Making your own book covers.

This is my last National Craft Month post for writers!  I’ve shown you how I created my writing space, made art of our goals, and even character collages.  Today I want to talk about making your own book covers.  Whenever I’m feeling uncreative about a project, usually around the 10K mark, I like to pause on the project and create a book cover for it.  Now, this isn’t something I plan on ever using or making my own book with.  It’s just something I use as a visual trigger for my book.  A few times I’ve printed one out as an 8×10 and stuck it in front of my printed manuscript in a binder for revisions, but people rarely see these from me anymore.

Let me just say right now before I go any further – I am doing these for fun.  Not for profit.  Not to stick on a book and sell it.  These are just another crafty thing to do that involves my writing.

The second super important thing I’ll say: ask permission to use any artwork you want to display anywhere.

Tools.

I’m going to use a few different freeware programs and online resources.  You can google and find other stock image sites, use Photoshop or any number of other things.  Below are the tools I will be using:

• Gimp
• Paint.NET
• Picnik.com
• DeviantArt.com

The first two are freeware graphic/photo editing software that can be downloaded. I prefer using Gimp to alter pictures.  It has some great resizing tools and allows you to move images without auto cropping them.  I’m more familiar with it than I am with Paint.NET which could be half of my problems.  User error often is.

Picnik is an online program similar to the two above, except you just handle one picture.  You can put text or ‘stickers’ over the image, but you cannot upload two images and mix them.  Mostly I use Picnik for it’s amazing filters and the fun fonts.

I usually get my images from DeviantArt’s stock gallery because it supports people who are learning, and you get some great student stuff from the site.  Also, people are really excited when you use their images and give them credit.  If you’re wanting to make a book cover for a book you will be selling, contact the artists and see if they mind you making a for-profit project using their work.  I can’t tell you that their response is 100% one way.

The Pieces.

Below are the images I’ll be using.

I decided I wanted to go with a steampunk idea.  I love steampunk but my attempts at writing it haven’t gone off so well.  So I can indulge with a little pretend book cover making!

Assembling.

I’m going to start in Gimp.  This isn’t a how-to-use-it blog, so I’m going to gloss over a lot of the finer points.

I have a basic blank template that is 900 x 600 pixels that I begin with.  I import all of my pictures as layers and begin  deciding what I’m going to use and what I’m not and the general placement of everything.

Looking back, I should have first altered the colors of the female with the dreadlocks.  The colors in her image were darker than the rest.  Unfortunately she ends up fading into the background, overpowered by everything else.

Once I get everything on my project, I start erasing what I don’t need.  Backgrounds, extra stuff, I want to strip it all away so I can see the images I want to work with.  At this point for me the objects aren’t always scaled properly to one another because it’s just too difficult to get it just right in the beginning.

The thing that honestly takes the longest about these projects, is getting rid of every single bit of the excess ‘stuff’.  I like to start out with the really big eraser and just wipe out the big stuff so that when I come in with the tiny eraser there’s less for me to worry about.  I work with the touchpad on my laptop.  Yes, I know that it’s tedious and your hand will probably hurt.  I spent probably an hour on this one.

Once I have all of the erasing done, I start positioning and scaling objects around each other.  I like to layer backgrounds, using transparencies to make it new and exciting.  When everything’s where I want it, I save the project and export it as a picture and take it into Picnik.  GIMP has a lot of filter options, but I’ve never fallen in love with them.  I find the ones on Picnik easier to use, and they have nifty fonts and the drag and drop banners are easier.

Here’s the first book cover image with no filters:

Honestly, it’s a little sloppy. You can tell that I was really rushing with the erasing, but the blocking of the people isn’t that bad.  Unfortunately I hadn’t yet realized that the chick practically disappeared.  I realized that much later.  Next, I took it to Picnik.

Here you can see my first attempt at the cover.  I dropped the text over the image with a few filters

I like to double up my fonts, this means that I have the title text in black, and then again in another color.  It helps it to stand out from the background without the use of a filler square of transparent stuff behind it.

I’m not crazy about this cover, because this was about the point in my little ‘production’ that I realized what was wrong with it.  The girl faded, and the car popped… Hm. Back to the drawing board!

I decided to reblock the picture.  When I say blocking, think theater or any design really when you deal with placement.  Since I wanted to keep the female in the forefront, I moved her, resized and took it all back to Picnik.

