While we still have
some daylight this weekend before the solar eclipse, let me show you
my past week in writing, viewing and even drawing. These include
advice from son of Stephen King, author Joe Hill and the improved
book cover for the paperback version of “Circa Sixty Years Dead”.
Joe Hill Interview on You Tube
This
afternoon, after watching my Saturday morning (vintage) cartoons on
YouTube (actually one was a live-action kids sci fi series from the
seventies, Space Academy ), I watched an
interview with NOS4A2 author Joe Hill. He had a lot of
interesting things to say about his writing and useful techniques he
uses for it. One of those techniques I’d like to try with my own
stories, which helps both story and character development. That
technique, he says, is taking a character from a larger work in
progress and writing a separate, shorter story around it just for the
sake of developing the character. That’s a technique that I can
definitely use since I often struggle trying to write the first draft
of a story due to not knowing my characters well enough yet. For
these and many other great topics Joe discusses, check out the
interview below.
Sketching An Imprint Logo
Whether a
self-published author realises it or not, he or she is a publishing
business. But to make this more official and known to others, that
author needs publicised business promotional materials such as a
business card. A self-publisher may be a small business but a
business nevertheless. There is a term for small publishing
companies and that is “imprint”. “Imprint” actually refers to
the subsidiary of a large publishing house, but it has been used
interchangeably for self-published authors. Lately, I’ve been
drawing concept sketches for the logo for my imprint,
which I’m strongly planning on calling “Far Out Phantastic
Press”. That is, if I can fit all that on the business card.
One of the
implications of graphic design is having to consider the space of the
surface or medium you want to put the content on and whether it will
fit without sacrificing important details. For example, originally I
wanted to angle the lettering of the imprint name in order to give
the effect that it was stretching back into space so it would reflect
the literal meaning of “Far Out” (See first concept sketch below). However, I discovered it would not be practical in a small amount of
space such as on a business card since the first two words of the
imprint name would be too hard to read. So I decided to run the logo
across the surface in a frontal position. Now I need to see if that
can be done without having to make the lettering too tiny and
therefore illegible. Here are a couple of concept sketches.
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| Credit: Steven Arellano Rose, Jr. |
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| Credit: Steven Arellano Rose, Jr. |
Revised Book Cover for ‘Circa Sixty Years’ Paperback
“CircaSixty Years Dead” paperback edition is now
available with its improved cover. However, I only ordered my “proof”
copy of it a couple days ago so I cannot say how improved the
graphics are. But because I
used the tools
suggested by Kindle
Direct Publishing to
make the recommendedchanges, I’m expecting some
significant improvement. You can purchase a copy now, [link]
still only $3.89, or you can wait until yours truly makes the full
test of the product and therefore receives his copy to tell you how
it really turned out. That is, if Monday’s solar eclipse doesn’t
turn out to be a bad omen causing the postal carriers to lose course
in the dark. Because the poor cover of the first release of the
paperback was at least partly my fault, I will leave the price at
$3.89 through next weekend, maybe even through that following Monday.
By then the solar eclipse will have been long done and so I should
have received the print copy in the mail to tell you how
it turned out.
I’ll
have more about “Circa Sixty Years Dead” paperback edition and
the name and image in my imprint logo next post.
Until
then . . .
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