Hey there! Just wanted to give a shout out that we’re preparing for Geek UP 2023!
If you’re going to be in the Houghton, Michigan area on September 9th, come check out some awesome vendors, a fun cosplay contest, and three celebrity guests (Hint… if you like Sonic the Hedgehog or Legend of Zelda go peek at the link above for more info on the voice actors who are going to be there!).
Plus, it’s a charity event, and this year is benefiting Unite Mental Health and Wellness. 🙂
Isaac and I plan to be there as well with our books and art (and stickers!), and we’ll have Starless Nightavailable in paperback for the first time!
Come stop by our booth, and don’t miss our new interactive element this year… find out what kind of Wishing Blade Universe magic you would have! (Let’s just say you’ll get to choose a ribbon, place it in our handy little “revealing light” box to see what color it glows, and then match that to one of the characters who uses the same kind of ribbon magic. We’ve been enjoying the arts and crafts element a bit too much this year.) 😉
Overall, we’re really looking forward to the event, and I’m happy to report that we actually have almost everything ready to go this time (no staying up until 3am on Friday night frantically trying to finish organizing stuff).
Meanwhile, here’s a sneak peek of the stickers we’re going to have available (if you haven’t seen them debut at Black Ice Comics and Books).
Looking forward to seeing everybody there. 😁
((P.S. I know I’m overdue on the monthly status report for Infinitas Publishing… by a couple months now. Hopefully I’ll get that written up after the event as well. And send out a couple of newsletters. All is well! Just been trying to get everything organized. 😃 ))
📚 Today I’m taking a look into how I redid the cover for the first book in the Deceived series (formerly called Galina’s Saga).
Part of the process for the 🍪 Newsletter Ninja Cookie Challenge I just completed was to get a cover for your cookie (a cookie is a reader magnet for your newsletter).
If you already had a series started, you could provide the cover artists with example covers you already had. If you were starting a new series, a worksheet (blerksheet, for those of you familiar with Newsletter Ninja) was provided to help you figure out which genre conventions to include.
I chose to do my own covers rather than hiring an artist (since I already generally do my own covers).
Additionally, I wanted to redo the cover design for the whole series before figuring out what the cookie’s cover would look like.
This is my process for redoing that cover art, based in part on the process from the Cookie Challenge’s worksheet.
Deceived has been through three cover styles at this point:
While I like all of them, I wanted to really lean into the YA scifi dystopian aspect.
The first cover sort of leans the right direction, but doesn’t really have a good focal point. The second cover is true to the story and showcases the superpowers aspect, but doesn’t quite fit with genre trends.
This is my most recent version:
To create this, I narrowed down a Pinterest board of books in the YA dystopian genre, specifically those where it didn’t look like romance was the main plot (because dystopian romance has a different cover scheme).
Now, in theory, I should probably be focusing on indie published books, since I’m also an indie author.
However, I chose to include both self-published and traditionally published covers, searched from both from Amazon and from Kobo.
Additionally, while the worksheet originally suggested aiming for the top 100 from Amazon, I didn’t restrict my search specifically to that. Reason being that I wanted to niche down further into non-romantic dystopia (a lot of the top 100 on Amazon were either dystopian romance, post-apocalyptic, or set in space, which has a different look).
Since my strategy is going wide rather than in KU, I figured it might not hurt to choose from a wider sampling. (Testing and time will tell if this was a bad idea).
From that research, I marked all the various commonalities I could see, and how many covers those traits appeared on.
From that list, I determined that the most common elements I wanted to focus on were:
* Blue/White Combo * Bold Font * Sans Serif Font * White Font * Plain/Simple-ish background (usually with gradient or vignette) * Grunge/Broken texture of some sort * Title in Middle * Large Symbol * Horizon or City Visible
Ultimately, I chose to go with a white gold title instead of white, because I wanted it to look a different from the Divergent and Steelheart covers (which I wanted to lean toward since I think those are the closer matches for target readers), and I figured the gold would work well to harken to the yellow/orange splash found on a few of the other covers.
I didn’t go with a specific symbol, like I initially wanted, because the story didn’t lend itself to one.
After feedback from Tammi (course instructor), and other students in the Cookie Challenge course, I added a bit more interaction between the title and the cover (more water splash/glass breakage), and tinkered with the gradient. I also made the author names bigger so they’d be more likely to be visible at thumbnail size.
This is the final result:
I hope you enjoyed this look at my cover design process! 😀
Eighteen-year-old Jenna has always believed the Community is safe. So when a man claiming to be her dead grandfather warns her that she’s going to fail the mandatory Health Scan because she has powers, she thinks he’s crazy. But when plants start acting strangely around her, she uncovers the terrible secret regarding those who fail the scan.
Enjoy young adult sci-fi with a magic element? Super powers? Unusual gifts?
Definitely don’t miss this free ebook giveaway! 😀
(Note: The giveaway above is hosted through BookFunnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
Looking for a free fantasy ebook to read? Check out this giveaway!
