Hello everyone and welcome back! I hope the week is being nice to all of you so far. I am still in my calming down stages, which is very nice to have even if I am still at work during them. Things went well so now it's just a matter of getting things fixed (like the washer) and then everything will be back to 100%. We are also literally a week away from Christmas, so I know a lot of you have also just realized that and have started your own form of panicking. Don't worry, you'll make it!
I've talked about a lot of things here in regards to writing and various topics, which is why sometimes I repeat myself. That is sometimes on purpose, because things are important and should be repeated, but other times I will forget what's already been covered. So if we've already talked about this recently I will apologize and someone can yell at me about it later.
Right now my current mission in life is to find things for a good cover image for 'Rending the Seal' now there are several ways to go about it, and my first method is to go to the internet for images that don't have some kind of watermark or have a copyright on them. There are several royalty free image sites around, and I have used them in the past. They are quite helpful. However my search for part of what I'm looking for appears to be in vain and that is incredibly frustrating. I didn't know there was a plant called the Seal or Key of Solomon or just the Solomon Flower or whatever, it comes up whenever I search for Seal of Solomon so that tiny little flower is incredibly frustrating.
I'm sure that I'm not alone in this, not that there are a bunch of other people looking for images of the Seal of Solomon...which there might be? No, more than they can't find the one thing they're looking for that would be absolutely perfect for their cover. There are a few ways to handle this. One would be to use a design software, a reference picture and hope for the best to make your own. Another would be to pay someone you know in some kind of food to do that, especially when you know they are a lot better at it than you are, and have the tools (and computer, and software) to do it without worrying about hardware melting. Another option, and I understand that not everyone has this one, is that through Smashwords, they have a list of people who do cover art and they have access to their own stock images and such. You will need to pay them in real cash money (not food, though I think it should be a viable payment system) but you will get a good cover out of it. Now I also don't know how much creative control you have over it when you work with someone from the Smashwords list, but I'm sure it is different for each person, and the last time I glanced at it the list was some 50-people long, so you do have options there.
Remember your cover is one of the last things you do before officially publishing your work. It is the single cause of both the least and the most stress among a lot of authors. Mostly because they don't think about it until the very end, and then suddenly they need a cover and they hit this blank wall of crazy and can't do anything about it. Then they think about how important good cover art is, and things get overwhelming and the stress piles on from there. I'm sure that isn't doing a whole lot to help. The point is though that in your downtime when you're taking a break or between edits, or whatever you're doing, try to at least get an idea for what you want your cover to look like. That way when the time does come to start working on it, you have a general thing to work with, and you have considerably less stress going into it. You, your brain, and whoever you're potentially working with will thank you.
Thanks everyone for stopping by today! Remember, 'The Light Rises' is still on sale for the holidays and until the end of the year. so please stop by Smashwords and use the coupon UM87K to get the discount! I'll see you all Friday though, so I hope you have a great rest of your week!
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