Making of a Book Cover: Highland Son

I've been at it again, making book covers and lots of them. 

Four to be exact for my newest series A New Dawn, a continuation of the Highland Sorcery series.
I don't make covers for other people because that's not really where I want to focus my time and energy, but I gotta say, I love making my own. Searching for just the right cover model is fun. I always go for the expression, more so than looks...

Anyway, here's the picture I used for Alexander. I just love the way the photographer Konradbak captured him in motion...and the intensity on his face is perfect.

The only thing I don't like about this is that he's shirtless. It doesn't fit with the brand of my books, which are more action and behind-the-door snogging, less skin. And since I don't want readers expecting something they aren't going to get, I try hard to keep everyone clothed. So the next step before I bought the picture for use was to see if I could find a shirt to cover the poor guy up with.

I found this picture with the model's body turned in close to the same position.

So now I have the two pictures. I overlaid the shirt picture on top of Alexander's picture, sized it to fit, tilted it a bit to fit more, and then used the eraser tool to erase everything on the top picture except for the shirt. I also had to get a little creative with the cloning tool to fill in more of the shirt color where I erased the shirt guy's arm which took out some of the shirt.  (Weird sentence. As a writer I should do better, but as a lazy person this moment, I'm going to leave it.) The bottom of the shirt is a bit fuzzy but the words will camouflage that a bit. Not too mention it draws the eye up to the face since it's more in focus. That's what I tell myself anyway.

So now I have a shirt on Alexander.  But he's kind of gray. So I saved the picture into one layer and then used the saturation tool to pull up more color. He's just about perfect now, except I want a different background.

Kay, I cheated a little here by using a background I already had. I loved the greenish building scape cover for Highland Shapeshifter. So I pulled up that original cover (I already own that picture for use) and cropped a background out of it from the left bottom corner below her arm. So now that little piece will be Alexander's background.

Once that photograph was cropped and sized for the background layer, I overlaid the saturated picture of Alexander over it and went to work with the eraser tool, enlarging it to work to make sure I erased around every strand of hair very carefully. It's painstaking work, but worth the time and effort.  

So here he is. He, of course, is missing an arm because that's where the original picture's edge cut off. So that is obviously going to be where I crop it for the ebook copy. I saved this version to be able to use some of that for the back cover when I work on the paperback jacket. 

So after cropping and adding the title and author name (moi), which takes only a few minutes because I already have a series template saved so that all the books in the same series are uniformed. 

Voila!!!

Now, to move onto the cover for the paperback. The trick there is knowing how large the spine needs to be depending on how many pages (or how fat) the book will end up. Once I knew that, I got to work. I had to add a little more to the back cover because what I had cropped out of Highland Shapeshifter didn't go all the way to the edge. So what I did was take the photograph (two pictures up) before I added the words and flipped it horizontally into a mirror item. Then I slid that along the edge of this picture. If the bigger was larger, you'd see a mirror version of Alexander on the left side. In fact I had to use the cloning tool again to paint part of his jacket out. If you look closely you can see the line where the two pictures meet. So, don't look that closely. Well, okay, go ahead. 

And remember how I said I made 4 covers? Well, that's because I wanted to put all the series covers on the back cover jacket. Cool, eh? I learned that trick from my friend Suzan Butler, cover artist  and author extraordinaire. She knows all the neat things to do. 

But then I thought, "Hey, since I used the same background on two covers, they should match real well." Since I was playing in photoshop anyway, I decided why not update my blog. It's been a while anyway. So I meshed the two covers together and came up with the new heading above. I'll stick it here too for when I decide to update it again.

And then, since I'm having a new series release party on facebook next week, (You're all invited by the way, just go over and "like" my Clover Autrey Books facebook page so you'll be sure to get the posts.) I thought I might as well go ahead and make a cool banner to advertise it. I had to flip him horizontally again since the facebook profile picture takes up the bottom left corner. And, well, he's still missing that arm...

Anypooh, that's it for now. 

Highland Son, Alexander's book, is for sale on the kindle and also for sale on the nook.

It's at all the other retailers through Smashwords.

The paperback is in review and will be ready for purchase at Amazon and Barnes &Noble toward the end of next week. 

And in case you are wondering, I'll be posting the transformation of the other three cover photos within a few days. 

My Little Girl's Vintage Wedding

December Twenty-first, my only daughter became Mrs. Andrew Birkinsha. As any mother would, I wanted all her dreams of a beautiful wedding to come true. What we lacked in cash, we more than made up for in resources. I have nine sisters and each of them are full of talents. Oh, and my mom has become an expert at putting on weddings (Did I mention I have nine sisters? That she created spectacular weddings for.)

