New Marketing Images.

Ebook version.

Louis Shalako



In the first three days of April, I have published two POD paperbacks on Createspace.

Engines of Creation is a collection of short stories and Blessed Are the Humble is the third full-length novel in the Maintenon Mystery Series.

When publishing a paperback on Createspace, use that link rather than the Amazon one and make sure you paste it into the appropriate field at Smashwords and OmniLit. I think you can use that on Google Books as well. (I'll have a look at that myself.)

The royalties when selling directly from Createspace are much higher than selling from your Amazon page.

When making a cover on Createspace, I use their simple free templates, or you can use their pro service or upload your own full-cover image. I use the Spruce template as it accommodates a pre-designed image with the text on there.

Because of the red-outlined trim area, and because of the limited adjustment of the image positioning, I often have to fiddle with the text and its placement. I want the author name centred up, or not jammed up against the edge of the page, and you have to keep all text 1/2" back from the trim area. It sometimes takes a few attempts.

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As long as I was focused on making images, it seemed like a good time to upgrade the three remaining mystery titles with better covers.

The Art of Murder has the new art above. The Handbag's Tale has a new cover and so does Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon mystery.

The Art of Murder and The Handbag's Tale are free right now and readers are certainly welcome to grab one or both if they like.

'Handbag' is only a novella and there is no POD, so no problem and no challenge. But Art and Redemption still need to be upgraded POD-cover-wise.

However, the new images also upgrade the ebooks. What that means is that I have uploaded them to Smashwords, and a bit later today I'll stick them up on Amazon, Google Books/Google Play, and then OmniLit.

For OmniLit, you'll need a 200 x 300p image for their store and a 1400 x 2100p image if you're distributing to iTunes.

Either tonight or tomorrow, I'll have the Createspace PODs all fixed up. That makes 16 titles in paperback, those are all 5 x 8" books, and I have a 6 x 9" and a 4 x 7" over on Lulu.

So that's three to three and a half days of labour, to make a few simple images and load them up. That's not even Photoshop. With more complexity available, no doubt the average designer would use it, and that might take more time, not less.

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My new 24" computer screen has easily double the square inches of area compared to the old, 18.5" monitor. Hopefully, this will make my job a bit easier.

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Here are a couple of previous covers. The new ones are better.

A bit murky.

Free Morguefile image.

My second book cover. We've come a long ways in four years.

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