Here’s the original busted project:

It’s not terrible, but you can see what I mean when I said it just didn’t jive.  Now, here’s the same project with bits moved around a little…

I think the results on the second one are by far better!  The female is in the forefront, the focal black and white stresses the three primary pieces of the cover – the girl, the dude, and the ride.  The background is also more apparent in this version.  I’m still not crazy about it, and if I was working with more than going on two hours I would get something else together.

Other Examples

So there you have it!

Do you have any graphic editing tricks or tips to share? Have you made your own book covers before?

The character collage.

In celebration of National Craft Month, I wanted to do some crafting related blogs for writers.  I already showed you how to create a writing space and display your goals as art.  This week I wanted to do something I’ve never done before, but I’ve heard about!  Character collages.

This is going to be a photo heavy blog, so apologies in advance, but the best way to do this is by showing.

I knew when I decided to do this that I wanted to stay away from a piece of poster board with tons of magazine cutouts slapped on it.  I wanted to do something that was a little more artistic and simple, so I set out to gather my materials with that in mind.

Materials.

1. Pictures. I printed out pictures that I thought identified my characters.  First was the concept pictures of the characters themselves, and then a few that touched on either their dreams, family, or things they held dear.
2. Frames. I specifically chose to frame these, wanting to go with a shadow box feel.
3. Stickers. I ventured into the scrapbook section at the local craft store and got a few things that I thought went with my characters or said something about them.
4. Paper. Like I said, I wanted to go with something a little more artistic than just a piece of white poster board, so I substituted fancy scrapbook paper.

Assembly.

Putting together your collage is all up to you.  There is no right or wrong way to do it.  That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do a character collage.  I’m not a great artist and I tend to fudge the instructions on things.  Here are some suggestions though:

• Measure and cut your paper or poster board before you begin.  Lay it in the frame and test how it looks just to make sure!
• When cutting the pictures, don’t just make straight squares.  Round the edges, make designs in the lines, or give it eight sides instead of four.
• Before you glue everything down, really look at where you want things to be placed.
• Don’t over-glue the pictures!

Display.

I have plans to rearrange the photos on my wall and display these two collages over my desk along with my goals, so I don’t have any pictures of them hanging to show off, but I’ll walk you through each of my collages and tell you why I picked the things I did.

Meet Gretchen Flynn, or Flynn as she prefers to be called.  She is the heroine in my horror story I’ll be starting very soon.  I lucked out and found a picture that almost perfectly fit the description I had in my head for her.  In retrospect, the background is a little too busy, but I really liked the blue, vintage feel.  It’s a little girly for a woman who is pretty bad ass.  In Flynn’s free time she plays hockey for a league in Houston.  Before this, her free time was spent being a paranormal investigator.  She’s originally from Louisiana, where her very paranormally aware family still lives.  One of her aunts reads the cards for Flynn, and Flynn almost always gets the Fool card drawn for her.  I selected the pictures and stickers to reflect a lot of this.  There’s the mask for her family and the tarot card as well as the ghosts.  I picked out the cave picture in the right hand side corner because the story I’m writing has to do with caves.

Meet Jonah Scarborough, the skeptic and frenemy of Flynn.  Jonah was an easy guy to select stuff for.  A lifelong boyscout, there were tons of options to chose from when it came to picking out scout like stuff.  The picture I picked out to represent ‘Jonah’ is close enough.  In my mind he’s more tan and has brown eyes, but the face and hair are spot on.  I specifically placed his picture to hide the way I had to cut the picture.  You’ll notice I used the same cave picture from Flynn’s but I cut it differently because of their personalities, they see it differently.  I covered Jonah’s collage with words that I thought Jonah would want attributed to him.  Up on the right hand corner is a picture that symbolizes him and his brother, Connor, who is very important to him.  Jonah is brought into the story because he is a spelunker and they need him to go crawl around in a cave.

Have you made a character collage?  What did you use to create yours?

Weekly Update!

The last few weeks my updates have been very brief.  I think that it’s been a product of how dissatisfied I’ve been with where I was in my WIP.  I’ve been sloshing through the murky middle and questioning myself so much that I wasn’t really feeling like writing much at all, but now that I’m to a place where I’m excited about what I’m writing – I’m excited about writing anything and everything!  So, here goes…

Blogging.

