Serena Simpson's Blog, page 6

Pre-Made E-Book Covers Part Two

There are many sites on the net that offer premade e-book covers. Before I go any further I would suggest you look at them, by them I mean all of them. Yes it will take time, but consider it a valuable investment in your books successful future. Also remember it is hard to make a choice if you have no idea what the product market is.

I decided to change the name of my first e-book from Another Bad Day to Charlie’s Bad Day. This meant I had to change the name on the cover since I owned the cover, but not the files to change it, it meant I needed a new cover. This time I skipped fiverr and looked for a different venue.

I found Author Marketing Club. I was rather excited about looking around. Again I went with wide eyed wonder. I love the net, I thought how great it was for making one’s dreams come true. Author Marketing Club has a page filled with great looking e-book covers. I showed my friends some of the ones I was interested in and they looked and showed me what they liked.

Unfortunately they did not have a cover like the one I wanted. I am so unique and different, I thought of course no one has the cover I want. I did find a cover, one I really liked and still like. I watched this cover probably for a month or more. Nope I did not just buy it I wanted to make sure I wanted it. Finally I pulled the trigger and sent the money to purchase this cover.

Why did it take me so long? There were several reasons although I knew the website was reputable I still did not know the website. I tend to get tense when I am paying money on nothing but faith. The payment system was set up so that you use paypal to pay for the cover, once that was done I sent the information via e-mail about the book. That went without a hitch. I e-mail Jim Kukral that day to ask questions I had, he answered each one. Then I sat back and waited with baited breath.

Four days passed and I reminded myself that he was a very busy man and my e-book cover was probably very low on his list of things to do. Of course it was number one on my to do list. Finally the cover came and I was so excited I showed my editor/ beta reader. She quickly pointed out a few flaws and I deflated, I had seen them, but I was trying to overlook them.

I sent an e-mail back thanking him for what was done and asking if he could make changes and the waiting game started again. Three days later I had not received the correction and even though I knew I should show more patience I e-mailed to ask when I might get the corrected cover back. He sent it back that same day which made me happy. The cover is on the site for you to look at. The prices range from around thirsty dollars on up, the highest I remember seeing was a little over one hundred dollars. This is still cheaper than some of the sites that will create an e-book cover for you.

My verdict on Author Marketing Club. It is a great place with lots of fantastic e-book covers. If you have not visited the site you should. Take a look around, maybe even become a member. Seven days may seem like forever if you’re me, but honestly a week is not long to wait for the e-book cover you want. Many places take longer than that.

Begin to look for your e-book cover early. It will take away some of the stress.

P.S. The original book cover I wanted for Charlie’s bad day was an executive looking into a mirror and his reflection showed as a killer with a knife and blood on him. Recently I saw something close to that. A man looking into a pool of water and the reflection was another side of him. As much as I would love to think no one can match my creativity, I understand that ideas are free flowing in the ether. So if you see your book cover someplace it probably wasn’t stolen someone simply plucked the same idea you did. Thank God for the ether!

Pre-Made Book Covers – Part One

This three part series will cover some of what I have learned about pre-made cover options. I am doing this because when I started looking for a cover for my e-book I quickly learned my budget would not get me far.

In my perfect world everyone would have the cover they have spent hours, days and maybe months dreaming about. Unfortunately this is not my perfect world and you still need an e-book cover.

If you listen to some of the popular podcast that cover topics of writing and self-publishing I am sure you know how essential a cover is. You have probably even heard some ad reads that have made you run off to check out different e-book design companies.

You may have been disappointed when you realized just how much using that service would cost you. I know I was and I was also left in a bit of a bind. I would pay a lot to make my book cover perfect because… it’s my book. Duh! That did not mean it would be the wisest thing for me to do at this point.

My child likes to eat… go figure.

This again left me in a bit of a pickle because I needed a cover. Not only did I need one cover but I anticipated needing four or five covers for the remainder of 2014. Once I realized that having a cover made was probably out of my reach. I had to come up with a new plan.

Fiverr.com – The new plan

I had heard on different you tube channels that fiverr was a great place to get a book cover. Wow I said with eyes full of wonder, I can get a book cover for five dollars. The web is amazing. So I quickly made a dash to google and typed fiverr in my search bar and I was there quicker than Santa on Christmas Eve. (Forgive me I have been asking my child what she wants for Christmas).

I found fiverr to be a happening place with many talented people. I quickly found some that had great book covers in their slide shows and I hired them to make me the best book cover ever.

