Digital Only Contracts

Last night on #IndieChat, we talked about the publishing industry in regards to ebooks. There were a lot of questions thrown around about where publishing will go in the future. Will ebooks do completely away with the paper version? I don't think so, but it did make me wonder about something I'd read earlier in the day.

In one of my other writing groups, a person asked what we thought about a publisher offering a contract for her digital rights only. That would mean she wouldn't have the printed version at all.

There were several opinions tossed around, most not happy with a publisher that would limit an author like that, especially with the "Right of First Refusal" clause limiting the entire series to this same format and publisher.

So, I'm curious. What have you heard about publishers doing this sort of thing? Would you sign a contract for ebook only? What would be your conditions if you did?




Christine (C.K.) Bryant is the author of BOUND, the first book in The Crystor Series. Her second book, BROKEN, will be released next month.

You can read more about her and her books on her blog HERE.

Creating Your Own Cover

The first thing you need to decide when making your own book cover is the size. The average size for a digital novel is 6 x 9 (inches). The pixel count is 1800 x 2700 at 300dpi. Be sure you get the highest quality photos available. You'll want your cover to ROCK! It's the first thing potential readers will see and it could mean the difference between a sell, or them moving on to the millions of other e-books available to them.

I had an idea of what I wanted my cover to look like. That's good in some ways, bad in others. Because I had the picture in my head, it made it very difficult to find the right photo. I scanned hundreds of stock photos on three different sites before finding it. And it's PERFECT.

This is Kira, the main character in my YA Paranormal Romance, BOUND. Don't you just love her eyes?  Okay, so I love the photo, but right away I see problems. For one, it has an ugly blue background and it's taken in landscape, not portrait, which will limit how much of the photo I can actually use. But I still love it, so I played with the "watermarked" version until I knew it would work, then ordered the high quality version from DREAMSTIME. Here it is:

As you can see, I flipped it horizontally. I didn't want her nose on the spine of the book. Something you need to consider when making your own. Think of the placement. Now I needed to crop it and get rid of that background. I use Photoshop CS3 to edit photos, but there are a ton of free programs out there.

This was the most time consuming and tedious step. I didn't want to lose the integrity of the photo or all her whispy hairs, so I blew it up and literally erased one pixel at a time along her hair line.

Now for the back ground. I spent several more hours (yes hours) searching for the right background, but didn't find it. Then I remembered a few photos I took when camping a few years ago. Here's the one I used.

I cropped the section I wanted and placed it behind the portrait of Kira. When I was finished, I realized I had yet another problem. UGH! The portrait didn't fill the 6 x 9 inch cover, at least not at the size I wanted. You can't see it very well above, but there is blank space at the top and bottom. I didn't want her face any larger and I didn't want to distort it by stretching it.  What I decided to do was fill the space with black and then texture it a little.

Here it is!

MY AWESOME COVER!

Here are some tips to keep in mind while in the creating process:

1) THINK AHEAD!  Thank goodness for my friend Ali Cross who asked a very important question. What about the other covers? Will you use the same model?  *panic* I hadn't thought of that. Frantic, I searched the stock photos and luckily found a whole slew of pictures taken of this same model. Whew!  I've since purchased two for the same price as this one. Now I'm set for the entire series. I've also saved all three photos in several different places in case my computer crashes.

If your book is the first in a series, make sure you like the style of the first cover because the rest of the books in the series should match. I'll use the same font and place the title and my name in the same positions. The only real difference will be the photo used, and even that will be similar. The photos I purchased for the other covers are all head shots of this same model. Uniformity is key here. You want your "fans" to recognize your work. (Yes, you're going to have fans.) SQUEEEEE!

2) THINK SMALL!  Remember that this cover will be a little tiny thumbnail on Amazon.com or wherever you choose to sell your book online. Make sure it rocks TEENY. Is the title visible? How about the author's name?


3) THINK POD!  Are you doing a printed version (print on demand)? If so, you'll have to create a back cover as well. For mine I used the same background photo of the forest. I darkened it a little so my cover copy would show up and then added a fun element. The story has a white tiger in it, so I cropped one from a free stock site and placed it in the forest. I still might darken it a little more, but you can at least get the idea here. What do you think?

You'll also need to create the book spine detail, but that should be easy enough. Be sure to leave room at the bottom right for your BAR CODE and ISBN number. And you'll want to leave plenty of room for those endorsement quotes from Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling, right?  RIGHT?

If you'd like to know more about creating book covers, join the INDELIBLES on Tuesday, March 27 on Twitter for #IndieChat. Heather McCorkle will join me and a few of the other Indelible authors to answer any questions you may have about covers. It starts at 9:00pm EST.  


SEE YOU THERE!!



The cover for Christine's second novel, BROKEN, will be revealed on April 1st, 2012. Watch for it!!

It's All About ME . . . Or At Least It Should Be

A couple weeks ago I hit rock bottom. The stress level in my life had pressed so hard against my sanity, that I completely shut down, retreated from all my internet responsibilities and stopped writing. I was so overwhelmed that I even pulled back from friends and family. Sooo not like me.

I didn't sleep, but stayed in bed all day. I didn't eat. I cried for no reason. Depression, you say?  Yeah, just a bit.

It had been coming on for quite some time, but I'd somehow managed to hide it until our family dynamics changed and I found myself not only taking care of an almost-eighteen-year-old son with autism (with severe behaviors) and a 75-year-old mother-in-law (with advanced dementia). I could handle my son . . . barely, but to add another responsibility was just too much.

I cracked.

And in a desperate attempt to gain some control of my situation, I folded in on myself. NOT GOOD.

So here I was, having my own kind of pity party, not letting friends in, family pushed away, wallowing in the muck, when I began to reflect on my life. Okay, maybe the fact that I'm about to turn 50 had something to do with that too, but the point is, I discovered something. After 26 years of marriage, helping my husband run a restaurant for most of that, taking care of two boys with disabilities, losing one at 23 to a heart defect, and spending every moment taking care of everyone else . . .

I forgot to take care of ME. I forgot to LOVE me. And I never put me FIRST in anything.

How could I possibly care for others when I'd been neglected? How could I show love for those around me when I didn't even love myself?  And most of all, how was I going to put myself first, when I'd always been second or third or tenth?

The answer isn't easy and it certainly won't come all at once, but today I took the first step. I went to a doctor who specializes in Bariatrics (weight loss). They drew blood to check all the important stuff like cholesterol, blood sugar, thyroid, etc. They did an EKG to check my heart. You  name it, I was checked out from head to toe.

And then they got to the stuff that was a little hard to stomach. *gulp* I stepped on the scales. (Not revealing that number. Nope. No way) Then they figured my BMI (body mass index). EMBARRASSING. Took all my measurements. ICK!  And I sat through a 45 minute presentation on how I can become a healthier ME. Pure torture, because I found out what I'd been doing wrong all these years and why I'm so unhealthy.

Like, DUH!

There's a whole list of things I need to work on, some physical, others spiritual and very personal, but taking this first step, to be healthy, has made me smile. And I haven't done that for a long while.

My favorite quote from today's presentation?

"Nothing will change . . . unless there is change." (think about it)

How are you treating yourself these days?  Anything you can do to show yourself a little LOVE?

~ Christine