(Note: The giveaway above is hosted through Book Funnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
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Enjoy young adult science fiction and fantasy books? Don’t miss this giveaway!
(Note: The giveaway above is hosted through Book Funnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
For this week’s ebook promotion highlight, I’m featuring the YA Sci-Fi promo!
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Don’t miss these free young adult science fiction ebooks!
(Note: The giveaway above is hosted through Book Funnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
Looking for YA fantasy and sci-fi? Check out this giveaway!
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Want a variety of YA series starters? Try this giveaway!
This one ends soon, so check it out today!
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(Note: These giveaways are hosted through Book Funnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
Last year, I wrote a post on outlining a novel with the goal of reaching between 50,000-60,000 words in 12 days (a condensed version of NaNoWriMo). This was for a cyberpunk Snow White retelling.
The goal was met, I did a bit of editing on that project, handed it off to a beta-reader, and then sat it on the proverbial back burner.
Though I was busy with other projects, I occasionally thought back to that cyberpunk fairy tale but didn’t do much with it until several months later, when (in classic fairy tale-style fashion), I had a dream that I was busy editing the cyberpunk story.
Later that same day, the beta-reader who’d read it contacted me to ask if I had a cover for it yet or if I had made progress.
I took that as the “go-time” flag to get back to work on that project.
(I’m not kidding. I really did have a dream about editing the story before getting contacted out of the blue on the same day by my beta-reader. Coincidence? Probably. But still a great story to tell about the writing process of a fairy tale retelling).
Anyway, I proceeded to make revisions, sent it out to another round of readers, polished it, did a read-aloud for errors, and then proof-read.
The book… now dubbed “Huntress” (and the first in a series), released on Sunday. 😀
*Happy-dance*
If you’d like to see how it turned out, grab a copy!
From now until Sunday, December 9th, you can grab it for 99 cents (or read it for free with Kindle Unlimited).
And, of course, you can get an idea of what the original outline looked like (and what changed) by reading the original post here).
Without further ado…
Huntress
A YA Cyberpunk / Dystopian Retelling of Snow White
Her touch is poison.
Verdi is a huntress for Koenigin Corp. She’s augmented. Perfect.
Determined to earn her dear president’s favor and finally have her voice heard, Verdi agrees to target Maria Snow, the favored candidate of the Society for Natural Progression, in an acid attack.
After all, once Maria is no longer so lovely, surely she’ll accept the nanite-based technology that can remove her scar—thus branding her as a traitor to her cause.
But when Maria Snow refuses treatment and Verdi catches her secretly meeting with an enhanced, sapient bird, she realizes Snow might be the one woman who can forge an alliance between the technology-loving corporations and the nature-oriented Progressionists.
Forced to choose between loyalty to the corporation who raised her, and falling in love with the woman who could finally unite the two factions, Verdi’s decision will change the face of the city.
(Note… I don’t plan to keep Huntress in Kindle Unlimited forever. The first three months are a test run, and then, depending on how it does, I plan to eventually release it wide across other retailers.)
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In the meantime, I wrote the rough draft of the sequel for this year’s NaNoWriMo. I used a similar process, creating an outline (though I diverged more from it), and writing 50,000 words in ten days instead of twelve.
Now it needs editing, but the start of the story is there. 🙂
This is the final book in Tim’s story, following what happens when a second terrifying airship made from shapeshifters and technology is created… only this one isn’t as obedient as the first.
With Spirits of a Glitch, the Glitch Saga is now complete, I’m off to work on other books in the Distant Horizon Universe. But, seeing as how those books still need editing before I can release them, why not check out Tim’s story in the meantime?
“We are legion. But you, Master Zaytsev, are only one…”
Nineteen-year-old council member, Tim Zaytsev, is tasked with removing glitches from the council’s newest living airship, the CLS Manticore. Like its predecessor, the Manticore is formed from living shapeshifters. Their minds were wiped and their memories erased, but the occasional “ghost” of their personalities remain.
Removing the “ghosts” should be simple after dealing with the first vessel. But the task descends into madness when the Manticore traps Tim within its fleshy walls and attempts to force him to join the shapeshifters who made the merge.
Determined to undermine the ship’s dangerous, telepathic games and convince the other council members that the ship is manipulating them, Tim must summon a courage he’s never had, the courage to stay and fight. But doing so would force him to confront the vessel alone—a path that can only end in his destruction.
For our first giveaway, we have a wide range of young adult books with speculative elements. Science fiction… fantasy… horror… If you’re looking for speculative YA, give this giveaway a look.
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The second giveaway has a variety of fantasy ebooks, so if you want fantasy, this is a good place to start.
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(Note: These giveaways are hosted through Book Funnel. They will usually ask for your email address. In most cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
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I hope you find yourself a good book. Let me know if you would like to see more of these posts. 🙂
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 