Aesyn Cravery's Blog, page 2

Just Released! Skinned: A Descent Into Obsession

 

This is a novella I wrote several years ago and debated publishing due to the taboo nature of some of its content. However, given what I've recently seen available in the dark romance market, I think its reached its time.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BOREDOM MEETS OBSESSION?

I thought I was happy. Good job. Nice house. Loving son.

Then Sloan walked into my life. Tall, dark and wickedly handsome. Trouble with a capital T. A man who likes to push buttons.

He’s pushing all of mine, awakening desires I didn’t know I possessed.

Now I’m spiraling down a rabbit hole of depravity I can’t escape. And the worst part is, I don’t want to. I like being his pet. His plaything.

Am I sick or just obsessed?

Trigger Warnings: BDSM, MF and FF sex, polyamorous sex, discussion of taboo subjects to include stepbrother and underage sex, humiliation and shaming, MMC sharing FMC, psychological manipulation

Skinned is available on Amazon for kindle. Read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

Video for A Legacy in Blood Special Hardcover Edition

 

I made a video of the special hardcover edition of my gothic vampire horror novel A Legacy in Blood to show off the art inside.

I'm really enjoying doing chapters spreads and other artwork for the interior of my novels and plan to really step up my game in the next book, The Cruely of Thorns.

Formatting Bleed Images in a Word Document

 

I’ve recently fallen in love with books that have artworkinside. Whether it’s chapter heading images or a full page bleed image, I amobsessed with it and gobble up the print version (whether that be paperback orhardcover) of any book I’m interested in reading that includes artwork.Naturally, that lead to me wanting to do the same for my own books.

I chose two of my standalone books and set about creating specialhardcover editions. I use Word for all my writing, editing, and formattingbecause it’s a very powerful program with plenty of features if you just botherto learn it. I use Adobe Photoshop for my images because I had a web andgraphic design business for years and that’s my go-to graphics program.

If you’re going to go this route using full page bleedimages, the first and most important thing you have to do is decide on yourtrim size because that affects your artwork. For my hardcovers I used 6x9. Youcan go to KDP Format Your Paperback (or Hardcover) and under Set Trim Size,Bleed, and Margins, scroll down to the Trim Size Specifications for Amazon.com.There you’ll find a table that shows the trim size with and without bleed.According to the table, a 6x9 book with bleed should have a page size of6.125 x 9.25.

Now you need to set up your document. I did a post on Formatting A Word Document For Amazon last year, but for our purposes here we’re just going to worry about page sizeand margins.

Create a new document and under Page Layout, go to the Sizepulldown and scroll down to More Paper Sizes. Enter your dimensions in the appropriateplace (9.25 height and 6.125 width) then go to the margins tab and set up yourpreliminary margins. You may have to tweak this later depending on your finalpage count. Select Mirror Margins, then set the top and bottom margins to .5”, theinside margin to .70” and the outside margin to .45”. Ignore gutter.

Now you get to do the fun part, select and size yourartwork. Whether you use your own artwork or source it somewhere else, youshould always use the highest resolution possible just like you do for yourcover. I would suggest 300dpi for all print artwork.

I've used a couple of sources for digital artwork, among them Etsy. There are tons of artists selling clipart, watercolor, scrapbook pages, andother digital artwork on there and when you purchase them the agreement usuallyincludes a commercial use license. Another source I’ve found is The Hungry JPEG.You can also purchase fonts on there. All of the artwork I’ve purchased on bothsites comes in 300dpi because they mean for you to print it out.

Size your art to the page size (for 6x9 that means6.125 x 9.25 at 300 dpi using a graphics program. If you have art that doesn’tfill the page (such as an image you want for the top of your chapter headings)you can create a blank page at the trim size dimensions and place your artworkon it where you want it and save it as a separate image. That way it’s consistent throughout and it covers the headersand page numbers on those pages.

