On cover design

Today I rearranged some of my books on the shelves, and as I did so, I looked over their covers - since I'm working on cover drafts for Fred's book, I want to keep learning what makes a good design. And what makes a bad one, so I can avoid that!

I thought I'd pick a few from my genre collection that I really like, and see if there's anything in common.

The Restorer by Sharon Hinck - I love the textures you can see here in the sky and earth, the realism of the figure, the spooky tower silhouette.

League of Superheroes by Stephen Leon Rice - Nice and dramatic, bold colours on black, a comic-book feel.


Flashpoint by Frank Creed - The print book looks a lot better than this. It's got depth and layers and effects, very atmospheric.



Merlin by Stephen
Lawhead - Going back in time a bit here. Perhaps the most unusual cover concept I've ever seen, used on all the first editions of the Pendragon Cycle. Look at that chiselled face, those misty hills...Mmm.


The Shadow and Night by Chris Walley - Now I'm not convinced about that diagonal cut line, but it does serve to hold the series together. But check out that cityscape, and what's going on in the sky! Very impressive.



Arena by Karen Hancock - An accurate picture of the story inside: a girl going on a journey through a strange world. Clean and bright.


The Legend of the Firefish by George Bryan Polivka - Awesome textures all over, and incidentally also throughout the interior.


A Lever Long Enough by Amy Deardon - Yep, you guessed it, this is time travel. The image of the folks in robes with their laser guns is just too cool.







Now let's look at some of my current attempts for Fred's book.

Here's the font and effects we decided on several weeks ago. That was a whole other story!









Here are the spooky eyes I liked a lot at the beginning of this process.










Now here's the complete concept with our wonderful model on board. It looks okay, but I got to thinking we could do better.









I took one of the glowing eyes, enlarged it, and made it into a spiral. Interesting effect. I quite like it, as long as it doesn't come across as being too simplistic. What do you say?








Seeing as I'm so fond of texture in the examples above, I thought I'd include it in one of the design concepts.









And how about a little bit of colour?




So what do you think? Which cover appeals to you the most, and which would you be most likely to pick up if you saw it somewhere? This is only the first round of designs so it will likely end up a bit different again, but it may develop from one of these.

Moving Right Along

It's been a fun week! Mike came back to us super-quick with his brand-new original track for Fred's video trailer. I've had it playing on repeat a good deal over the last few days and I'm sure this is the perfect soundtrack for what we want to do. In case you haven't heard it yet, go to http://virb.com/michaellrogers and look for "The Muse". My new flatmate Steph (http://www.myspace.com/stephdickinson) has agreed to play the part of Jilly, so all we need now is for Fred to find a Davos lookalike. Oh yes, and I have to procure a princessy cone-hat and sparkly-star wand. Shouldn't be too hard.

After a lot of to and fro I've finally gotten an account open at Lightning Source. This means that I can upload book content as soon as I have it ready, and be publishing it very soon after. How exciting! The first one out is going to be Legendary Space Pilgrims, and many thanks to JesusPuppy for his help with the cover. I'll be redoing the book trailer for that, but you can head over to http://www.shoutlife.com/aloftstudios-clank and have a listen to "Dawnlight" - this is the soundtrack for the Space Pilgrims.

In New Zealand the weekend is almost upon us. I'm taking some time out with my parents in a place far from here (well, not that far, I can see it from my window - but it will take an hour on a car ferry to get there) and I'm taking my writing kit to get moving on Godspeed at last - the sequel to Faith Awakened, which many of you have asked me about. It's coming! I last worked on it in a motel in upstate New York, and that was in early October. A long time ago. I'm looking forward to getting it moving again. I'm really excited about it because it's a storyworld I'm so familiar with I could tell it in my sleep - yet now it unfolds new opportunities and new characters as Naomi ventures from Ireland to America and runs for her life. *rubs hands together* This is going to be good!

Editing is Job One

Once Grace and I got the contract hashed out (which required a little research from both of us, but happily, no involvement of dueling lawyers/barristers), I set to work polishing my manuscript of The Muse in detail. I began by making several complete passes through the story myself, looking for any holes or logical disconnects in the plot, inconsistencies in the characters, and mechanical errors--typos, grammar, punctuation, etc.

