Flogging the Quill

Covering Friday

Busy doing taxes today and teaching a writing class at the local university this afternoon, so I’m not flogging today.

However, some of you might be interested in looking through some of my cover designs. They’re here, and if you click on an image you’ll see the full cover—front, spine, back.

You’ll find mostly fiction, but memoir and non-fiction as well. Enjoy.

Ray

Tweet

© 2017 Ray Rhamey

My books. You can read sample chapters and learn more about the books here.

Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling

Fantasy (satire) The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles

Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy

Science Fiction Hiding Magic

Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.

Would you visit my design website?

Hi. I want to ask you to please take a look at samples of my book design work--while you may not be in the market, at some time you may know someone who is, and it might be fun for you to see all the variety that's there.

You'll see designs for fiction, memoir, and non-fiction.  Click on a cover to see the full front/spine/back cover in a larger size. I hope you'll drop in for a minute or two. A screen chapter of the samples page is below. To visit, go here or click the image below. Thanks for your time and consideration.

Ray

An ebook primer

Ebooks have become ubiquitous to readers, and many of us utilize one or both of the dominant formats, .mobi (Kindle) and .epub (Nook, iBook, Kobo, etc.). As a part of my book design business, I create ebooks in both formats. To do so I happily stand on the shoulders of developers who designed abilities in the InDesign software I use to export those formats. Oh, there are things I need to do to the narrative to make it play nicely on ebook readers, but I think I’ve got that down.

But what, really, is an ebook? There are answers in What IS an ebook? David Kudler, an ebook designer who understands what’s under the hood. I thought it might be useful to you.

For what it's worth.

Ray

Tweet

© 2015 Ray Rhamey

The art of book art

Whew, it’s good to be back on schedule after the days and days of being down while Typepad suffered a denial of service attack. Why are there such creeps on the Internet?

We writers spend most of our time working with and on our words, but there comes a time when the work of an artist enters the picture. We Indie authors (the PC term for self-published) can’t usually afford to commission the work of a top artist—but that can’t stop us from appreciating amazing art.

To that end, take a moment to look at examples of Ian Miller's Awe-Inspiring Fantasy/Horror Book Art. I can’t begin to imagine the time and talent it takes to execute images such as these. Enjoy.

Ray

Tweet

© 2014 Ray Rhamey

Book cover design—modifying and combining stock art elements

It’s very possible to customize stock art to create a striking book cover that reflects your book. Here’s an example from one of my clients.

Going in, I knew that this was a spy thriller, that a big part of the story involved stolen nuclear materials, that the other big part (that the title refers to) is about young women in the sex slave trade in Ukraine, and that the narrative refers to a web of criminals. The author also had a cover concept in mind that we worked with—as it turned out, she later decided against that and I was turned loose to create something that evoked a sense of danger and suspense.

Here’s the stock art for a spider web that I used.

 

 

Then came the universal symbol for radiation.

 

 

 

Using Photoshop, I gave the web perspective to give it a dramatic dimension. Notice that the spider is gone--I used it on the back cover. And I took out the center of the web to create space for the broken angel/radiation symbol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I distorted the radiation symbol and placed it in the center of the web. Note that the radiation symbol now also resembles an angel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the final cover design. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Molly is a terrific writer and it would be worth your while to check out the book here. She is also an editor and a partner in an Indie publishing company.

Here is the blurb from the back cover and a review:

Under deep cover in Ukraine, Victoria Pierce is operating without a net. Her CIA mentor, Maud Olson, lies in critical condition after an attempt on her life. Her in-country handler is a nightmare come true. Tasked with tracking the secret export of enriched uranium from Ukrainian stockpiles, she collides with a girl on the run from sex traffickers and finds herself entangled in a vicious web that stretches to perilous heights.

"Tinsley’s expert research and eye for detail weave an elaborate web that even [her protagonist] Pierce is challenged to untangle.  Light one moment, dark the next, Tinsley’s writing heightens anticipation: you never  know which way she’ll turn next. ...The [Ukrainian] setting is authentic and evocative  background for Pierce’s dual quest to save girls from their graves and the world from its bombs."
ForeWord Reviews, Winter, 2013

Finally, here is what Molly had to say about my work on her book cover—she is, by the way, a pleasure to work with. As with all my design clients, it becomes a collaboration of artists.

“I went to Ray Rhamey with a rough idea for the cover of my spy thriller Broken Angels; he worked with it to create multiple options. We were all set to go forward with my favorite, when I got some cautionary feedback from a bookseller about my original concept. Whereupon Ray went back to the drawing board and came up with his own concept and design. I love it, and so do the bookseller and many other friends and readers. Ray Rhamey leavens his considerable design talents with patience and professionalism. He's a great collaborator and will stick with you until you have the most appropriate and appealing image for your book.” Molly Best Tinsley, Broken Angels

For what it’s worth,

Inside book cover design

I’ve had a wide variety of book cover design clients recently, and that makes for fun and interesting work. I thought I’d share a little with you about how I go about it.

