Golden Fae is not coming out until I finish some other deadline projects first, but a couple of years ago, I was at conference and there were a number of YA book bloggers there so I passed out my book marks. An author said that I needed to make my cover fonts more uniform because it was a series.
These are the book marks that show the non-uniformity. Now I’ll have to change them out. But for now, I just need to get the books redone and uploaded.
The problem was the books came out in different years and my computer has crashed a number of times. So I lost fonts and couldn’t find the ones I picked up along the way. One of the covers was done for me, so she had put my name in the middle of the book. And on a couple, I had put my name at the bottom, the title at the top. All were in different fonts. So I upgraded my Photoshop Elements 5 to 13, not yet ready for a subscription service for the bigger package that designers are using so I could get some upgraded fonts and use them.
This font gives a slightly more whimsical appearance because they are YA, though adults love them, and they do have a lot of humor. All my books do. My daughter told me once when I said that darker seemed to sell, I’ll make mine darker, “Mom, you always have rainbows in your stories.”
🙂 <3 Not rainbows literally, ever, hmm, I should put one in one of my stories…but figuratively. I always have humor in the stories. It just comes naturally for me, even though the stories have some thoughtful thoughts that are more serious.
What really got me going on this though was I had just created a cover for a novella that will be in an anthology. I didn’t realize they were going to include covers or that I’d have to have one so soon. So since my cover artist is swamped, I didn’t want to bother her with making one just for the novella. And came up with this.
But what really got me started on redoing the fae covers was that a fellow author–which I love, by the way–shared that she used this really cool formatting program for her books, it was easy, and took no time at all. It creates Table of Contents, Epubs, Mobi, has cool large letters at the beginning of a chapter, automatically turns the first sentence into caps for scenes, has a neat scene divider, automatically converts my left adjusted mss to book format, AND has all the headings for me so that I don’t have to mess with them. Like, chapter 1…and Preface, About the Author, etc. And the best part? It has a box you fill out with the code for your book on Ibooks, Amazon, and BN. I need to set up a different file for one for Kobo.
It’s Vellum, and what’s really neat is that I can take my Windows docx and slip it into Vellum on my Mac, add a few book details and then upload them to Ibooks, something I couldn’t do before. I was going through Smashwords. But it’s always better to go directly through the site as covers and such were taking forever to be updated by going through the middle man.
I’ve had the Mac for a while, couldn’t figure out how to use it, so when I learned about Vellum (only on Mac unfortunately), I was determined to learn how to do it and upload my first book to Ibooks. Since I’d already moved Dragon Fae over, though not the first in the series, but at the time I hadn’t uploaded it to SW, I figured I’d finally get a new book uploaded to Ibooks. Didn’t happen. So I used it as my test project.
After getting it set up the way I wanted, I submitted it. And worked on The Dark Fae, first book in the series next.
So why did this spur me to change my covers? They wanted bigger covers. Uploading to BN and Amazon, the file size had to be smaller. Ibooks wants bigger. *sigh* So I changed out the two covers, and then realized if I had to go through all this work with all of them, I might as well make them all uniform. So I’ve got to do that again and reupload them. *double sigh*
And that’s it. Two books uploaded to Ibooks, pulled from SW. The other neat thing was that you can automatically create buy links to a book you want to include in the back. Maybe I should include it for the whole series. Hadn’t thought of that. But in any event, I have the excerpt to the next book, and now the buy link to the respective vendor. And the other really cool thing is that they take that one bigger cover and immediately resize it for all the vendors. I love all the features that helped me to save some time, even though I’m redoing covers, which I needed to do anyway.
But of course, I turned in She-Wolf edits, they changed the title for SEAL Wolf Diving for Trouble to SEAL Wolf in Too Deep (which means they’re working on the cover), and I’m still working on Billionaire. I’ve been managing word count, though if I could just stay focused, I’d have it finished. I have 17,235 words to go, and I’ve been printing out pages and editing it every day. Stayed up past midnight to work on it some more.
I hope the new covers work for the fae series. What do you think about Covert Cougar Christmas?
I’m also working on Taming the Wild Cougar, but that will be a full length novel.
Okay, I’m off and running! Have a super great day!!
Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
Connect with Terry Spear:
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Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com
I might be different than everyone else, but as long as it has the series title in there somewhere (Fae in this case!) and the plus of the number, I’m golden! All I care about with the covers is that they resemble the hero and heroine in some way and have something to do with the storyline if there is a background 🙂 When I read the book I often look back at the cover. If you like the covers, leave them! If you want to change them then do it, but don’t be bullied into it! Some bloggers think that they are all that and a bag of chips…they are not! Everyone has an opinion (which is all a blogger is giving you) and the ultimate one is yours <3 These books are your babies, we just get to share them. Whatever you decide to do, we will be happy <3
You are so sweet, thanks so much, Terree! 🙂 <3 When I started with the first book, I had NO idea it would turn into a series, until it sold like gangbusters and the next thing I knew, I had all kinds of fans asking for the next book, and next, and next. 🙂 Then I had them asking what order they were in, so I went back in and put the number on the cover. 🙂
It's so true about how everyone has an opinion. Someone didn't like the Golden Fae cover because she thought it was too sinister looking. But I had like over a 100 comments saying fans loved it. I did too, which is why I picked it for the next cover. 🙂 Thanks again! And I'm glad you're enjoying my books!!!
I like what you have done with the covers for the Fae books and I agree with the uniformity only because you put them altogether on a bookmark. Otherwise it has never bothered me before. Your Christmas cover is great, I just love it. There is something that is bothering me about the Taming the wild Cougar cover. Seems to be a proportion thing. Think the cougar is too small or people to big for where they are laid out, but I love the colors and vividness of it.
I seem to have read the Fae books out of order, will have to go back and fill in the blanks. I happen to like this YA series because of the humor and lack of “horror” darkness that has turned me away for others. Keep up the good work, I haven’t met a book of yours I didn’t enjoy or finish.
Thanks so much, Cathy! Yes, when I get the new book marks made up, they’ll look so much better. Thanks so much on the Christmas cover. 🙂 I thought it turned out beautifully. I was messing with the font on Christmas. Found a Christmassy kind, so when I have it ready, I’ll post it and see what you think.
On Taming, I didn’t make that cover. I love the colors. I needed one that was different enough from the first two or I was afraid that folks would get them mixed up. They made the wolf too small on my Christmas cover and I asked to make it larger because that’s half of the appeal of my books. 🙂 The wild animals! 🙂 <3
I agree on the YA. I couldn't believe some of the horror and darkness I read in several. In one, he/she killed off everyone I loved and the heroine was an idiot. The whole way through. No character growth. Everyone helped her through and then they died. At the end, my daughter and I disagreed whether she ended up with the demonic guy or the good guy. lol It's bad when you don't even know how it ends. Thanks for loving my books, Cathy!!! 🙂 <3