The book in question was called Another Bad day and has now been renamed to Charlie’s Bad Day. I spent ten dollars on book covers. I had two different artist make me a cover. Neither could make me the cover I wanted. There were several reasons they could not provide the cover of my dream. The main reason was they were unable to find a picture that was for sale like that was even close to what I requested. I was not daunted I asked them to do their best and I waited.

Finally it was time and I was excited they had done and to be very fair what they did was nice. I just was not sure if I walked into a book store and saw the cover that I would pick the book up to read the jacket. Having no other choice I used it.

Below you will see the first cover I used for Another Bad Day. I think you will agree with me it was not bad.

My fiverr verdict.

There are some amazing artist there, but if you are a fiction writer trying to get the best cover for your ebook will cost you closer to a hundred dollars. This may be doable for you and if you find someone you think will do it justice you may just try this road.

If you are a non-fiction artist this may be just what you’re looking for. I loved some of what I saw. Done with simple graphics or a simple picture and beautiful wording. You may want more if this is not your first or second non-fiction book.

To all artist. Fiverr is just five dollars. I would say if you’re not sure give it a try once, twice maybe even three times it will help you to get a good idea of what you are looking for.

Free Promotion

This is just a quick post to say that Charlie’s Bad day will be free on Amazon from 10-10-204 to 10-14-2014. If you haven’t picked it up yet now is the time. Happy reading.

The Red Band Society

Tonight I watched the Red Band Society with my 14 year old daughter. I have to admit it is an amazing show, but not for the reasons you may think. My daughter was born with Sickle Cell Anemia. Because of that we have spent many hours in the Emergency Room and days that turned into weeks as an inpatient in the hospital.

So as I was watching the children on television, I had my daughter filling in the reasons and the pain before they could articulate it. It gave me a chance to talk to her more about her experiences. As we watched the pilot she said to me ‘Mom why are you crying?’. The reason of course was I could feel the pain portrayed. It’s was easy to do since I have been there. I have watched my child suffer, while watching other parents watching their children suffering.

In the end what I loved most about this show was that it is a story of hope. I believe Nurse Jackson said ‘Your life is your life. No one but you can live it.

This brings me back to what I originally wanted to write in this post.

Do what you love. Life is short and I was reminded of that fact tonight. I have met so many people who are stuck due to bad choices or simply how life played out. Now they believe they can never get out. They think life will be the same till the end. To steal a saying ‘I have been there and done that.’. I want to respectfully submit that hope is still alive and well. As long as it lives and breathes you can make a change in your life.

You are not stuck unless you choose to be. That last statement sucks and I know it. It sucks because I have to apply it to my life everyday, but its still true. While I am stealing statements someone once said ‘You are the change your life needs.’. Honestly I think they are on to something with that one.

So here’s my call to action (CTA). Die Happy. Help some one across the street. Make your million plus dollars. Start your business or go to art school. Write your novel. Every time we make ourselves smile with joy then we have something in our bank that we can pass along.

But what if your miserable? Then be miserable going where you want to go. Getting to the sweet spot is never easy, but I hear its worth it.

Signed

I Dare

What Makes You Happy?

I wanted to vent some more about e-book covers, but I put it on hold in favor of this subject. You may be wondering how happiness has anything to do with writing. If you are then I may just surprise you.

I have spent a large number of years unhappy. I don’t mean depressed or at least not clinically depressed. I don’t mean I wasn’t having any fun because I was. I was simply unhappy. I spent a lot of time covering it up or even ignoring that fact. I mean its life no one was meant to always be happy. Right?

Now because I don’t want you think I was an unhappy camper of one I need to point out something’s. I have worked several places in my life and the majority of the people I worked with were unhappy. For a long time I rode the bus to work and got to know a segment of the population that was unhappy. Like most people I walk the streets (not as a street walker!). I listen to people talk as they pass and a good bit of them are unhappy.

Why?

For me and some of those I know personally it comes down to not doing what you love. Forget about love most don’t even like what they do. Have you said to yourself I want to go home the minute you walk through the door of the place you work. I hear people say this all the time. Unfortunately I have been guilty of saying those same words.  Which brings me to what makes you happy.

Writing make me happy. I knew this in the back of my head where I tend not to venture. When things got to bad in my life I would find myself writing a story or telling a story. I loved telling my daughters stories that I made up when she was younger.

So what do you love to do? What makes you happy? I have a friend who is going crazy trying to figure out this very thing. She wants to change her life, but is so mired down in what she is doing and her fear of the future that she finds herself doing nothing.

