Still, super scary. 

However, stopping publishing anything, which last year meant not writing either, is a scarier idea.  (It's close as to which is scarier, but not writing wins by a hair.)   Since it's scary, it's been super hard to move forward with the idea.  To think that maybe next month or the month after, I will put a book into the world without my AWE... :shudder: 

What if I get bad reviews?  What if I actually can't do this by myself? 

It's enough to make a gal crawl back into her hole and pull the dirt in over her.

But it's time.  I can do this.  I can edit on my own.  I know people who do it, so why shouldn't I be able to do it, too?  I can and I will.  And I will make every effort to insure my readers get the same quality manuscripts they've always gotten.  

I hope you'll stick with me.  There's no co-pilot on this flight, but I promise not to crash and burn.

Updates and Changes

I started a paranormal mystery last night and sure enough, it had a black cat in it.  And this one talked, too.  Again. 

Other than the cover art for Ugly and the Beast, it's not that hard to change the cat from black to some other color.  At this point, any other color would do. 

I need to contact my ultra-busy cover artist and see if she can squeeze a quick change in.  If swapping out the black cat for another cat is too much work or requires extra payment, I may just nix the cat from the cover altogether.  She didn't charge me when I had her pull Mary off the cover of In Deep Wish, so there's hope. 

It's just as well I'm finding this stuff now.  Once the book goes live and people start reading it, it's a bitch to change anything in it.

If she can't do it, Kazimir (formerly Oliver) will remain black.  No help for that.  Can't have a black cat on the cover and not have the damn cat be black.

I keep having to change things in these books because I keep finding similarities to other books.  Which reminds me, Pinky isn't Pinky anymore.  He's still a pink hellbeast, but the name has changed to something more interesting because someone else had a hellhound named Blue.  Too same-same.  I like the new name better.  It has a story behind it - relating back to a manager I had once upon a time who wore the most garish pink nail polish, and her use of nicknames for everyone.  But I'm not talking about the new name here because it seems like every time I let a piece of info out, I have to change it and it's very confusing.

I rewrote the end of Ugly and the Beast, too.  Which I think I like better.  I kept the old ending, just in case. 

Anyway, I'm making headway.  I've re-read and edited the 9300 words I have for Cinder Ugly and will be adding new words to it starting today.  Not sure where I'm going but the fingers will do the walking and we'll see what happens.  Weeeeee.

And that's what's going on in my world. 

I'm still not posting here very often.  If you want more posts, visit The Writing Spectacle.  If I'm not here, most likely I'm there.

July Sale #3 - Sleeping Ugly

Yesterday, the sale for Blink of an I ended and the new sale began.  Right now, I've got Sleeping Ugly on sale for 99c in the US and 99p in the UK. 

The journey for Sleeping Ugly began years ago.  I was looking for something new to write in urban fantasy and something my older brother once said came to mind.  When I was a teenager, he was home on leave from the Air Force and just after I'd staggered out of bed, he said, "You're not Sleeping Beauty.  You're Sleepin' Ugly."

Needless to say, I'm sure I shot him the stink eye.  He was joking around, and I was probably totally not in the mood for it.  Even if he was probably right at the time.  Ugh, bed head.  Anyway, years later, the phrase popped into my head and along with it, the basic premise for the book - a supermodel is cursed and turns ugly while she sleeps. 

She's got a brother.  He's totally not modeled on my brother at all.  Well, maybe a little of him hearkens back to my feeling for my brother on that long ago morning when, sans coffee because I was only like 16, I tumbled out into the living room and heard his words.  I actually like and appreciate my brother and he never did to me what Josh did to Jeni.  Plus, my bro is totally not evil.  He's a hard-working dude with two awesome sons.

Right now, I'm working on cleaning up the sequel to Sleeping Ugly - Ugly and the Beast. I got through the surface edits yesterday.  And I made a start on the third and final book, Cinder Ugly, last night.

Anyway, together for the first time ever, here's what the three of them will look like when the other two are published.  (Hoping to have UatB and CU done and released one after the other before the end of the year, but you know how things go.)

Warning: These are not safe for kids or for people with tender sensibilities.  Jeni swears.  A lot. But she's a good gal.  And the story is loads of fun.

I hope you'll give it a try and hang in there with me as I work to get the other two finished and published.  Thanks!

Budget Quandary

Budget-wise, I'm not sure how other writers do this self-publishing thing.  Obviously, they are selling more books than I am, so their budgets have more padding than mine.  But is it only that?  Or do they have a second job to help fund this venture? 

