Tag Archives: publishing

November 6, 2013 · 8:00 am

Santa’s Special Girl – Book Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books. Today I talk about how photomanipulation is like a puzzle. 🙂

Santa's Special Girl - Book Cover

This was a case where character creation was useful. The author requested that we have the little girl sitting on the other character’s lap, who is dressed as Santa. In this case, I didn’t have much luck finding the perfect picture from the main stock site I used, so I wound up putting a few photos together to create the resulting image. Found a guy dressed in a Santa suit who matched the description– changed his hair color. Gave him a slight smile. Found a Santa hat. Found a little girl sitting cross-legged in pajamas– helpful. Found a sitting Santa to use for the lap… and used puppet warp on the arm. Found a background. Put everything together, and voila! Photomanipulation is a bit like putting together puzzle pieces, but it helps to have an idea of what the pieces look like before starting the search to find the right one. Kind of like finding the corner pieces first and working your way into the puzzle from there.

Stock Photos from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-teen-punk-santa-image5438109
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-portrait-handsome-guy-image3590996
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-girl-sitting-santas-lap-getting-hug-image27538055
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-beautiful-six-year-old-girl-sitting-pajamas-over-white-image125808
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-doctor-s-office-image480487#_

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June 19, 2013 · 7:00 am

Cover Reveal – Shadow Trail

This is another cover for Melange Books.

SBibb - Shadow Trail Cover

 

Photoshop CS6. Stock from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-woman-red-snowmobile-image17555834
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-forested-shoreline-winter-fog-image7463413
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-young-woman-winter-portrait-image8065139

Sometimes cover design is a process of elimination. Sometimes you hit a design everyone in the cover design process likes the first time around. When I read the cover art form for Shadow Trail, an idea formed, and searching for stock, everything was right there. I placed the elements did some tweaking, then presented it to the author. It worked, yay!

So we put the final cover together with a few more tweaks. As a side note, fonts can help a cover stand out from the rest. A while back I purchased a package of 10,000 fonts, and every once in a while I’ll check to see what I can find there, especially if none of the fonts I currently have are quite working right. (http://www.ultimatefontdownload.com/) Granted, some of the fonts are available for free, if you’re willing to look for them, but here everything is compiled into an easy to search area, for which I use Font Viewer to find what I’m looking for. 🙂

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May 29, 2013 · 1:00 am

Cover Reveal: Spirits of the Pirate House

This is another cover for Melange Books.

SBibb - Spirits of the Pirate House

Stock Used:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-old-wooden-manison-south-image18682006
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-smoking-image10381260
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-pirate-captain-image1336783
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-man-pirate-costume-pistols-image23677904
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-pirate-image20856919

Putting this cover together was a doozy. While many of my previous covers have been 2-4 stock images, plus textures, this is an example of using digital manipulation to create an entirely different character. Take a look at the different stock images used, then look at the final product. The palm tree was shorter, the pirate consists of several different stock images, a bit of photoshop to make him look angrier, plus doing the color changes and removing the trinkets in the hair. Plus changing lighting. So if you like seeing how you can piece-part an image together, this is the one to look at.

Overall, though difficult to make sure everything was placed as desired, this was a nice review to photomanipulation for creating a new image. 🙂

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May 22, 2013 · 4:00 pm

Cover Reveal – Unfinished Business

This is the cover for Unfinished Business, from Melange Books.

SBibb - Unfinished Business Cover

Stock Used:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-syringe-cup-coffee-image17032004
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-close-up-gold-french-coin-napoleon-wooden-table-image29942453
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-france-map-image10577480

For this one, the cover turned out to be relatively simple to do. It’s a suspense/thriller. For this, since it is supposed to have a noir feel to it, I used a dark blue primary color, as well as a grunge tinge. Originally there was a thumbtack on Paris (in the stock photo), but at the request of the author, I placed a syringe over Marseilles, where part of the story takes place. I also looked for French coins as part of the cover texture.

The point of doing this is to give readers a sense of what the story is about, and small nuances can make a world of difference in how a cover looks, and whether or not it is picked up by readers. Not only that, but if it’s picked up by the right readers. A cover can get a lot of attention, but if your cover looks like a paranormal romance, and the book is hard-sci, it’s not going to get the correct attention, and may even get negative reviews because the readers didn’t get what they expected.

Something to keep in mind when creating concepts for book covers. 🙂

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January 28, 2013 · 7:00 am

Cover Reveal – The Lone Werewolf

SBibb - The Lone Werewolf

 

This is a book cover I did for an upcoming book, The Lone Werewolf, from Melange Books.  The stock images used are from Dreamstime: (http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-angry-wolf-image18076302 and http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-heritage-days-image2981113). All other images are my own. 🙂

 

I used Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4.0.

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November 3, 2012 · 7:00 am

Mercy – Book Cover Reveal

This is a book cover I recently completed for Melange Books. This one is for their anthro/furry line of books. 🙂 It’s slated to be released this November.

Stock from Dreamstime was used for the tiger and person walking, the rest of the photography used was my own. Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4.0.

