Book cover design

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The cover is one of those little thing you have to do as a self publish author.

I watched several YouTube videos. I looked at several sites that offer cover designs services. Bookbaby.com listed their cover service at around $600.00. Standoutbook.com listed their cover service at around $495.00.

Using these numbers as a guideline I watched more YouTube videos. Odesk got mentioned several times so I flipped a coin and decided to try Odesk over the others I had found.

Odesk is now upwork.com. Posted an outline of what I wanted as a job offer. Got back a range of bids to do the cover. One was way high. He did good work but the book is barely a novel in length. The payback for the cost of the cover from Bookbaby.com or Standoutbooks.com could take years if the book ever makes any money.

I offered to pay $250.00 for the job, about half of what it would cost at the other services. I got six bids back. I looked at the work each bidder has done for others. I chose the one that had done book covers before in a style similar to steampunk book covers on Amazon. The artist also had done covers with females on the cover. Since I was thinking of having a female on my cover that was a plus. Another bidder has only males on the cover of her works. One had never done a book cover before.

So I chose a person that had done book covers before and they were in a style similar to steampunk covers. The person was a little over the $250.00 offer. I think the artist added the cost of what upwork.com takes as their share/cut to the amount I offered. Simple right. No. I agonized over choosing an artist.

I had a definite image in mind of what I wanted for the book cover, but I am open to suggestions from the artist. I am easy to get along with.

Waiting for the first trail images to come in.

Stay strong, write on.     Professor Hyram Voltage

Writing the end. The beginning, the end, the re-beginning

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Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I wrote “the end”. I wrote it at the end of a book. OK, it’s more of a long novella of 44,000 words. Is it the end? No

I still have some clean up in the book to to do. I will have to crank in corrections to problems that readers find. That’s a fact of life in e-publishing.

I’ve got the book blurb half written. I got a bio picture to update for the back of the book, and the backdrop for the picture to build. I got the cover being worked on. Boy is that expensive. Ask me about making a cover. I may not know anything about making cover but I’m making one. I got YouTube research to do on selling the book.

I also have a half finished second book I need to finish. I have a fan who’s asking for what is going to happen next in the second book. (I was hoping my fan would tell me). Email professor voltage@klystronia.com if you want to be a beta reader.

I got to get some sleep.

Write something every day. Write two things every day. Write ten things every day, your a writer… write.

Stay strong, write on.       Professor Hyram Voltage.