A lot of the self-pub SciFi covers are using the Hubble imagery. You might want to look for ones that give more of a sea-like feel, waves & such. Possibly adjust the color channels towards blues or some such to emphasize the Merchant Marine connection. I do like the cover you did for A Light In The Dark – the bands just seem more professional, and make it easier to read the text. I’d never really noticed until I was looking just now, that the lens flares lining up in the titles of QS, FS, and DS interfere, instead of accentuate. The South Coast cover works very well for me, also. I still think you could do some modeling in SL to set up your scenery – maybe two stars, with half of the Lois near the closer star, and the other half far off, next to a further star.
Bummer about the covers. I’m kind of thinking that by this time, with you sales, you’ve bought and paid for the covers on the Ridan editions.
You can also try going to Amazon.fr to see what the French publishers are doing for covers. I find that they tend to have some of the most creative, daring covers of all the international editions. (UK editions are a big thumbs down.)
I am glad to see you added yourself to iTunes, it makes it so much easier on us Mac geeks. I have had your morning walk in Itunes since about the start of your walk, on a Mac all you had to do was right click on the feed URL and you had an option to add the feed to Itunes as an audio file. Updates were kind of iffy though, sometimes two days late. Sink with my Ipod and use an audio player to listen on the pod.
When your books came out to get them I went to iTunes Audio and did a search for “Podiobooks.com” that link allows you to subscribe to all your audio books as an audio list “easy.”
The new Podcast App is simplistic but it does make it so much easier to get your podcast, and Audiobooks, I no longer have to sink to itunes, I get it from a cloud sink or direct on my iPod, automatically, no more sync. “It just works”
If you’re thinking of using the bands again, maybe consider making them semi-transparent? The solid bands can make things look like they were put together in Ms paint imho.
Mostly the ‘galaxy covers’ need a good strong font and a clean professional feel. When I think share series, the covers of Alastair Reynolds spring to mind as a possible. Also, yes to insignia!
I take a lot of nature photos, feel free to use any you like, I just have a few on my website though. The moon shots are my favorite, 8inch celestron mirror with nikon digital, might look good in the corner of the cover.
Have you thought about contracting with your daughter to manipulate a photo into something like sketch art? Picasa works wonders with converting perhaps a photograph of yourself into fine art, water colour or sketch. Sketch of the forest, sketch of a ship, takes about two seconds, results can be impressive. Sometimes. Just a thought.
A lot of the self-pub SciFi covers are using the Hubble imagery. You might want to look for ones that give more of a sea-like feel, waves & such. Possibly adjust the color channels towards blues or some such to emphasize the Merchant Marine connection. I do like the cover you did for A Light In The Dark – the bands just seem more professional, and make it easier to read the text. I’d never really noticed until I was looking just now, that the lens flares lining up in the titles of QS, FS, and DS interfere, instead of accentuate. The South Coast cover works very well for me, also. I still think you could do some modeling in SL to set up your scenery – maybe two stars, with half of the Lois near the closer star, and the other half far off, next to a further star.
I think insignia would be great! I knew you would come up with something neat.
Bummer about the covers. I’m kind of thinking that by this time, with you sales, you’ve bought and paid for the covers on the Ridan editions.
You can also try going to Amazon.fr to see what the French publishers are doing for covers. I find that they tend to have some of the most creative, daring covers of all the international editions. (UK editions are a big thumbs down.)
I am glad to see you added yourself to iTunes, it makes it so much easier on us Mac geeks. I have had your morning walk in Itunes since about the start of your walk, on a Mac all you had to do was right click on the feed URL and you had an option to add the feed to Itunes as an audio file. Updates were kind of iffy though, sometimes two days late. Sink with my Ipod and use an audio player to listen on the pod.
When your books came out to get them I went to iTunes Audio and did a search for “Podiobooks.com” that link allows you to subscribe to all your audio books as an audio list “easy.”
The new Podcast App is simplistic but it does make it so much easier to get your podcast, and Audiobooks, I no longer have to sink to itunes, I get it from a cloud sink or direct on my iPod, automatically, no more sync. “It just works”
“Sync”, “sink” it’s all the same, the audio files sunk just fine.
If you’re thinking of using the bands again, maybe consider making them semi-transparent? The solid bands can make things look like they were put together in Ms paint imho.
Mostly the ‘galaxy covers’ need a good strong font and a clean professional feel. When I think share series, the covers of Alastair Reynolds spring to mind as a possible. Also, yes to insignia!
Forgot to link to the covers… incase the US ones are different: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alastair-Reynolds/e/B000APTREU
Stephen, I think Alastair Reynolds was Michael’s inspiration for the covers he painted.. but I do like them.
Nathan,
I take a lot of nature photos, feel free to use any you like, I just have a few on my website though. The moon shots are my favorite, 8inch celestron mirror with nikon digital, might look good in the corner of the cover.
Have you thought about contracting with your daughter to manipulate a photo into something like sketch art? Picasa works wonders with converting perhaps a photograph of yourself into fine art, water colour or sketch. Sketch of the forest, sketch of a ship, takes about two seconds, results can be impressive. Sometimes. Just a thought.