I’m working on three different monthly series.  Fiction writing as therapy, goals and antagonists.  I’m not sure when I will post them or in what order.  I’m working on getting some other people involved who have some more experience in these areas than I do.  I’ll need to get cracking on these sooner rather than later, but I’m still working on all my craft projects for March.  Yikes! So much going on and so much to do!

Revising.

Nada.  Next month will be ALL about the revisions and self-editing.  I even signed up for a self editing class (mostly because my clone-mother Suzan did, lol).  I’m excited about this because I hope to be focusing on Blood Bound by then.

Plotting.

Because there’s so many people working on their stuff for Warrior Writer Boot Camp, I offered to table my submission last week, which is my 2nd Antagonist for my horror story.  His name is Jonah and he’s pretty cool.

In other news, I’ve been watching shows about psychics and other kinds of paranormal investigations.  The style of the investigations is interesting.  Some focus on dealing with them from a religious stand-point, where others just want to catalogue th experience and move on.  I think I should write up some short articles about it and save them for later posts perhapse.

One of the psychics/mediums/sensitives that appears on both Paranormal State and Psychic Kids, Chris Coffey, is going to be in Dallas.  He’s hosting some kind of two hour thing that costs $50.  If you pay $100 you can go on a ghost hunt after the event.  I’m really tempted just because he conducts himself as a professional and my hokey meeter doesn’t mind him.  I did google local paranormal investigators and I’m curiously cautious about contacting them for some interviews and discussing how they conduct their investigations.  I’ll save that for closer to my plotting phase.

Writing.

After last weekend, I’ve had a lot of success writing.  There were a few days when I only wrote a few hundred words because of time restraint and everything else going on, but overall I’ve been powering through my draft.  It’s been really exciting since I hit the high point in the middle.  I think it’s really important to get into the habit of daily writing.  Right now my goal is just to write some each and every day.  Even if it’s only a few hundred words, it’s still moving forward.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: contemporary romance
Type: novel
Progress: I’m super excited about the story right now!  I was dwindling a bit before I hit last weekend, but achieving that high point in the story really made me feel more excited about the story.  I’m on to writing all about the complicated first steps in a relationship and I’m genuinely excited every day about the time I’m going to sit down and write.  The weekend was really productive, but judging from how far I am into the plot and the word count, I’m just going to have to accept that I started the story way too far in advance.  I’ll be blogging about tough judgments in your manuscript later today, but I’m not letting this get me down!  Just means I need to write more, and be very serious about my writing time.

What I read.

I’m really, really, really excited about a lot of books coming out late spring/early summer.  The ones I’m currently jonesing for the most are Dark Enchantment by Anya Bast, the third in her Dark Magic series, and Kiss of Snow, number like nintybillion in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series.  I’m supposed to be reading for April Book Addicts stuff, but all I’ve wanted to do this week is re-read stuff.  This is dangerous, as all the dabwaha voting is going on makes me want to reread all these awesome books like The Iron Duke, Byou Moon, There Be Monsters, Lead Me On, the Kate Daniels books, and I’ve been holding out on even starting Nalini Singh’s Archangel series!  I could spend about two weeks rereading all of these books because they rock that much.

And don’t ask me what dabwaha stands for.  It’s like Fantasy Football, but for books.  so it’s like Fantasy Book Stuff… Um, ignore me.  You pick which books you think will win over other books and starting March 16th we start voting on rounds.  It’s been so much fun to watch people trash talk on twitter.

• Wicked Enchantment – Anya Bast
• Sweet Enchantment – Anya Bast
• Stroke of Enticement – Nalini Singh
• Lead Me On – Victoria Dahl
• Wanderlust – Ann Aguirre
• A Whole New Light – Julia Devlin
• Riding the Rail – Julia Devlin

Being crafty with your goals.

In celebration of National Craft Month, I’m doing three different crafting related blogs for writers.  Last week I talked about creating a writing space and showed you how I transformed my former dining nook into a writing space.  This week I want to show you a creative and artful way to bring your goals into your every day life – as a piece of art!

This post is going to be picture heavy, so bare with me!

My weekly writer’s group and I recently discussed our goals for 2011.  Maybe a little, but we still took time and talked about things we could achieve.  If you’ve read any of my blogs, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a pretty big believer in goals!

For this project you’ll need:

• A frame, I used a normal 8×10.
• Sharpie markers.
• Your goals printed on a piece of paper.
• Tape.
• Some decorative pictures.

