Joshua Harkin's Blog, page 3
September 4, 2013
New Facebook page
My Facebook page Oldest trick in the book will now be known as Harkin Books in an effort to streamline all of my social pages to the same name. I’m hoping this will help to expand my reach and get my present and future titles out to more people.
August 28, 2013
Indie Author Book Covers: Professional Design vs Pre-Made vs Self-Made
After all of the hard work is said and done and you’ve approved the final edit, it’s time to get yourself a fancy book cover. As an indie author, there are a lot of different choices and paths to go down in this area. There’s the professional designer path, the pre-made path and the self-made path. There are a few variables to consider when making this choice such as budget, preference and personal skill. So let’s explore your options.
Option 1: The Professional Designer Path
Services such as Lulu and Go Book Cover Design can provide you with a professionally designed eBook/paperback cover designs for a nominal fee, often ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on what level of service you desire. They will often be part of a larger package that can cover just about every stage of the publishing process. If you can afford this option, you will be off to a great start as these packages will often include some level of promotion.
Option 2: The Pre-Made Path
Go On Write is a great sight for original, pre-made ebook covers. These pre-made covers have generic titles with custom fonts to demonstrate the potential of the cover. When you purchase a cover, it is taken off the site and will never be used again. All you need to do is give them your title detail and they do the rest. You can alter the text alignment, size and add taglines without any additional fees. For other graphic changes fees start at $10 depending on what you require. You can even buy a cover and reserve it for the future if you don’t have a title ready. They also offer custom jobs similar to the professional option above. I think the pre-made path is a great option as there are some fantastic choices to choose from. The only problem you may have is if there are no covers that 100% fit your vision.
Option 3: Self-Made
For the self made option you are free to make your own cover, anyway you like. It does however require some skills such as a decent knowledge of Photoshop or the open source program GIMP. I myself know a lot about Photoshop and have used the program for many years. Another problem you may have is finding great images that don’t cost a fortune to use. I would recommend using stock exchange a royalty free image depository. The images on this site are free to use provided you adhere to the image license agreement. This just means for a book cover you need to credit the image’s author where necessary. The images are community driven and are approved by the admin to ensure only high quality images are found. They have over 400,000 images at the moment, with some hidden gems just waiting to be snapped up. Another great resource is 1001 Free Fonts. There are a ton of free fonts that you can test with your title right on the site.
Conclusion:
For The Bastion I made the cover myself using photoshop and a royalty free image from stock exchange. 
I had a lot of fun making it as I made about five different covers and chose the one that stood out the most as a thumbnail. Whether you take the professional path, the pre-made path or the self-made path, the most important thing is to have a cover that gets noticed. It all comes back to the old saying “you don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but everyone is guilty of this at one time or another.
August 22, 2013
The new look Harkin Books (formerly The Bastion Book)
Welcome to my newly revamped blog Harkin Books. The blog will detail current and future books I have released or am working on. I will also be reviewing books I have read and try to focus the blog on writing, books and the fiction world in general.
I am currently writing a 21,000 word novella titled ‘Last’. It will be coming out in the next few months and I’m very excited to get it out there.
All there is to do now is to get writing!
August 21, 2013
The Bastion Book is now called Harkin Books
The Bastion Book is now called Harkin Books. I’m also in the process of re-formatting the blog for future titles I’m working on.
August 19, 2013
The Bastion – Paperback on Amazon.com
The Bastion – Paperback on Amazon.com
The Bastion is now being distributed via paperback on amazon.com for all of you paperback lovers out there. For UK readers check out http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-BASTION/dp/1782997741/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 for the same edition. At the moment, this print on demand service means that the paperback editions are a bit on the pricey side, but I’m going to see what I can do to get that cost down as low as possible.
Cheers.
August 18, 2013
Review: The Wall by William Sutcliffe
I picked up a paperback version of The Wall by William Sutcliffe from a small independent book shop in a small coastal town while on holiday. What originally drew me to the book was the cover, and more importantly the tagline. The title reads “The Wall” in a large font with the tagline “which side are you on?” This got me to the blurb on intrigued me enough to want to purchase the book.
The Wall by William Sutcliffe cover
Once I got round to actually reading the book it didn’t take me long to get into the story. The reader is thrown into a world that is quite familiar but somewhat different.
From a first person perspective, the reader follows a thirteen year old boy named Joshua. Joshua lives in a city that has a large wall running down the middle, separating it from an unknown enemy on the other side. Joshua loses his soccer ball one day in an abandoned building site and ventures in after it, knowing it is a forbidden place to be.
Once he finds the ball he stumbles upon an old house that looks like it was left in a hurry. He heads inside to find a tunnel. Out of curiosity he travels down the tunnel that he realizes goes under the wall to the other side.
