marketing | Meredith Mansfield, Author

Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Cover Art

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, marketing, Multiple Projects, sequels, series, Series Branding, writing on February 17, 2016| 4 Comments »

So . . . I’ve been playing with cover art again.

I started out playing with cover art for BECOME. My goal here is to have at least a first draft of BECOME by the time I publish WAR OF MAGIC. That will allow me to include an excerpt of the new series at the end of the last book in the DUAL MAGICS series. Ideally, I’d like to be far enough along to include a pre-order link.

Become4

I still may tweak the series title, but this is likely to be the cover.

Then I went back to my problem child–the cover for WAR OF MAGIC. I love the old cover image, but I just haven’t been able to get the title, etc. the way I want it. Nothing works. The latest version was okay, but it didn’t really match the other books in the series–and I want the covers to brand the series as belonging together. I’m going for something better than “I can live with it.” So, I bit the bullet and went with a different background image.

WarMagicNew

I may tweak that series title a little, too. But now I’m happy with it. Finally.

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Evolution of Cover Art

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, marketing, short stories, writing on December 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I do my own cover art. That’s something that’s often not recommended. And for good reason. I’ll show you one. This is my original cover art for my novella, “The Music Box”:

Now, let’s just be honest. It’s dreadful. Frankly, I’m surprised I ever sold a single copy. To be fair, this was only the third cover I ever made. And it was during a period when I couldn’t really afford to spend anything on cover art. Which is why I started making my own covers in the first place.

And I’ve made a concerted effort to get better at it. I actually enjoy making my own covers now.

This was the very last of those original, very bad covers left. And it’s past time I replaced it. But my problem was that I just couldn’t find an image I liked for this story. I finally turned up this one:

dreamstime_l_55594851

It’s a nice image if a little . . . gray. Book covers need to pop. So, I bought the image (the right to use it only cost $8.15. I really probably could have afforded it (if it had been available then) in the first place, but I wouldn’t have known what I needed to do to make it work.

Then I added color to the background and went ahead and added the title and my name:

(Those funny little dashed lines are because I snipped this while I was still working on the cover. I knew I wasn’t finished and I didn’t want to save because that would have merged the layers, like the text. You’ll see why in a little bit.)

Okay, but now I wasn’t happy with the white costumes. Hmm. So the next step:

(See how I changed the color of the text for my name? I couldn’t have done that if I’d let the layers get merged too soon.)

But now I don’t like him in white, either. And what is likely the final version:

Though I haven’t uploaded this one yet. I may want to do just a little bit of clean up first.

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Cover Art Issues

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, critiques, e-publishing, fantasy, Learning, marketing, sequels, series, writing on November 22, 2015| 4 Comments »

I’ve started wrestling with the cover art for WAR OF MAGIC. I’ve had the image finalized for quite a while.

WarMagicBlank

It’s very nearly perfect, but there’s just one problem with it. All the other books in the series use white text. And white just doesn’t show up well on this background.

So I’ve been experimenting with options.

I tried black text. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t show up real well, either.

WarOfMagic1

(This one isn’t finished, of course. It still needs the “Dual Magics Book 4” somewhere. Most of these do.)

I tried to use solid bands.

WarOfMagic2

This works, but it has the disadvantage that I’d probably have to change all the other covers to match–and I like them better as they are.

I tried a mix.

WarOfMagic3

I tried clearing part of the background.

WarOfMagic4

And I tried a drop shadow.

WarOfMagic5

So far, most of the people I’ve asked like the bands best. But I don’t.

Well, we’ll see.

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It’s Alive!!!

Posted in writing, tagged boxed sets, Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, marketing, writing, Young Adult on October 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

But BY SWORD, TALE, OR MAGIC is now live on Amazon (and free on Kindle Unlimited.)

Three YA fantasy novels for the price of only two. It’s like getting one for free.

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The YA Boxed Set Has A Cover

Posted in writing, tagged boxed sets, Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, marketing, writing, Young Adult on October 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’m over the major hurdle. I have a cover.

