Covers

I write a lot. I participate in NaNoWriMo every year, a writing challenge that requires you to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days. For the last few years the NaNoWriMo site has offered a free proof copy of your novel if you win. I've made covers digitally for these books (with a little help from my friends). Part of the reason I'm taking this class is to try and get better at it, as you will see.

NaNoWriMo 2009: The Prince of Cats

The book is dark, with cats displayed in a metaphorically evil light, so I tried to make the cover look a little bit unsettling. That's a picture of my own cat, altered in iPhoto to be black and white with high contrast. Thinking back I'm not sure why I picked this picture- she's not in the best pose.

NaNoWriMo 2010: The Monoceros' Trial

I asked a friend to draw me a cover concept, and she came up with this picture and scanned it.

Another friend who was good with photoshop colored it, cropped it to my dimensions, and added the background.

Finally, I added the words in Seashore.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Mute

The parrot is free domain art- I added the squiggle in Seashore. The font I had to search for, though I can't remember the name. I kind of wanted it to look like a battered old nature book. It's not quite final.

And yes, I have hard copies of these (aside from Mute, which I haven't finished editing yet). Both of these were taken when I first got them in the mail; you can see the excitement.

I'm a real author! (Kinda.)