Once he gets to the other side Joshua finds a world completely different from his own, full of people who seem almost alien to him. It was at this point I realized what this book was truly about, the controversial west-bank settlements of Israel.
Not knowing anything about the book previously, or the author, I was pleasantly surprised at this discovery. The rest of the story was hard to put down as Joshua’s preconceptions and world view quickly turn upside down.
He ventures into the fictional Palestine and quickly gets into trouble with the locals. Chased by some older boys that possibly want to kill him, Joshua is forced to run and hide away. He gets lost in the foreign land that is just beyond his own and is helped by one of the locals. This young girl close to his age speaks his language and helps him to get back across to his own land.
Upon his safe return to his side of the wall, Joshua feels nothing but guilt seeing how badly the people on the other side have it compared to him.
From here Joshua feels compelled to return to the other side and help the family less fortunate than his own. Throughout the book Joshua battles with his guilt while trying to deal with his demanding stepfather and broken mother.
The book deals with the controversial topic of the west bank through the eyes of an hypothetical Israeli teen seeing Palestine for the first time. He was told from birth that these people only want to hurt him and has the knowledge that his own father died at their hands.
Joshua becomes confused and torn between the two worlds as he can’t see the difference between the two worlds. He has difficulties with his stepfather who has a biased opinion about the people on the other side. His stepfather constantly gets in his way in an attempt to protect him.
Reading this book I often felt like I had no idea where it was heading and became pleasantly surprised with overall story arc.
My only criticisms were that Joshua’s character sometimes used language that I felt would beyond the average 13 year old. The second criticism was the ending. While I found it to make sense and be quite realistic, I found it to be somewhat limiting and not what I anticipated.
Overall though the story was well researched and executed. The settings were believable and gave the audience a glimpse into that world. The greatest thing about it was the fact that it is aimed at the young adult audience and would ultimately inspire them to learn more about that part of the world and its many struggles for peace.
I highly recommend The Wall for anyone looking for a good read that mirrors a real world issue.
August 16, 2013
…Calix had as…
…Calix had assured the safety of his family and those around him, so he figured it was time. “Malix, I must go.”
“But, Father,” Malix said.
“Malix,” Calix said sternly. “I made a promise to a man. A man that saved my life and may have very well saved yours.”
“But… Father. It’s just…” Malix trailed off.
“Malix, I am so proud of you. Not only have you kept our family safe, you have helped save the lives of so many people. Now I need you to do me proud and keep being the strong, brave
young man that you are.”
Malix said nothing and hugged his father firmly. “I understand, Father… please come back, soon. We need you. I need you.”
“I need you too, son… Say goodbye to your mother and sisters for me.” Calix patted his son on the head and picked up his bag. He quickly turned to the Citadel and began walking. Calix wasn’t sure how he was going to keep Dr. Lenox’s promise, but would give his life while trying.
August 15, 2013
The Bastion – paperback on feedaread.com
Just got 5 copies of The Bastion from feedaread.com They have a full colour glossy cover and have come out really nice.
August 10, 2013
Old Sci-Fi vs New Sci-Fi
While looking at Sci-Fi Lists top 100 Sci-Fi books, I noticed an interesting pattern. Out of the top 100 sci-fi books of all time, only 5 of those books are from this century. The first occurrence isn’t until rank 71. From the top 10, the most recently written book is from 28 years ago.
This leaves me to wonder why there hasn’t been any recent contributions making the list. Granted this is an online survey, but the list is frequently updated with new, successful sci-fi books quite regularly.
Is it possible that writing science fiction 30 plus years ago, in a time when technology didn’t change so rapidly, authors had the opportunity to amaze their audience with grand visions of the future?
That’s not to say that sci-fi books from recent times don’t amaze people. There are many fantastic examples of new tales that leave the reader feeling like they have just read a future classic.
Perhaps it comes down to the amount of time it takes for a story to become a “classic” that everyone knows. To counter that thought though, the amazing accessibility we have to books these days should speed up this “classic” process somewhat. A book can become a sensation over a much smaller period of time than from say 50 years ago.
Maybe it is simply a matter of nostalgia. I myself will always pick George Orwell’s 1984 for my favorite book of all time, thinking back to the first time I read it. It becomes hard to see past that experience when a story grabbed onto so tightly and changed your outlook on the world.
Whatever the reason, I like to see some of the modern day classics make their way into the top ten. That’s not to say I want to see the past masterpieces forgotten, I just don’t want to see the genre stuck in a time warp.
Check out the list for yourself at http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html
August 6, 2013
Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post: A Pando meta media mashup
A whole lot has been written about Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's purchase of The Washington Post. It’s been all over the news, on TV, radio, in newspapers, online and raining down on the blogosphere. We sifted through all that mass of media to bring you a curated mashup of the best of the Bezos-Washington Post coverage, every sentence taken from somewhere else.
Very interesting article.
