I mainly use stock photography for my book cover designs, but if I can’t find anything, I search long and hard to find an alternative. With book cover art, you need to be careful to get permission so you aren’t breaking copyright. But at the same time, copyright laws are confusing and open to creative
Createspace just announced that Matte cover finish is now available for print books, on new and existing titles. For the past decade or so, that option was only available on Lightning Source. So let’s talk about which one you should choose: Matte is smoother and has less glare, but the colors are slightly muted. For
Sometime yesterday my faulty hard drive crashed, so for the past 24 hours I’ve been reinstalling, rebooting, and restoring files – thankfully I recently signed up for an online backup service (BackBlaze), otherwise the loss of data would be devastating. As it is, I’m kind of on a forced leave of absence (I can’t do
Note: I almost deleted this post because I’m not sure whether I agree with myself. Cover design reveals are fine if you have a large audience and you don’t make a big deal out of it, or when you reveal in conjunction with a book launch – like “here is the cover for my new
I’ve been designing covers for a few years, and I often have to confront cover design myths perpetuated by indie-publishing gurus and thought leaders. There’s a lot of advice out there for indie authors, and some of it is contradictory, which has the unfortunate effect of allowing indie authors to accept the advice they like
I wrote this paper a few years ago and plan to publish it, but since it’s just sitting on my computer, I thought I’d share. I’m a frequent migraine sufferer and early episodes (including symptoms I interpreted as paranormal, like hearing voices and seeing flashing lights) were formative of my creative identity. Understanding...
I’ve been slow to adopt to social media. I’m only finally getting used to and starting to enjoy Twitter, mostly because I have an iPhone now and the user interface is more intuitive. People follow me and I follow them back; because I operate in self-publishing circles, that means I have a ton of authors
Most authors don’t know enough about business. While some savvy non-fiction authors succeed through grit, willpower and constant bullhorning, the majority of authors are making a mess of their book marketing and promotion, using decade-old techniques and advice, which will move few books off shelves and even worse, can be detrimental to...
It’s tough to get savvy readers to share your content. Give your visitors some extra motivation with this stylish and simple plugin. Highlighting any text prompts a customizable pop-up to quickly share that text on Twitter or Facebook. Share buttons at the top or bottom of your WordPress post are common. There are a variety
If you’re an artist, author or entrepreneur, you’ve probably heard of Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art and more recently, Do The Work. His books have become manifestos for creatives because they rephrase the artistic life in terms of battle and violence, and help people overcome their fears, doubts and worries. According...
I’ve been noticing a trend for awhile. I’ve commented on it before. At first it was subtle. It began with the explosion of “Lifestyle Businesses” – a few guys quit their jobs and told everybody else, “Hey, you guys should quit your jobs too, it’s awesome!” They set themselves up as...
In most regards, I think authors and artists have a lot to learn from the young entrepreneur crowd chilling in San Francisco and Silicon valley. They are reckless overachievers and productivity chasers with their eyes on the end goal. They are developing “minimal viable products” to test out the market and then...