(Ha! I love that I finally figured out how to do boxed set covers.)

Just a few more things to do before I set this one loose in the wild. The files were already formatted for the stand-alone books, but there are a few tweaks for the combined file, of course. I’ll need to work up a blurb for the set. And I may just throw in one of my short stories as a bonus. We’ll see.

I expect to have this one up by the end of the month, possibly with a short pre-order period at a special price.

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YA Boxed Set

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, marketing, writing, Young Adult on October 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Progress is being made. I actually have a cover demo I like. It’s been really hard to think of–and therefore to search for–images that have any relationship to all three stories. I finally had to broaden the concept.

I can’t share it yet because, since I haven’t finally decided on it, I haven’t bought the right to use the images.

I’m hoping to get this boxed set out in the next month or so–plenty of time for Christmas.

And then, before you know it, it’ll be time to start thinking about a boxed set for the DUAL MAGICS series. I don’t think I’ll have nearly as much trouble with that cover design.

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Boxed Set Covers

Posted in writing, tagged Alternate History, boxed sets, Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, marketing, Multiple Projects, paranormal romance, series, writing, Young Adult on October 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

So, having decided to explore boxed sets, the next logical step was to figure out how to make a boxed set cover.

The only “boxed set” I currently have is the CHIMERIA OMNIBUS, which includes both BLOOD WILL TELL and BLOOD IS THICKER. The original cover was a sort of mash-up of the individual covers, but flat, like a regular book cover.

This seemed like the logical place to start learning how to take this cover and turn it into a boxed set. And . . . I did!

Yes, I did make a couple of changes to the cover, too. It doesn’t make much sense to have the individual book titles both on the cover and on the spine.

Now, on to considering a possible boxed set of my three young adult stand-alone novels. The sticking point here is in figuring out a cover image that works for:

FIRE AND EARTH, a sword-and-sorcery novel with an armored woman on the cover.
THE BARD’S GIFT, an historical fantasy with viking ships on the cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING, a fantasy romance with a girl with roses in her hair on the cover.

I don’t think that’s going to be as easy as figuring out how to make a boxed set cover.

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Boxed Sets

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, Learning, marketing, Multiple Projects, paranormal romance, Romance, sequels, series, writing, Young Adult on September 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

BookBub Partners put out a very interesting post on boxed sets this week. It’s made me think.

There’s already, sort of, a boxed set of the first two books in the Chimeria series:

It probably needs a new cover–or, well, at least to have this cover made to look more like a real boxed set. (There are sites to help you do that.)

I’ve always intended to do a boxed set of the Dual Magics series after I finish it. This post has made me think a little harder about exactly how I’m going to go about that.

I had never before considered the ideas of a boxed set of the first books in different series (which wouldn’t work anyway until I have another series or two out) or of doing a boxed set of unrelated stand alone novels, like my three YA stories–FIRE AND EARTH, THE BARD’S GIFT, and DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING. That . . . sounds kind of interesting, actually.

There’s always another angle to think about. That’s part of what keeps this indie author thing interesting.

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Fall Into Reading Sale

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, events, fantasy, marketing, sale, series, writing on September 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Happy fall! Can you believe it’s fall already? I know I can’t. This summer seems to have gone by very quickly. As we batten the hatches and prepare for winter, are you ready to snuggle in front of a nice warm fire with a good book? Maybe you have the nice warm fire, but not necessarily the perfect book. I have just the thing for you!
A bunch of authors and I collaborated in putting together a “Fall Into Reading” sale. The first page on the website has all the books on sale categorized by genre. Some are free, and others are discounted. If you want to find other clean books that aren’t necessarily on sale, check out the second page.
You’ll find the first three books of the Dual Magics series there. And Daughter of the Disgraced King.
I hope you have an awesome fall!

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Cover Art Update

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, marketing, writing, Young Adult on August 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

While I’m trying to transition my brain back into first-draft mode, I updated the cover of FIRE AND EARTH. Admit it, the old cover was kind of boring: