Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part Two

So today, I hit the “publish” button for “Once Upon a Gas Tank” at three sites – Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. The book is already available at Smashwords, will start appearing at Amazon and B&N in the next two days, and at Kobo, iBooks, Sony, and Deisel Ebooks in about a week.

I took my time getting this story ready, mostly because I didn’t have much time to devote to it. Everything took a long time–I began this process in January–but the cover took the most time of all. For fun, I thought I’d post my covers, so you can see the evolution.

(image source)

My problem here was the picture size. The largest just wasn’t large enough. And I just wasn’t happy with it.

(image source)

Loved this version, but the original pic wasn’t big enough. Also, I discovered that slanted lines look bad when shrunken.

(image source – large!)

This image was plenty big enough, but it just didn’t work for me.

(image source)

I liked this one, but then I got the idea of taking my own picture.

I woke up with this idea and went to a great deal of trouble to obtain this picture. I drove all over town trying to find a metal funnel (available only at Ace Hardware–all others were plastic), and I took a gazillion pictures, and I had to learn new software–Inkscape–in order to get the curving text.

And then I realized it looked dreadful when shrunken. The whole thing just looked like a mistake. You couldn’t even tell it was a gas tank that the funnel was stuck into.

One word–yuck. I went way overboard on the color manipulation.

My final, after lots of tweaks, and after designing the series name in Microsoft Publisher and importing it into the image.

I learned lots. Probably the most valuable lesson was to work with the image while it is zoomed way out, so you will know if it looks good small.

The second book in the series is already written, waiting for a cover (and formatting). I hope it don’t take three months this time!

15 Thoughts to “Adventures in Self-Publishing, Part Two”

  1. Chicory

    Wahoo! The cover is great. (I know what story I’ll be looking to put on my Nook later this week.) I also liked the poor rusted junker cover, but it probably would’ve been hard to tell what it was when shrunken to a thumbnail.

    1. Tia Nevitt

      I agree–I tinkered with the color on that one a lot. The original was entirely too green and vibrant! I may still use it when I bundle the three stories into one volume.

      1. If you want ot use that one later, try playing with the contrast. I notice the brown of the car and the green of the grass are similarly dark. If one was darker and the other lighter, the car would show up better. I suspect it would be easier to recognize when small then. {Smile}

        (Yes, I like that one too, except for the lack of contrast. {SMILE})

        Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

    2. Tia Nevitt

      Chic, the Nook version became available sooner than I expected! Woohoo!

  2. I think I like the rusted junk cover best. It has the most character.

    1. Tia Nevitt

      Thanks. I did like that one too!

  3. Congrats on self-publishing! I’m impressed with all of the work you put into the cover!

    1. Tia Nevitt

      Thank you, Sandra! I’m hard at work on the 2nd one.

  4. Oh, it’s nice to see the evolution of the cover. I’m in the process of getting a collection of fairy tale-inspired short stories up, too, but I had my more design-savvy sister-in-law do the cover. Good luck with your new endeavor!

    1. Tia Nevitt

      I can’t wait to see it, Rabia!

  5. Deborah Blake

    Wow! Great job! And it looks wonderful–I really enjoyed seeing the evolution of the cover. I hope it is a huge success.

    1. Tia Nevitt

      Thanks, Deb!

  6. Congrats on self publishing. The cover turned out fantastic…The cover is one of the hardest things to decide one…

    1. Tia Nevitt

      Yes, it was every bit as difficult as I thought it would be. And thanks!

  7. I mean on..not one..sorry finger slipped…

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