I also farmed out the manuscript to several outside readers for input. I was fortunate to gather a nice cross-section of folks--young, old, male, female, writers, non-writers, and both fans and non-fans of the genre. Some of the critiques are still in progress, but the feedback they've provided so far has been very helpful. You might think that after going through this story a couple dozen times, I'd be intimately familiar with every letter and be able to recite the entire thing in my sleep, but this process has shown me how easy it is to develop blind spots and how important a fresh set of eyes can be to turning out a quality product.

At the same time, Grace and I discussed concepts for the cover art and a promotional video clip. I hadn't anticipated how tricky the choice of font and color can be. There are so many subconscious flags associated with the shape, size, and color of letters that it's very easy to inadvertently communicate a misleading message about the story. Some fonts are indelibly linked to famous works of literature or particular kinds of stories. For example, there's a font called "Agatha" that was used for a long time on the cover of all the Agatha Christie mysteries. The font is so distinctive, it's almost a trademark for that author.

There are also land mines buried in the video development process. How do you pique a reader's curiosity in under two minutes and summarize the book's theme without giving too much away? Are there actors available to stand in for the book's characters, and do they look and sound right? Will there be background music, and if so, what sort? How can you stage a professional-looking video despite a tight budget?

It's challenging, but it's also a lot of fun. Grace has been very easy to work with, and her creativity, writing experience, and skills in graphic design have kept things moving along briskly.

I plan to post updates about once a week, but I'm hoping this blog will be very interactive, so if you have any questions for Grace or me, fire away, and we'll do our best to answer them.

Total Freedom

This work-at-home deal is certainly liberating after all those years in an office. However, I'm finding that I have to give some structure to my days, even though I'm not a structured person at all. Mostly.

Yesterday and today it's worked out quite well as follows:

9am deal with email, check Shoutlife and other networks.
10.30am go bush (there's a lovely forest park just across the road)
11.30am clean pool and swim
12pm lunch
1pm start work: admin, crit, write, design, video, and possibly more networking.

This takes advantage of the afternoon as my best working time, while ensuring I get my exercise in. Days when I go out for errands will be different. Also, right now I'm not pumping out wordcount on any of my own WIPs at present, so when I take that up again I'll be sitting down to that in the mornings as I like to get 3000 words by lunchtime. Other stuff in the afternoon as necessary, and another 2000 in the evening if I'm free.

Anyway, things are churning along at a fine old pace. I've figured out the Lightning Source applications and will be sending off the final forms as soon as I hear back about a returns address for UK bookstores. My thanks to Cynthia of the Writers' Café Press for giving her address to receive my US returns. Returnable books are an advantage for all dealings with brick 'n' mortar stores, so this is something I really want to have. Whether books are ever returned or not, I'm still glad to have returnable books.

After much to-ing and fro-ing (because I'm picky!) I have approved the cover design for Legendary Space Pilgrims, with an awesome rocket drawn by Clank of aloftstudios.co.uk. It's a wonder to see my characters peering out of the screen at me, just how I imagined they'd look!

Fred's contract arrived in the mail from America, and his book cover for "The Muse" is taking shape - after much fruitless searching for a suitable cover model, I found one right under my nose, as it were. We'll be making video trailers with the same actor and I for one can't wait to see the bloopers reel...More on that later, I'm sure!

So it begins...

This was some day all right. After some dithering I've bought the domain splashdownbooks.com and begun the laborious process of constructing the necessary business administration for my company. I spent some time working on the look for the site, which is reproduced in part on this blog.

Also today I've made my first offer to an author. I hadn't planned on doing this so soon, I've hardly begun yet - but this guy's story has got to be read to be believed. Or not believed, depending on your imagination. It was like the tale reached out and wrapped itself around me. I'm waiting to hear back from the author before I make any announcements on that front.

I talked to friends in Ireland and Colorado this morning - one not involved with publishing, but would dearly love to be if it means she can come to live in New Zealand... (sigh). The other, an agent-in-training, gave me some valuable positive feedback on my rather unusual methods of acquiring authors.

Clank got back to me about the cover design for Legendary Space Pilgrims, too - he's doing a great job on the rocketship with Mario and Caitlin inside, peering out into the unknown.

Now that I'm in the swing, I'd rather like to keep building that website. But I should really go to homegroup. Meet some people, all that. You know...I think I will.