Stephanie Bibb's Blog, page 54

Behind the Scenes – A Wolf Slayer Saga: Dragon Sword

This is a cover for Melange Books. Since we knew we had a sequel coming, we put a little more focus in setting up the basic structure of the cover… the wolf head at top, the series name on the side, and the placement of the title and author name. We also played with the mood, choosing the dark blue color for the forest and the red of the title to create a dramatic, dangerous tone. We chose a model with multiple poses, though I did a bit of photomanipulation to make him look more like how the...

Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report and First Chapter of Magic’s Stealing

Where does the time go?My day job started up again a couple days ago, and I’m currently readjusting my schedule to be able to be productive and notspend all my time daydreaming about what happened in the role-play campaignthat my husband and I just finished this week. (A main character got a bittersweet ending… not the ending he was hoping for (he’s a fourthwaller), but an ending that left him reasonably happy and with his mind intact).

Anyway, while I’mreadjusting my after-work patterns, I t...

Behind the Scenes – Sojourn: The Deadlands

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we chose to keep the theme similar to the first book in the series,Sojourn: The Wildlands. To do this, we kept a few key elements: the two characters walking with their backs to the reader, a desolate landscape, similar placement of the title treatment and author name, along with the late evening lighting. Though we tried a couple different proofs before this, we found this one to have the strongest appeal.

This is the end result:

Stock ima...

Blogger Recognition Award

Today I’m doing something a bit different.Kellie Dohertynominated me for the Blogger Recognition Award. I’m glad you liked my blog enough to consider me. The Blogger Recognition Awardis basically a way to let other bloggers know you appreciate their blog.I’ll admit that I am terrible at blog-tagging.However, I figured I’d go through at least part of the process. :-)

Rules for The Blogger Recognition Award

Select fifteen other blogs you want to give the award to You cannot nominate yourself...

Thoughts on Writing – Creating a Fantasy Map

I recently received my finalbeta-reader commentsfor Magic’s Stealing, and I’ve been making edits (I’ll be doing a cover reveal soon!), but today I’m going to focus on one of the ideas that the beta-reader suggested, which was to include a map of the region.

A lot of fantasy stories include a map of some sort as a way to help readers envision the layout of the land, or the city where the story is taking place. Mapscan be used to enhance the feeling of the story (seriously, take a look at the m...

Thoughts On Writing – Using Subplots To Tie Everything Together

Last time I blogged, I talked about figuring out what happens next in a scene. That process helped me out considerably with the scene I was working on, along with a few scenes before that. However, I’ve been running into a new problem–figuring out how to get the ending to fit together.

The story I’m currently working on is supposed to be a romance with science fiction elements. One of the scenes I visualized for the ending was… well… not romantic. The characters stay together, but there’s thi...

Thoughts on Writing – Figuring Out ‘What Happens Next?’

As you may have readin my last blog post, I’ve been working on a new adult, science fiction romance set in the Distant Horizon universe. Which has been… interesting, to say the least. Romances in that particular universe have a habit of not ending well.

However, since I challenged myself to write a romance, and not a science fiction story with romantic elements, that means I’ve got to figure out how to give my hero and heroine a happily ever after with each other. Or at least a happy-for now...

Thoughts on Writing – Developing Character Relations

While waiting for beta readers to finish readingMagic’s Stealing, I’ve been doing a lot of edits on The Multiverse Chronicles. However, editing is not writing, and I got the itch towrite.I didn’t want to move tobook two of The Wishing Blade series until book one was complete, and I just finished reading On Writing Romance, so I decided to attempt to write a new adult, science-fiction romance. It’s set in the early days of the Distant Horizonuniverse, where super villains have secretly taken o...

Thoughts on Gaming – How Online Pet Sim Sites Helped Me Develop as an Author and a Book Cover Designer

My husband recently picked up a free appon his tablet: SimCity BuildIt. It’s a rather addicting game where you build a city by collecting resources from a factory, make various commodities and goods, and then use those goods to upgrade houses or sell on the global market. If you sell the goods, you make simoleons, the game’s currency. Needless to say, Isaac and I managed to work outa system (at least while I’m waiting for my seasonal day job to start back up), where Isaac manages the actual c...

Thoughts on Publishing – Guest Author – The Importance of the Title

Quick Announcement: Thank you to everyone who pitched in with their thoughts about which author photo they liked best. I’m currently deciding between 1 and 4, and I plan to announce which one I’ll primarily use when I do the cover reveal for Magic’s Stealing.Thanks again!

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Today I’m doing something a little different. Today my husband (and co-founder of Infinitas Publishing), Isaac, is going to be a guest author. He’s written a post about the importance of atitle.

Take it away, Isaac! :-...