In everything I have done I can now look back and see one constant. I wrote. Do what makes you happy. So what if you are not setting the world on fire. If you are happy your making it a better place. Take a chance – Don’t be stupid, but take a chance and do what makes you happy.

Come join me maybe we can write together!

What’s in an E-book cover?

Do you love book covers? I do or at least I used to. I could spend hours in a book store just looking at the covers and I definitely would pick a book up to look at based on its cover.

Funny thing though when I decided to write my first e-book I never thought about needing a cover. So there I was writing away, loving my book more and more each day until voila it was done. I was so happy. I had done it. We talked about editing earlier and may again in the future. The book was edited and all that was left was to upload it to Kindle, right?

What about a cover? My very first cover I ended up using fiverr and I was frustrated very quickly, but I needed a cover. I briefly thought about making one. I could blow the dust off of gimp, I actually took a rather in depth course on the use of Gimp. I was rather sure I could make a cover, a rather unique one if I had the time. Time was not my friend in this case and I set the idea out of my mind. On my first book Charlie’s bad day I used the cover made on fiver. I actually had two covers made and used both of them. In the end I decided they did not come across the way I wanted and went to Authors marketing club and bought a pre-made cover I really liked.

So everything is great I thought I will just buy premade covers for all my books and life will be good. Wrong. My next two books were done and are about to come out and I needed a cover for them. I started looking on google for pre-made e-book cover sites. I found them. Lots of them and at first I was glad. I looked through every fantasy and sci-fi cover I could fine. I lie not there were thousands of them. Nothing but sheer perseverance kept me looking. I quickly acknowledge that I would have to raise my budget to get a good cover. Closing my eyes to the money and crossing my fingers I agreed to spend more than I wanted to on my book covers. Heck winter coats are over rated, right? LOL!

I looked high. I looked low. I found the in between places and looked there. No matter how hard I looked what I couldn’t find was a cover that made me happy. So eventually I decided happiness much like winter coats, was over rated. I simply needed a cover I was ok with. So I looked again. In the end I couldn’t justify the spending lots of money on covers that were just so-so for my needs. So my friends said look for covers without people on them.

I geared myself up to look again for covers that simply used images of places and things to convey the message of my books, no such luck. In the end I came up with an idea of what I might want my book cover to look like. I wanted my book cover for Hope to look like this. I wanted a city background with swords at the top (I just like swords) and a silhouette of an angel at the bottom. Then all the appropriate words. I quickly got rid of the angels they did not look right. I ended up with the three book covers above. If you have one you like more than the other drop me a line and let me know. P.S the above book covers are all from fiverr.

I will be talking lots more about covers. This is just a warm up.

I just need a book, right?

Welcome to my online journal. I write about my journey and what I discover along the way. I am spending all of my free time writing consequently the blog will talk about it a lot. I am not writing this blog for writers just wanted to get that out of the way.

Now I want to give a shout out to Simon Whistler at The Rocking Self Publishing Podcast (rsp). I followed his tutorial on creating my website and despite all the changes that made me want to pull my hair out, I did it. So a great big thank you goes out to Simon. Thank you Simon!

I have been writing since I was a child, but at the grand old age of eighteen I told my dad I wanted to be a writer. He was not nice about telling me no. I could do anything else, but I could not write. Well I could write just not pay the bills. So I did something else, but I can still see myself laying across the bed with a pencil and tablet long after I had said goodbye to eighteen. Great times and good stories that I enjoyed writing and reading.

Fast forward to 2014 when I realized that I had a chance to live my dream. I listened to so many different people tell me how I could write something and put it up on Kindle. It was an exciting thought, but the things they were writing bothered me. I did not want to write about how to build a deck or the best flowers to plant. To be honest I had no interest in either of those subjects. So although I dreamed I did nothing, simply because it seemed rather shady to me.

Then I learned about people who were actually writing great stories, the kind I love to read and again I was excited. That’s how my journey started. I just needed a book then I could upload it and everything would be great, right? Wrong. Editor? Who needs an editor? I do! Book covers cost what?!?

Writing has been a revelation, but I love it. Hence the website and everything else I do to keep writing. The things I mention are just the top of the iceberg so if you want to write do it. Everything else falls into place as you get there. If your a writer on an extremely tight budget write anyway.

Why? Because if you wait until your solvent or your world is going better, there’s a big chance that you will never write.

So yes all you need is a book. You have to start somewhere.