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The release day of my story Conduit is fast approaching. As of late, I have been working with a talented artist on the design of my cover. I had originally tried to design the cover myself but found I’d be better off hiring someone with more skill then I possess in the Photoshop realm – sadly learned from experience.

I have to give myself a pat on the back though, my attempt wasn’t too bad. Especially for someone who had only used Photoshop in college years ago. Compared to a lot of DIY covers out there, I think it would hold its own well enough. I had some grand ideas of what I wanted my cover to be and I began to dig into the free trial only to realize how much things have changed since my coursework in 1998. I remembered completing my project for the class which consisted of a giant squirrel crushing an image of the hotel I was working at through my college years. The image of a giant Mr. Clean, the hotel’s mascot at the time, stood laughing in the background (I really didn’t have anything against my job. I was actually enjoying it and even shared the image with my manager who thought it was quite funny – so it wasn’t a disgruntled employee sort of thing.)

With my hopes set high, I started drafting the image from a blank slate and then it hit me. Back in the day, there weren’t all these stupid rules around rights to images. One could open up the web browser – which happened to be Netscape at the time – and find images to their heart’s content so long as the page didn’t have copyright signs posted throughout the site. (That is at least what the instructor informed the class. Maybe she’s in jail now?) Now there are sites dedicated to clipart and images that designers pay money to use. Even images of toilette paper can be right protected. Good luck finding any decent free use image.

Still determined, I whipped out my digital camera and began snapping images of cross necklaces – my wife was good about it and lent me her jewelry and granted me all rights to the images I created. One hurdle out of the way, but I really wanted a needle in the picture since the theme in my story is science vs. religion. I’m no addict and I don’t have any diseases, at least that I know of and prefer to happily remain ignorant of it if I do, that require injections. So where would I find a needle?

Again, I have to give my wife credit. Using a dropper from baby Advil and a needle, she snapped a picture. It fooled me, but that’s not saying much.

Now, with all the layers I needed, I put them together. A day later, I sat and stared at the picture with triumph. I happily began to share the picture with friends and family to get their opinions. The responses I got ranged from a flat, “Yeah, that’s neat.” to a boring, “eh.” So I went back to the computer and stared at the image with a new perspective. After a moment of swearing to myself once I realized everyone else was right, which I hate to admit, I took some advice and decided to pay for someone else to do it.

After a few different versions of the artwork, I decided that I’ve tortured the poor artist enough. Everything that I received was excellent, but I couldn’t quite fit them to my story. I believe with this latest round, there are some versions that fit perfectly. Now I have the hard task of deciding on which I want to use.

If you have read this far, you may be wondering what the point was to all my ramblings. To summarize it all as one quick tip for authors who aim to self-publish their work: hire someone to design the book cover. Unless an author happens to be a maverick of all trades and has a reservoir of artistic ability to draw upon, I guarantee they could never create cover art as well as a person who specializes in graphic arts. I especially realized this when I saw the first images that came through from the artist. I had to force myself to swallow my pride and pony up the funds.

If my book tanks, at least it will tank with a nice cover.

I am very excited about the thought of releasing my book “Conduit” on Amazon in the very near future. Yes, a little nervous, OK a lot nervous, but still excited. I hope that people will enjoy my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. So with my energy high, I made the mistake of opening up my web browser and searching the internet for self publishing tips. Of course I was bombarded with different viewpoints from those expressing how wonderful self publishing is to those telling me only losers self publish. Of course on the one site explaining how I’m loser for self publishing my book, the thought ran by of posting a note explaining how some very famous authors started their career by self publishing but I forced myself to close the window and vent silently causing some indigestion.

Knowing self publishing my story was not going to be easy, I still made the decision to go for it. I had read some articles before making my decision, but not a lot. Just enough to get me knee deep in it. That’s the way I tend to do things. I dig myself a hole, seeing how far I can go and then, in between panting for breath, look up wondering how I’ll get out. I do end up finding a way out at some point, but I always find myself thinking that I should have listened to more advice. But where’s the fun in that?

At this point, I have my story ready to go. The cover is almost ready. I have a website with a blog, a facebook page, and even a google page (which I haven’t had any time to add anything to). In between thinking about how to manage all of these things, I’m thinking about how much more I can spread myself out. After all, who doesn’t want to hear from me? I need to get to everyone! Next up, Twitter so I can tweat like I’ve never tweated before! Watch out Twitter! Oh, I can’t forget I’ll need an Amazon page too.

So here I am, sitting in that hole I dug, taking a breath for a moment, my trusty shovel propped up next to me while I sit and stare up a the clouds above.

I understand now why so many people have tried the self publishing venture and gave up at some point along the way, running back to trying to get a publisher to notice their work – all to finally give up on their dream completely. The fact is though, even if an author finds a publisher to publish their work, this day in age an author cannot afford to skimp out on social applications, or at least new authors can’t. There is still a lot of work an author needs to do even when working with a publisher. Many publishers scour the internet to research authors submitting work, to make sure they have a web presence. My argument to those who shun self published authors is this: Neither route, self publishing or traditional publishing is a walk in the park. Publishing traditionally means that the author may get some boost in marketing power, but self publishing means most profit goes to the author.

There. I’ve proved to myself I’m on the right track. Maybe if I keep digging, I’ll find my way out?

With eBooks gaining popularity, there appears to be a trend of shorter style books called novellas entering the market. So what is causing this?

I attribute the change to several factors that I list below:

1)Cost
Without the overhead of printing books, there is much less cost involved in having a story available for sale. In addition, more and more authors are finding that more money can be made by posting the story themselves without the lengthy process of going through a publisher. Where an author would expect most of the income to go to all parties involved in getting the story published, he or she has the opportunity to post the story on their own, thus realizing a higher royalty. Because of this, an author has more flexibility in the cost of their story. With many people posting their own books for free or as low as .99 cents, authors are forced to sell their eBooks at lower prices. When books with 30,000 words (approximately 100 pages) are selling for the same price as full novels of 80,000 words or more, why wouldn’t an author move to writing novellas?

2)Lifestyle
I attribute much of the success of the eReaders to the accessibility of new books and other writing. In addition, life has become so much faster paced, many people do not have the time to visit a bookstore and browse for a new book to read. People have become so accustomed to having what they need available to them at the moment they want it, the idea of having to drive to a store to buy a book is almost archaic. With an eReader, a book can be purchased and downloaded in a matter of seconds. This new breed of reader is more apt to buy a smaller book to enjoy in a sitting or two instead of having to expend more time and energy on a larger and more complex story. The average worker today is stressed with a poor economy, work that demands most of their energy, and hardships at home. The idea of a large novel that requires a lot of thought isn’t as appealing as it used to be whereas an enjoyable story that has a world where the reader can slip off to, away from the stresses of their world, is what they are craving.

3)Speed
Readers are not the only ones that benefit from the rise of the novella. Authors who embrace the movement will find that their novels can be split into multiple stories allowing for their work to be produced more quickly and as a result, income can be generated at a quicker pace then had the author wrote a full novel.

I’m sure there are those out there that are against the novella format. It certainly has its pros and cons. I choose to look at it more optimistically. I know my blog is a new blog and I’m sure I won’t get many responses yet, but I’d love to hear some different views on this. So what do you think? Is the novella good for the writing industry or is it bad? Are we going to see more of them or less?