1. Set the scene.

If you’re using a glass pane, you could always use those stained glass paints.  I wish I would have thought about that, and next time I do this, I want to try painting both sides of the glass.  I taped the printed goals to the backside of the plastic pane and used a sharpie marker to trace the words.  I don’t have nice handwriting, so I took my time doing this.  I tried using paint pens and some other permanent style of markers, but I couldn’t get those to stick to the surface.  So I’m a little restrained to just using Sharpies for this project – at least on the pane.

2. Decorate.

For my goals, I decided that with my space, I wanted to leave the backing off of my frame.  I wanted something swirly to compliment the tree sticker on my wall, so I went with this green, swirly thing.  I even flipped the image and traced it on the other side of the pane.  If you wanted to, you could layer with scrapbook paper, paint something on the background or just put a backing on the picture.

This time around I chose to include an inspirational quote by Phyllis Whitney on mine.  For each of the ones I made for my writer friends, I chose a quote that I thought met with their goals or encouraged them.

3. Display it.

Part of making goals, is to achieve them.  Putting your goals where you will see them and have to face them daily is intimidating.  Mine have been displayed over my desk for a week now and I’ve found myself more motivated and even intimidated by them.

Here are some others.

So I took the liberty of making one of these for each of my #writersdatenight girls.  I tried to do something different for each one.  I really hope they like them!  Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of all of them.  I’ll try to update this post with the pictures later.  The one below isn’t even finished.  I’m still trying to get to a craft store so  I can get scrapbooking paper to give it a better background.

Creating a writer’s space.

Did you know that March is National Craft Month?  I didn’t either!  I decided to throw together a few blogs to talk about using our creativity to craft something for our writerly needs, you know, in all that spare time you have – when you really should be writing!

Since I’ve been writing more regularly I’ve been wrestling with a need for a writing space.  I do most of my writing curled up on my couch, balancing my laptop on the arm rest or on my lap and while that’s fine, at times my back hurts or it just gets uncomfortable.  So two weeks ago I started thinking about selling my dining set since I haven’t been using it over the last two years.  This weekend I took the plunge, sold my dining set.  I now have this space that feels sooooo empty, and is just begging me to set up a dedicated writing space.  I researched what I wanted because this is an investment and a place where I will spend a lot of my time.

There are four big things you need to consider when setting up a space.  Everyone is going to need something different, but a few things are crucial.

1. The Space.
2. The Desk.
3. The Chair.
4. The Organizers.
5. The Accessories.

The Space.

Knowing where you’re going to set up your writing space is important.  Taking things like measurements, are even more important or you shall do as I did – and buy something too big for your space.  Yes, I’m talking from experience here.  Knowing what space you have available is the first place you should start your plan.  Take measurements, make use of grid paper and brainstorm what you need.  Do you have room for a single desk?  An L-shaped desk?  Do you need a filing cabinet?  What do you need? And what do you have space for?

Once you know what you want, you can… GO SHOPPING!  I looked around at different office supply stores and places like Target that has furniture that fits apartment living and decided that for my needs and style, I was going to be shopping at Ikea.  Which, was kind of a non-surprise because most of my apartment has been furnished by Ikea.

Let me just say in partial seriousness, and part utter sarcasm, shopping is hard work.  Don’t try to be Wonder Woman and load heavy stuff on your own.  I’m impatient and I don’t even try to ask for help.  It’s not smart and I could hurt myself.  Learn from my mistakes, and practice smart shopping.  Wear good shoes, clothing that you can move and lift in, and bring a vehicle big enough to serve your shopping needs.  When I bought my bedroom furniture, I assumed it would fit in my former Cruiser, it did not.  I was that lame person standing in the middle of the empty parking lot waiting for my grandmother with her truck to come get my stuff.

Okay, back to the show!

The Desk.

When you go shopping, you probably already have an idea of what you want.  Cute writer’s desk, old fashioned roll top, modern Z frame.  Take some time to look at something you might not be interested in.  Sit at the desks, swing around them in a chair and get a feel for the desk you could be writing at for a long time to come.

For me this was something I really spent a long time looking into and researching.  Because in time I will be switching to a work from home office for work, my writing space will not just be for me – it will be for my work as well.  I wanted something I could have two computers set up to work on simultaneously.  I also knew that I needed to select something that did not have a lot of drawer space.  I will cram any space full of useless stuff if at all possible and in order to eliminate my pack rat tendencies, I wanted a minimalist design.

