Designing the front covers for my paperbacks is easy. I want them to match the ebook editions, so a little adjustment to allow for the difference in size – thumbnail ebook versus X” by Y” trade paperback – and it’s good.
Designing the back cover is fun! It’s like an art puzzle. How do I take the visual theme of the front cover and continue it on the back in a way that will work? Satisfying to work on the puzzle. Even more satisfying to solve it.
Designing the interiors involves similar pleasures of visual ingenuity and creativity.
All the design work is play for me.
Then comes the hard part!
I upload the files to CreateSpace. I look at the digital proof online. It looks good. I order the physical proof. The margins on the cover are different than those I’ve specified in my files. I make a guess as to what CreateSpace will do at their end.
(They’re not organized in such a way that I can talk with the technician who actually does the work of converting my files for the print-on-demand printing machine.)
I upload the files again. This time, the margins are correct, but the title on the spine has slipped and is lopsided. I make more guesses about the best adjustments to make. I upload the file again and order yet another proof.
The cover is perfect! Yay! But as I flip through the interior – the interior that has been proofread umpteen million times – I spot a typo. It’s in the copyright statement about fair use. I grit my teeth and decide to live with it. Then I spot another typo. Grr! This one is in the body of the story. No, I can’t live with it. I correct the files again. This time, the proof copy is perfect.
I click the approve button at CreateSpace.
And three days later, my book is available for purchase on Amazon! As several more weeks go by, my book makes its way into the extended distribution system. Eventually it will appear in such bookstores as Powell’s in Portland, Oregon and Fishpond in Australia!
Now, that makes it all worthwhile. But you can see why I’m pretty thrilled when I make it all the way through the gauntlet of CreateSpace.
Recently, a spate of my books has passed through that treacherous channel. Today I’m pleased to announce the release of Crossing the Naiad in paper.
Its truth forgotten in the mists of time, the old bridge harbors a lethal secret. Neither marble statues awakened for battle nor an ancient roadbed grown hungry, something darker and more primal haunts the stones and the wild river below.
Kimmer knows the stories, but she doesn’t know why the crumbling span feels so fraught with menace. Her way home lies across the ruin. Dare she take it? Or will horror from the lost past rise up to claim her, when she does?
Crossing the Naiad as a trade paperback:
5″x 8″ trim size • 46 pages
ISBN-10: 061589058X
ISBN-13: 978-0615890586
Amazon.com I Amazon UK I Amazon DE I Amazon ES I CreateSpace
Crossing the Naiad continues to be available as an ebook:
Amazon.com I Amazon UK I Amazon DE I Amazon ES
B&N I iTunes I Kobo I Smashwords
Just a few weeks ago, Crossing the Naiad received a very positive review on Goodreads!
“A quick, refreshing piece of literature. Like a cool sip of water after a grueling endurance marathon . . . It’s swift and concise, but the prose is eloquent and deft, to the point, yet gracefully articulate . . . again I am enthralled with the completeness of the picture the author is painting. The world comes to life . . .”
