One of the facets of the decision to self-publish my books, is the need to createbook covers that are appealing and suit the contents of each book. I am fortunate to have a very helpful photographer/designer (Jason from www.atomswarm.com) who takes my pictures, then edits the images and adds text and details to make each book cover. I’d much rather set up photoshoots of the characters in my books, then have a designer create a less personal cover.
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The first book in the Skywatchers series is now available for Kindle; see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brightly-Shines-Darkness-Skywatchers-ebook/dp/B00AI1AMI6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354695773&sr=8-1
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Thank you to all who sent me feedback, both on the draft cover for my book and on the prologue. Here is the final version of the cover, and, for those of you who asked to read more of the book, here is a link to the beginning of chapter one.
Here is the provisional cover for my first book – what do you think? All comments welcome!
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Several people have asked me where they can read an extract from my forthcoming book, so here is the prologue:-
Brightly Shines the Darkness
Prologue – Ninth Cycle, Day the Third, after dark
At Passenda’s suggestion, the most severely injured priests had been brought to one of the side-chambers of the roundhouse where they had been incarcerated, and she was doing what she could to ease their pain. This was little enough; the warriors had taken away her medicine-bag, and there was not even any fresh water to clean their wounds and cool them. She could do little more than cover them with the cloaks and ceremonial skins of her companions to keep them warm, and use her healing touch to soothe their suffering. Two others who were also healers had seen her efforts and come to assist her, but she knew that several of the wounded would die before morning.
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Having got his pictures, Jason is weaving his magic to turn raw images into the cover picture, and I need to decide on the words for the back of the book. You might have thought this would be straightforward – it’s writing, after all! But it’s not easy, to give a flavour of a whole novel in around a hundred or so words; to say enough about the story to entice a reader to want to know more, without giving any spoilers; to use a style that is in keeping with that of the book, so that readers know what they are getting, and yet serves a totally different purpose.
So I’ve got three versions of the blurb for the back of the book, and I’m posting them all here on this blog, and inviting you to make any comments you feel are appropriate, either at the end of this post, or on my facebook page if you prefer.
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Once I made the decision to work towards Kindle-publishing a book, it became clear that I would have to learn more about modern technology. I investigated a number of blogs about writing and publishing, and found Catherine Ryan Howard’s both informative and entertaining (http://catherineryanhoward.com/), and so I bought her ebook, Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing, which is very helpful for someone like me, as it takes you step-by-step through each stage of, say, setting up a facebook page as an author, organising a website and blog, and so on.
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