So coordinating a wedding long distance became a breeze with the support team we have in one another. And Pinterest. We simply had to pin/show my sibs what Alannah wanted and they went to work. One sister (Kim) took a class long ago in cake decorating, so she made a stunning cake. Another (Alysha) made the most beautiful vintage bouquet. Another sister (Mac) went above and beyond to replicate the most gorgeous veil I've ever seen. And not just one, but two, so Alannah could have her pick. Yet another (Heather) created a beautiful guest book. And they all pitched in with getting the gym cleaned out, lit, and ready for a reception, bringing soups and other entrees to feed the guests. And my mom altered the dress, made the flowers, and basically worked her magic to bring order out of what could have been chaos.

I'm truly truly blessed with a wonderful family. All I had to do was show-up. Which come to think of it, is what I did 25 years ago for my own wedding. Hmm. I kind of think I'm the least helpful in my family, yet gain the most benefit. Score! (Shhh, I didn't really say that.)

To be honest, I knew it would turn out beautiful because I trusted my family. My main concern was getting through the ceremony. You see, since my son passed away 3 years ago, I have a difficult time keeping the weeping to a minimum. Seriously, I get going and the waterworks will not stop. And it's not the lovely one lone tear sliding down the cheek Demi Moore style of crying. It's full blown gushing, snotty, red eyes, ugly and gross. I avoid sentimental events like the plague and I'm sure all those who don't want to witness a blubbering spectacle appreciate it even if they don't know what they have missed. I'm not exaggerating. And I sure didn't want to become the center stage mother of the bride weeper.

So believe it or not, the past couple of months I've fasted and prayed about that. Please, please don't let me blubber through the wedding. And you know what. I caught a cold. I was so concerned about not having a coughing fit and keeping my mouth dry and how I could sneak a cough drop while everyone was watching that the tears were kept to a minimum. Not exactly how I would have answered my own prayers, but it worked.

Enough of that, enjoy some pictures...

Alannah Autrey~Vintage Gown

Alannah and I are very close, have always been. I don't know how I got so lucky to have a daughter who shares everything with me. Okay, she didn't share when she snuck out of the house when she was 16 until a few years later, but mostly everything. She's a good kid and an amazing person. She's always known what she's wanted and gone after her dreams. When she told me she had met the right guy, there wasn't any doubt that Andrew had to be someone pretty special because Alannah would never settle for just anybody.

She also knew what she wanted in a wedding dress. Something elegant, vintage, and extremely unique. When I flew out to help her find it, I was seriously having some doubts that such a unicorn of a dress existed. That's where prayer came in again. The second morning of our search, we prayed this time, had a thought to go to a store that we weren't considering because the dresses were way out of budget, walked in and Spencer, our wonderful helper listened to what we wanted, bypassed the typical gowns and pulled this off the rack. I knew it was the right one by the look on Alannah's face. 

The Wedding Announcement (Which I actually made~hey, I did contribute something!)

Table Settings

This is a hanger Alannah made in her Young Women's Youth Group years ago. The little plague talks about how they'll remain pure until their wedding day and can will keep this as a reminder to hang their Temple dress upon it. 

Guest Book (ended up with a few extra guests written in like Thor and Wonder Woman~My family are all nuts.)

The Bouquet

The Ring

The boots

Table Setting

The Place~Draper Utah Temple

The Cake
Kim wrote secret messages into the scrollwork on the bottom layer, such as Happy Birthday to my sister JJ, and other "love messages between Alannah and Andrew."

The Groom ~ Andrew Carl Birkinsha
(pronounced Bir-kin-shay)
Couldn't ask for a sweeter son-in-law

The Birkinsha Family.
Was nervous meeting them, but they turned out to be lovely, down-to-earth, funny, kind, chill, intelligent people. I'm so happy Alannah has some great in-laws.

Thanks for sharing in our Joy and hope to see all our Texan friends and family for the reception in January! 

Making of a Book Cover: Banshee's Cry

So here are the two models for the half-human, half-Anointed Gillant brothers Cael and Jake. As you can see the lighting is way different. Cael needed some darkening up some.

Superimposed the pictures together, but had to put a wall for Cael to lean on so he wouldn't be floating in mid-air. Then I grittied them up in keeping within the dark edginess of their world. 

Below, I was playing with turning them into illustrations, but decided not to go with that look.   

So this is the final cover. I'm quite proud of it.

 Kindle version                                                  Nook version