About my blogs

Hello, welcome to my blog site.
I use these pages to not only promote my book series:
Crystal Waters, but so you can get a taste of what
really goes on behind the scence, so-to-speak.
My thoughts, idea's and feelings are poured lovely into, what I call, my diary for all to see.
I'm sure there will be many happy moments, emotional traumas and doubts, but it will all enhance my
intention; to capture an honest and heartfelt progression-log of my life, as a writer.
Hope you enjoy :) Any comments are most welcome.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Book cover votes

Well, there is good news and bad news. The bad news: publishers have yet again let me down after getting my hopes up. But the good news: I've finally made the decision to take matters into my own hands and self publish my book.

After much browsing on the Internet and talking to already self-published authors I decided to go with 'FeedARead' This leading independent, art council funded, publisher sounds perfect for my needs. It is free to join and not only prints on demand but also distributes and promotes your books all over the world. Their printers have the largest global distribution network of their kind with over 30,000 wholesaler's, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries. So good news for my book to get as much coverage as possible.
The whole process takes about 6-7 weeks so I'm delighted to say my book will be in the shops by Christmas :)

The first process was to download their book template and then copy and paste my entire interior of my book onto it. A little tricky (as I'm not a great computer expert) but after a little jiggling and tweaking I finally got it just how I wanted it to look. It was then sent off for approval and I was pleasantly surprised how quick this was. The final result looks great on Adobe format. It looked so professional, I was positively beaming inside :)

Then of course was the book cover design to tackle. I enjoyed this process hugely. You could either choose from their designs (which were fab) or download one of your own. I decided on the latter.
However, this led to a slight dilemma: which one to choose?? I had the professional one that I had won from the writing competition (the door on the front with two cartoon character girls on the back.)


 
Or my own painting of my Iris lady opening the door with a Crystal and water  on the back.


I decided the only way to decide was to put it to a public vote. I first asked on Face-book, and put up my two book covers on there for people to look at.
I had some great feedback and quite a few people commented on their idea's, which of course was greatly appreciated. Most of my adult, Face-book, friends went for the door, saying that Iris and the Crystal looked great but would expect children (who it's aimed for) would more likely choose the door as it looked more child friendly.

I also sent off emails to friends and family for their opinions too.
That afternoon, I received a very exciting and interesting phone call from one of my friends I had sent an email to. She works in a local Primary school, and when she received the email she decided to ask her class what they thought too. And so, she put up on the big screen my two book cover designs and asked them what they thought. How important did that make me feel? immensely I can tell you!!
What a great result she got as well! 65 out of 68 children (aged between 8-10 years old) voted for Iris and the Crystal on the back while only 3 liked the book front cover and the cartoon girls on the back.When my friend asked the class why they made their choice, they said it was because the door didn't look very exciting and the cartoon characters looked rather babyish. Whereas Iris (the lady as they said) looked intriguing and they were more likely to want to pick up this book and read it.

Well, I'm no mathematician but I'd say that was quite an outstanding majority for good old Iris. Yey! I must admit, I was secretly over the moon as I had painted Iris long before I'd even started the book, six years ago, which means, she has been with me the whole way on my 'writing the book' journey. It seems only fitting now to have her on the front cover don't you think?

Thank you to you all that took part in my book cover votes. It was such a great way to get peoples opinions and had fun along the way, which always is a great bonus. :)

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