SBibb - Mercy Cover

 

As a side note, I’m testing out the ability to schedule posts, so we’ll see if this works. 😀

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August 1, 2012 · 4:09 am

Building A Better Monster – Cover Reveal

Today I get to reveal the cover for Building A Better Monster, by Christopher Treagus. 😀 The book is anthology of stories, published by Barking Rain Press.

SBibb - BABM Cover

You can find the book here:

http://www.barkingrainpress.org/products/building-a-better-monster/

To put the cover together, I used multiple photographs I’d taken earlier of various animals, then put them together based on the different descriptions I’d found of a chupacabra. The publisher wanted a gridwork frame behind it, based around the concept of “building” the monster, and I want to thank my husband Isaac for giving me an idea of how to do it. Anyways, this is the cover that I completed. 🙂

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July 18, 2012 · 11:13 am

Marketing Your Book

So, as Isaac and I get closer to finishing Distant Horizon (and thus starting querying), I’ve been doing reading on how marketing of a book is done, both for trade and self-publishing. After all, both are looking for readership, right? I found a few interesting tidbits I thought I’d share.

One is the article at the link below. It talks about how marketing is done of a book in the trade publishing world, and points out some good tips that could probably also be used if you’re self-publishing, too. It talks about the importance of marketing as a way to gain publicity, but that marketing doesn’t always equate to publicity. It’s that word-of-mouth you want, when you get other people promoting your book without your asking. Needless to say, I thought it was an informative read:

http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-dont-we-throw-some-money-at-it-like.html

Another interesting idea I came upon was the idea of offering signed prints of your book cover (if it’s one that looks really good)  for the first people who buy your book off Amazon and show you a receipt. Found this at Madame Guillotine’s blog, here: http://madameguillotine.org.uk/

Of course, ARC (advanced reader copies) are also a good idea, and it looks like Goodreads contests may be a good way to get publicity for them. The hope, of course, is that they’ll read your book and leave a review, and maybe, just maybe, recommend t to a friend. 🙂

Also, another neat blog (not so much on marketing, but on publishing) I found is called The Intern: http://internspills.blogspot.com/

Thought I’d share that, too. Anyways, that’s all I’ve got for you at the moment. 🙂

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May 11, 2012 · 6:50 am

Premade Cover Art – Now Available!

Great news! I’ve just started offering premade covers on my facebook page. 😀 Prices will vary, depending on the difficulty level of the cover. Please keep in mind that the font, color of font, and placement can be changed depending on your book. Also, minor adjustments can be made with regard to overall color cast of the image, blurring, etc. Feel free to ask if your interested in one of these covers. 🙂

SBibb's Photographic Illustration - Premade Cover 8

Recognize it? (From banner above) This is one of the covers available to be purchased, and happens to be a wrap-around cover. (Can also be done as a front cover). Great for fantasy or sci-fi, and especially young adult. 🙂

Premades: http://www.facebook.com/sbibbphoto
Custom Designed Covers: https://sbibb.wordpress.com/book-cover-design-services/
Main Website: http://www.sbibbphoto.com

So, if there’s anything you’re looking to see, just ask. I’m going to continue uploading more covers over time, and hopefully get some new ones created soon. 🙂

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April 6, 2012 · 1:24 pm

My Recent Discovery of Book Trailers

So after reading the post (http://www.ravven.com/blog/2012/03/la-estrella-book-trailer/) by Raaven, which had the book trailer for La Estrella, I started getting an interest in book trailers. To be honest, I’d never really paid them much attention. I figured that if I’d read the blurb and that would tell me whether I liked it or not.

But then I started looking at book trailers, and the movie-like quality of them fascinated me. Some where less than thrilling, but others quickly caught my attention. The one Raaven mention, La Estrella, has me wanting to read the book, though I know very little Spanish. (Here’s to hoping it eventually gets translated).

Another one that caught my eye was also posted by Raaven (http://www.ravven.com/blog/2012/02/book-trailers/), called Harbinger. Personally, it’s not the type of book that I’d normally pick up, though I was fascinated by the trailer. I would give it a look now if I saw it in a book store, though I probably would have passed it over before.

Now publishers are also promoting thier books with book trailers through Facebook.

Starters instantly caught my eye, and I went on to read the sample chapter. Needless to say, it’s now on my to-read list (consequently, I signed up on Goodreads just to keep track of them all).

Starters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNUsW1CItY

The other recent one was Under the Never Sky, which I’d previously ignored. After seeing the trailer, I definatly plan on giving the book a chance.

Under the Never Sky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0TnH3GEieE&feature=youtu.be

Would I go out and buy the book on the trailer alone? Probably not. But the ones that catch my interest do get me reading the sample chapters.

And one book trailer just made me happy, because it was advertising book two by showing the ending of book one. If you don’t want spoilers for Matched, you might not want to watch the trailer for Crossed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovn8-Jp3ckM

Anyways, twas a thought I had. Personally I really enjoy these movie-esque book trailers, and whether I self-publish or traditionally publish the novel I’m working on, I’d want to consider the possibility of making a trailer. 🙂

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