First up is Kosher Sutra, a food memoir. It’s a funny and good read spiced with delicious-looking recipes. Because of the subject matter and the fun, no-holds-barred voice of the author, Arlene Krasner, the kettle exploding with fun was the perfect stock art to give you an idea of what’s inside. The title font is also fun and perfectly named: Croissant.

Click on the image of the full cover to see a larger version, including another sizzling piece of stock art on the back.

Here’s the blurb from her Amazon page:

Don't let the title fool you. This book does not contain steamy photos of the Ten Lost Tribes in strange sex positions. But it does include knishes, martinis, chimpanzees, road trips, marital woes, and probably the heaviest damn butcher block on either side of the Mississippi. It's about the author's search for a meaningful life, ill-equipped as she was at times to articulate what that truly meant. Yet when all else failed-her career, her marriage, her much-revered but silly-looking AMC Gremlin-she could always rely on her love of food, running the table from comfort food to nouvelle cuisine, or in the words of the musical Oliver: "Food, glorious food." This memoir may not make you laugh or cry, but it will make you hungry. Kosher Sutra is a wonderful palate cleanser that fits sweetly between the courses of Oy vey and Mazel tov.

Next is a very different book—it’s a novel that imagines the life of poet Emily Dickinson. The Voice at the Door tells a could-be-true story of her love for a prominent Philadelphia pastor. Using Photoshop, I combined public domain images of Emily and the pastor with a modified piece of stock art of an antique double locket.

Click on the image of the full cover to see a larger version.

Here’s the blurb:

The Voice at the Door recreates the fateful meeting of Emily Dickinson with the famous Philadelphia pastor, Charles Wadsworth.  The fictional account weaves the letters and poems of this iconic American writer into a rich tapestry of intellectual and spiritual communion.  It encompasses the three great mysteries of Emily Dickinson’s life: her agonized love poetry of the early 1860’s, her partial blindness in 1863 – 1865, and her subsequent withdrawal from the world.

For more on my book design services, please visit Crrreative Book Editing & Design.

For what it's worth.

Ray

Tweet

© 2014 Ray Rhamey

Book cover design workshop coming, maybe a book, too

On Sunday, August 3, I'll be doing a workshop at the Willamette Writers Conference on Book Cover Design for Less than $50.

The workshop will cover these things:

• Tools: the free GIMP image manipulation program
• Resources: the best stock image resources and free typography resources
• Considerations: the goals of your design, things to watch out for
• Techniques: using single images, manipulating color and images for effect, combining multiple images, and more. I'll show the original art used, the type selected, and the process of putting them together for a number of books, including fiction, memoir, and non-fiction.

So I'm building a Powerpoint presentation on the above right now and I got to thinking--maybe people who visit FtQ would be interested in a book covering those topics.

The book would be an ebook, a PDF at the minimum, maybe a Kindle version. It would cover all the topics listed for the workshop, and be illustrated with many many color examples. I think a good price would be $2.99 or $3.99.

So please give me some insight with the poll below--you can enter multiple answers.

Many thanks, and I hope to see you at the workshop.

Book cover design

In addition to editing and writing, I do book design, too, both covers and interiors. I've worked for a small publishing company for a couple of years, and the occasional independent author comes along. Here are the latest of the latter.

Hookernomics is a title suggested by an FTQ reader (whose name I've lost) is non-fiction, ebook-only cover. It's about the business of sex, and I thought the art of a red light worked pretty well for catching attention and lending subtext.

Collected Works is a private book, not available for sale, and at the far end of the spectrum from the first book. It is a book of poetry published in memory of my client's mother. I learned that she had, long ago, kept poems in what she called her "lavendar box," and that was the thought that led to this cover. It's a hard-cover book, and the cover is a "dust cover" with flaps on the inside.

It was a very short book--there weren't a lot of poems--and many of the poems were about one page long. So the interior design for Collected Works uses spreads, graphics, and white space to display her art.

Lastly, a lively, funny "food memoir" by a Jewish author. What else but Kosher Sutra would do? The art I found foreshadows the book nicely--lively, fun, and food (there are some delicious-sounding recipes in it).

Samples of other full cover designs are here.

For what it's worth,

Ray

Tweet

© 2012 Ray Rhamey

Covers make a difference--a big difference

Self-published novelist R.L. Mathewson initially published Playing for Keeps on Smashwords with a plain blue and white cover, but saw a significant sales spike in the iBookstore once she added a steamy Shutterstock photo to her cover

 

 

 

Smashwords founder Mark Coker had this to say:

“The new covers caught the readers eye and it helped clear up any confusion they may have had about the books. The new cover along with the price helped the books sell. I would say that you should avoid covers that cause confusion, are horrible to look at, too plain, or too over the top. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get a good cover, but you do need something that can help draw attention to your book and intrigue someone to take a chance on your work.”

For what it's worth.

Ray

Tweet

© 2013 Ray Rhamey