I've pared my budget down to the barest of bones.  I do most everything myself.  The only exceptions are certain covers (because I do not have the skill for paranormal covers like my artist does) and the editing (because unless you are an exceptionally objective person, it's hard to edit your own books to the level they need to be for publishing).

The quandary I find myself in at the present point is: spend my limited resources on marketing or save it up until I have enough money to pay the editor?  (I've already paid the cover artist for the next two Sleeping Ugly covers.)  These past few months, I've been paying for ads. 

Without ads, my sales would be totally ghost town and crickets. 

On the other hand, if I don't put out new books, my sales will continue to dwindle as I reach market saturation. 

Blerg.

I've thought about getting a second job - especially since I don't seem to be doing much on the first job lately - but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to work outside the house after all these years.  Most places would allow me to be as flexible as I need to be. 

And I can't make myself take any more money out of the house budget to fund this.  Every time I think about how much money I've spent vs how little money I've made... the guilt... it burns.

For now, I'll keep marketing and hope something breaks.  (Hopefully, this writerly dry-spell breaks along with it.)

How to do decide where to spend your publishing monies?  Or is that not a problem for you?

Cover Change... Again.

In an effort to try and boost sales for Blink of an I, I've changed the cover.  Again.  As you may have guessed, I have no clue when it comes to covers (or anything else marketing related) for dystopian... err, futuristic suspense... err, speculative fiction... err, whatever.

Anyway, here's the latest...

Let's see how that grabs people, eh? Of course, I thought the first few covers would grab people, so what do I know?

I'm hoping to set up either a sale or a freebie for next week (because my KDP thingie renews on the 15th and it's use it or lose it).  I'll let ya know.  A lot will depend on how fast Amazon gets this cover out there to people.  They say 72 hours.  We'll see.

All a gal can do is try, right?

Unequal Blurb Draft

It's Monday.  And my brain is wrapped up with getting Unequal ready for you all to read it.  On that note, here's a rough blurb I came up with over the weekend.  Not sure if this is the one I'll use, but it should give you an idea of what the book is about.

In a world where any little difference makes you a target, Rue Logan lives in fear of getting branded Unequal and disappeared like so many others.  But it doesn’t stop her from fulfilling her life’s mission.  She always dreamed of being a doctor, but the Department of Equalization had other plans.  Now, she works her assigned job as a janitor by day and skulks the hospital corridors at night, saving lives.  

Until the DOE catches her.

On the run, Rue finds others like her, working in secret to achieve their goals and live their lives.  But their leader has a mission of his own.  War may be brewing.  And even though Rue’s taken an oath to do no harm, she may end up in the middle of the battle.

Meh.  It works, but it's not good.  Meanwhile, let's look at the pretty cover again:

Finish the Darn Book

So, this morning, I got the cover mock-up for Ugly and the Beast.  It looks awesome and I approved it. It's super cute.  Jeni doesn't look pissed this time.  And there's a kitty involved.  I am hesitant to show it, though, because the darn book isn't finished yet. 

But the cover definitely encourages me to get off my dead butt and get back to work. 

After I finish editing Unequal, which I really need to do like yesterday.  Today will be a marathon editing day again.  I'm still looking at having this to the editor by the end of the week.  Which is like three days from now.  Which means three marathon days... :panics a little: 

Once I get Unequal off my plate, I can get UatB back on track.  Which, unfortunately, means scrapping most of what I've already written and starting over.  I can do it, but ugh.

Of course, as luck would have it, I also received a packet of work from pay-job that I need to complete ASAP.  Busy busy.  Good thing I don't have any other tasks today.

And there's my life in a nutshell.  Get off my butt and finish editing Unequal, so I can finish writing the darn book and then you can see the cover and then you can read it sometime in the first quarter of next year.

You know, if I don't burn myself into a crispy critter before then.

Decision Made - Part Two

If you've been reading along, you know I had a couple decisions to make here.  The first one was whether I would keep stumping along with a book that I just wasn't feeling.  Made that one and stopped work on Ugly and the Beast.  The other decision was whether to keep my reserved spot with my cover artist and what to do with it if I did.

So, over the weekend, my cover artist announced that she's booked through December of 2019.  Which pretty much made the decision about what to do with my October spot for me.  I'm going ahead with the cover of Ugly and the Beast, even though it isn't finished.  It's either that or wait until my spring spot and then not have a spot reserved for Cinder Ugly.  And while I'm behind in writing this series, I do not want to have to wait until 2020 to have a cover.

Yesterday morning, I went through the photo site, picked several poses for the Jeni model, and then picked a couple of other things I'd like to see on the cover.  We'll see what she does with them.

Now I have until February (or was it March?) to figure out what the hell CU is going to be about so I have ideas to send to Jessica. 

