Beyond the Gyre

Just a quick post to say that I have sent BTG off to my publisher for the first round of editing. I am a little nervous, because I had a great deal of trouble with the beginning of this book, and while I am satisfied with the outcome I don’t know if HE will be.

It’s nerve wracking to say the least.

Progress on Wintermoon Ice has slowed to a crawl. My son was home from school all last week with a bad case of the flu. I spent the weekend working on another new cover for Ketha’s Daughter. I’ll post the candidates sometime later today.

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On to the next

Check out the new tab at the top of my blog. It is a page for Dawnmaid, the third book in the series. I’d like feedback on the cover image, if you are so inclined. I originally planned to call this book “Birth of the Dawnmaid” but when I put all that on the cover it looked cluttered and busy. (Also several people said it reminded them of “Voyage of the Dawntreader.”) “Dawnmaid” by itself gives more visual punch, I think.

Picking a title for a book is a serious business. You need something original and catchy that encapsulates the meaning of your work in only a few words. A tall order! I was pretty surprised to find that Dawnmaid hadn’t been used by anyone else.

 

Cover Art

I feel very privileged to be able to do my own cover art designs. It is a very enjoyable adjunct to writing a book. I don’t know much about the marketing science of book covers, although I am sure I could look on the Internet and find out if I really wanted to. But I do know what I like, and what I think fits my work, and so I am lucky to be able to bring that to life. These days one doesn’t have to be an artist to do “art.” There are a lot of free drawing programs out there. I use Serif Draw Plus, which is, I am sure, a pretty basic program, but it meets my needs very well and is easy to use. I have used others (Aldus Intellidraw springs to mind) that were impossibly complicated and frustrating.