Originally I wanted to get two smaller tables and create my own L-shaped desk.  However, when I actually sat down at Ikea at the desk I had selected, I realized how small it was.  This is where I made my mistake.  I thought I could just get the next size bigger and go with two of those.  I was wrong.  But after I set up the one table, I was surprised with how well it ‘fit’.

Since my living space is dominated with dark, espresso woods and bright red, I chose pieces to compliment the style of the rest of my space.  The table top is an almost black espresso finish and the legs are bright red, which offers a nice pop color.

The Chair.

Don’t be cheap on your chair.  This is something you will be spending plenty of time with.  It will cradle you when you just want to cry, and hold you up when you’re elated.  Or something.  Get something comfortable!  Sit in it!

When I was researching my options on the Ikea site I saw a bright red chair that I fell in love with.  It was also about $75, but it was touted as ‘ergonomic’ and it had all the adjustments I thought I would need.

And then I sat in it.

And I hated it.

I wound up going with a large, faux leather chair that was a special price of $55.  It’s black, but I’ll forgive it that indiscretion because it’s so stinking comfy!  I will say that putting it together was a pain in the booty.  I’m not quite sure that I’ve got it together quite right and I’m halfway afraid that it will dump me on the floor any minute.  Do you know that there are only four screws holding the back of this chair on??? Yeah.

The Organizers.

I didn’t anticipate needing very much. I work mostly on my laptop and rarely need to write things down, but since this will be a multi-use station, I wanted a few organizational things on hand.

Depending on your needs, you could need things like drawer organizers or pen holders or maybe an in/out box tray.  For me, I’m keeping it simple.  These two pieces I got at Office Depot.  One is a sticky note holder.  I really like sticky notes and making lists.  The other is a general organizer for the desktop with two long, narrow slots and one smaller one for pens, scissors and stuff.  I really liked the pattern in the metal, I just wish they were red.  I’m planning on getting some red spray paint and solving that little issue later, but probably not this week.

The Accessories.

You can have all the functional pieces you need, but for me it’s the accessories that really bring a project together.  I have several accessories that to me – really make my space pop.  They’re functional and creative.  Since I’m trying to keep the overall feel minimalist, the accessories must also be functional.

The Shelf. This was necessary because I fell in love with these red brackets.  I was seeing these very small shelf like boards around Ikea that were used for hanging prints on a wall that had a small lip.  I had it in my head that a shelf like that could be really handy as a needs-to-be-reviewed shelf.  Also, I hadn’t found a desktop storage option that I really liked.  So I decided that yes, I would get these and I would have a shelf.  I will say that I was disappointed that the screws were not included in this set.  I also couldn’t find screws short enough to go into the board, but I don’t exactly plan on overloading it with stuff.

The Stickers. I swear this actually has a use!  I often stare off at things and the view out of my patio leaves plenty to be desired.  I also wanted something fun to put up on the wall and not just pictures or a mirror, which would give me the creeps.  This I got at Target.  I’m really loving it!

The Lamp. I got this ages ago at Ross and haven’t used it yet, much less plugged it in.  However, I’m really loving the way it connects with everything else.  I don’t actually need a lamp in the dining nitch that I’ve set up as my ‘office’, but it’s still nice looking and if I want to turn off the over head light, it gives off a very nice glow.

So, with everything put together, here’s my writing space!

Where do you write?  Have you done anything to create a more conducive space for your writing?

National Craft Month for Writers

Did you know that it’s National Craft Month?  I found out last week and started a few projects, but started thinking about ways I could include my writing and crafting in the same project.

So, as a fun aside, I’m going to do a few blogs about craft projects – for the writerly!

• March 10th: Creating a writer’s space.
• March 17th: Being crafty with your goals.
• March 24th: Character collages.
• March 31st: Book covers.

Here is a list of other craft project sites or ideas that aren’t necessarily writing related:

• From Ravelry for knitters: Book Cozies! (pattern 1, pattern 2)  I make these -  a lot, and they’re easy and fun to give to people.
• You can also knit book marks!
• Stampendous is doing a project every day.
• At Craft Gossip they’re offering tutorials in jewelry making.

You can find a lot of different project ideas out there.  If you have a family, get them involved in what you’re doing and do it together.  And it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or not – it’s all about trying out something new!