I took a floating holiday and spent all day at work using their Adobe Creative Suite to create front cover designs for Bloodroom. I designed 12 ideas and hated them all. I uploaded thumbnails of the 3 I liked best (resized at home in GIMP, an open source graphics program). Let's just say I understand why you hire a professional. I got a fair quote for cover design and typesetting of the print version's interior from the artist who designs many of JA Konrath's books. She's really good (http://yourepublished.blogspot.com/) and my attempt at DIY is no reflection on her. But I'm already spending a lot on design and editing because I'm putting out several stories within the same timeframe. I hoped I could save some dough somewhere. What's your favorite Bloodroom cover?
I got Daniele Serra's first cover design back for my short story, Aunt Téa's Addiction. It's fantastic. I don't understand Amazon's dimensions guidelines for Kindle covers: 500 pixel X 1200 pixel? That's a very long rectangle, over twice as tall as wide. That can't be right?! Can any Kindle authors enlighten me? I need to find a buddy who'll volunteer to proofread Aunt Téa's Addiction for me. Then I'll format it to Kindle and other e-readers. That's my weekend.
I wrote for about an hour on Apparently Dead last night. I like how it's going. It's a daunting scene to write; so much has to happen in one place. But as long as I write at least a little every day, it'll come together.
I wrote you something, but my system wasn't right so it didn't go through.
ReplyDeleteI told you I really loved your cover art. I especially like the one of the far right. The frame is off-center, but that's easy to fix. It's very nice.
Kindle's requirements are easy. One side needs to be at least 500 pixels. That's it. It can be horizontal or vertical as long as one side has at least a 500.
Smashwords only accepts vertical and both sides have to be at least 500 (but they cannot be a square, must be vertical.)
Good luck!