Witchy books for Halloween promotion.

I'm going to be participating in a special promotion with some other writers over at the kindleboards.com forums, starting October 30 and running through November 1, 2012. If you like books about witches, check out the Facebook page, or the blog. There will be special deals on the books--either free or reduced price--and some giveaways.

I'm in the final stretch of finishing my book, need to tidy up some parts, and send it through a proof-read. I may have mentioned that this book is under a pen name, which I hadn't planned to make a big secret about. It's just different from what I usually write (no zombies! ha ha), so I wanted a different name associated with it. Some day, when I'm famous, the book will be reissued with the "writing as..." tag line.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

I've been working on the cover--a lot. I couldn't begin to tell you how many different images I've gone through! Finally I decided to go simple. It can always be redone later--one of the joys of self-publishing is how fast changes like that can be made.

Here's what I settled on:

By the way, I made this in my new obsession, Photoshop CS6. I'm amazed how nice that program is. I used to work in GIMP, which is a free program that is totally awesome, but I've wanted to do the 'shop for a while. Someone was nice enough to give the program to me, and I just love it.

The book should be available by Wednesday (depending on how long Amazon takes). I'll have it up on Smashwords as well, where there will be a code to get it free for the three days of the promotion. If you aren't aware, Smashwords has various formats available to download. I will probably have it at Amazon for .99, since you can't go free there (at least, not without a lot of time and hassle to get around the rules) if you aren't in the Select program.

I will be working on formatting the book for print, but that may take a week or so. I have to research the Createspace guidelines some more before I feel confident enough to upload it there. After it's done, the print version will be available at Amazon.

Check back on the first day of the promo for updates. I may be inspired to offer a little giveaway of my own. wink wink nudge nudge

Until next time, Gentle Readers. Keep calm and get your spooky on.

Oh, no, she's blogging again!

I really tried to restrain myself, and let all the excitement from my outrageous posting streak die down. But I just can't help myself.

I know. I'm so horrible. Subjecting you poor readers to this rambling mess I call my life. So sad.

BUT I have writing news, and the world must hear it! I finally got off my butt and put up one of my stories, which has been on Smashwords for like over a year now, on Amazon.

The big news is I changed the cover on my suburban zombie tale. I like the cover much better now, really gives it the creepy vibe I was trying to get the first time.

My GIMP skills have improved a lot over the last year--thank you, youtube--plus I found an image that was awesome. As soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to make it work, even though it was an odd, narrow rectangle shape.

Add in a really nice rustic wall image, and I had the basic cover. The two images were close in color and tone, so I didn't have to work too hard matching them up. I colored the eyes, but left the rest of the image alone.

The erase and smudge tools got a lot of use this time, and I got an unexpected grunge-look overlay by partially erasing a layer that helped blend everything together.

Here's a comparison of the two covers. The original:

And the new one:

I still need to update my slideshow, there's more rewrite on my novel to be done, and I have a couple of short stories to finish (and find cover images for), but it's early and far too hot already to go outside.


Well, there you have it, Gentle Readers. Another tale of a struggling author in this brave new electronic publishing world. Take care and read on.