Life was so much easier when she wasn't so popular.  I didn't have these scheduling problems when she did the Once Upon a Djinn series.  Ugh.

On the other hand, my cover artist is so good, she's in high demand.  Yay.

On the bright side, looking at photos for UatB kinda makes me want to start writing it again.  Too bad I have the edits for Unequal to focus on right now.  Maybe I'll make finishing the damn book my NaNoWriMo project. 

:shrug:

Cover Reveal

I've been working on the cover for Unequal on and off.  Saturday I made a concerted effort to get it done.  I'm pretty pleased with the results.  But we all know how I've been pleased with my covers before only to have them bomb. 

Anyway, here it is:

I'm not sure if it screams 'dystopian', but unless I think of something better, I'm running with it.  It's got Rue (the MC), a hospital bed, and a utilitarian structure. 

And I might change the cover of Blink of an I again to kind of be in keeping with this other dystopian.  Not sure about that yet.  I still kinda like the abstract indigo of Blink's cover.  :shrug:

Anyway, Unequal should be out by the end of November, early December at the latest.  :fingers crossed: 

Yes, I know.  'Unequal' isn't a word.  But it's a word they use to describe anyone who doesn't fit into the 'equal' mold in this future I've envisioned .  They label you Unequal, and you get disappeared.  Rue is Unequal.

I haven't done the blurb yet.  My brain space isn't ready to do that yet.  And besides, the assignment isn't due.  ;o)

Decisions, Decisions

Okay, so it's now October and this book that I should've finished writing in June is giving me fits.  And I've got a decision I need to make pretty soon.

Do I keep plugging ahead with a book that obviously does not want to be written right now or do I set it aside and work on something else?

Which leads to a secondary question: Do I 1) use the spot I have with my cover artist for UatB anyway and hope I have something to publish early next year, 2) use the spot I have with my cover artist to let her do Unequal, or 3) do I let the spot slide?

Neither decision is an easy one.  I so don't want to disappoint readers who are expecting a sequel to Sleeping Ugly sooner rather than later.  Then again, I so don't want to disappoint readers by throwing out a piece of crap (which is what UatB is shaping up to be at the moment).  And I definitely don't want to lose my spot with my cover artist who has become highly sought after and therefore super busy.  I have another scheduled spot with her in February, but that's a long way off and what if UatB breaks free...  Argh.

But I'm also not inclined to spend money on something I don't need at the moment. 

Now, I'm not asking you to answer these questions for me.  I'm just throwing them out there to maybe help me make a decision.  Because sometimes writing stuff here does that.  And, you know, it's out here in case anyone else is in a similar quandary and is looking for a sense that they're not alone.  That sort of thing.

Of course, it doesn't help that SU is not the overnight sensation I'd hoped it would be which makes it harder for me to justify all this effort and expense on a sequel.  Blerg.  But having sequels helps sell the first book... or something...

Ah the life of a writer.  It's fun!  Yeah, yeah... fun... that's the ticket.

What are you having fun with right now?  Facing any big decisions? 

Paperback Update Stuff

Here's an article on Moving From Createspace to KDP that explains some things.  Mainly, I learned why I can't find the easy way to port my books over.  They don't give you the option, I guess, until they send you the letter.  And I haven't gotten mine yet.  I expect they're doing all the more important, better selling people first.  :shrug:

My proof for Sleeping Ugly arrived yesterday.  It's gorgeous.  Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the Createspace system and I had no way to approve it.  I wrote them a note and they fixed it.  I approved the paperback and it's available for purchase now at CS.  It'll be available on Amazon in 3-5 days.

Here's the paperback cover...

Pretty, eh?  She sends it to me only in PDF, so I had to screen capture the above, but that's basically it.

I'm waiting on the proof for Early Grave.  Here's the print cover I came up with for that...

Fingers crossed it looks as good in person.

Every finger crossed that my paperbacks work out with the Amazon printing process.  If I have to buy a new set of proofs for 12 books, it's going to put a dent in my budget.  And if I have to buy all new proofs, I'll be giving away old proofs.  My friggin' proof shelf is overloaded as it is.

Oh, and I ordered copies of Sleeping Ugly.  When those arrive, I'll do a giveaway or something.

Don't expect a paperback of Blink of an I any time soon.  I had planned to start that process after I did Early Grave, but then the CS thing became real.  It's gone this long without a paperback, it can go a little while longer.

Meanwhile, it's back to manuscript polishing on Unequal for me.  I have about a hundred pages left to go before I send this to AWE tomorrow.  And after I finish this, I will be back to writing new words on Ugly and the Beast. 

Have a great weekend, folks.