Okay, you’ve created your artwork, you’ve designed how youwant your book to look, now you have to put it together. Let’s say you want afull page image to go behind the text on the first page of a chapter. Go tothat page and before placing the image, put in as many hard returns as you’llneed to get to the first line of text. I do this because if you do it after youplace the image, it sometimes scrolls the image down the page.

Go to the top of the page and under Insert, select Picture.Go to the folder where your image is located and select it. Now the Formattingdialog comes up. Under Wrap Text, go to More Layout Options, then select BehindText so the image will appear as a background behind your text. Next go to theSize tab and enter a size larger than your page size so the image willbleed past the margins. For 9.25” height, set it to 9.3”. For 6.125” width, setit to 6.2”. Click OK, then position the art at the top and left margin of thepage. It should fill the page.

Here’s an example:

Go through your book inserting your images on the pageswhere you want them using the same method. Pay attention to whether you’re placingthem on a left or right page, depending on how you want them to appear. I wouldsuggest starting your chapters on a right page, so you may need to insert ablank page here and there so it will fall correctly. To avoid having headers and page numbers on blank pages, I created a blank page image to insert on those pages that fills the page and covers the headers and page numbers.

 

Incubus Released

 

I WOULD TELL YOU TO FORGET ME, BUT IKNOW THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE.

The only reason Dana came to thebohemian Latin Quarter of the city was to find her missing sister. Eva wasnever one to paint outside the lines, so it should have been easy to trace herwhereabouts. But the deeper Dana probes, the stranger things get.

First there is Eva’s interest in arare book on witchcraft full of love spells and lurid rituals. Then the psychicshe consulted before her disappearance urges Dana to leave town before it’s toolate. But the most troubling is the mysterious man in black her sister wasinvolved with. The melancholy poet in the rambling old house who quicklyburrows his way into Dana’s every waking thought and haunts her dreams. Neverone to lean toward romance, Dana’s world is shaken by the nightly fantasiesshe’s ashamed to acknowledge even to herself.

Is it love or obsession that causesDana to stay when every instinct is screaming for her to flee? And if shestays, will she be doomed to follow in her sister’s footsteps?

Incubus, my standalone dark fantasy romance novella, is now available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Read it for free on Kindle Unlimited.

Book Trailer for Incubus

 Just finished creating a book trailer for my upcoming dark fantasy romance novella Incubus.

A Bone to Pick - A Story from The Sacrifice World

 A while back I wrote a short prequel story in the world of The Sacrifice series. I originally had it only available for subscribers to my newsletter, but I'm now including a link here for anyone to download and read it. Just a little story about Laec before the events of TRIAL, though it does figure into the the fifth book in the series, RELEASE.

Download A Bone to Pick

A Legacy in Blood Hardcover Edition

Just released! The special collector's hardcover edition of A Legacy in Blood. This has been a labor of love for me, pulling together the wonderful gothic artwork and formatting this special edition. I also relied on my graphic arts background to design the cover and am quite proud of it.

Available exclusively on Amazon.

Video for The True Soul

 

Just a little something I created for The True Soul.

Special Edition Hardcover of The True Soul

 

JUST RELEASED! A new special collector's edition hardcover with a different cover and beautiful artwork throughout.

RELEASE Published

RELEASE, Book 5 of The Sacrifice series, is now live on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Our intrepid anti-hero, Laec Matthews, may be in over his head in this installment, and while not the last Sacrifice book, this one will usher in a major change in the series as follows:

For months Laec Matthews bounced between preparing for ademon war and wanting a normal life with the woman he loves. One seemed destinedto remain out of reach, while the other threatened to destroy his world.

With all signs pointing to war, it’s now up to Laec and hiscircle of friends to gather battle-ready fighters. Their efforts lead them toforge the most unlikely of alliances, but is it already too late? Has the Queenof Hell learned the secret of the Lock, enabling her to launch a coordinatedattack on this realm? Are those her demons who roam the streets and alleys,picking off unsuspecting humans and supernatural warriors alike?

While chaos swirls around him, can Laec finally claim alittle luck on his side? If so, he has to be ready when the opportunity strikes,because this time, it’s for keeps.