Friday Five for December 5, 2014

1. Did you see the awesome cover for my urban fantasy novel, Of Blood and Sorrow? It's absolutely gorgeous. I've put it up on Goodreads too. You can mark it to read on there now.

2. Speaking of the novel, I finally finished a major POV change in it. It was tedious to the point of excruciating at times, but I've done it and it feels amazing! It'll be sent off to my CPs and beta readers today.

3. I also finished my revisions for the final book of my Dice & Debauchery series. All manuscripts are now with my editor at Ellora's Cave. I even heard from the cover artist who will be designing the covers for my books. I'm not sure what we're doing yet, but she's very nice and patient with me, the newbie at working within a publisher.

4. I can't believe it's December already. I've been going over my goals for this year. I think I've done pretty good. I will have to give myself a push to reach 100 books read, though. I'm at 94. (It says I already reached it on Goodreads, but I review children's books that I read with my son. So I don't include them on my count here.)

5. Less than three weeks until Christmas! My little guy is super excited. We've decorated the house and we're going to find a tree this weekend. He visited with Santa earlier this week. Afterward, he told me that wasn't the real Santa. When I asked why he thought that, he told me that it was "Second Santa" because he had glasses on and had a gray beard rather than a white beard. Yet he was still a nice Santa! If the weather stays reasonable, we might go to the Krampus night parade tomorrow. Has anyone else ever seen a Krampus?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wicked Wednesday - oh those pretty, pretty covers

Book covers. This is where I like to have complete control. Maybe not do the actual design myself, but to puppet a talented artist to do it just the way I want it. I used to dream I'd have Michael Whelan as my own personal cover artist.

All the books I've self-published, I designed the covers and I'm immensely pleased with them. I bought the images from a host site (Dreamstime), and I manipulated them to suit the stories. I spent as much time on the font as the images themselves. It's tough work making a cover perfect. It takes a long time. Time I'd rather spend writing.

For my Dice & Debauchery books, I have very little input on the covers. I filled out a questionnaire and described my main characters, but that's all the say I get in it. I knew I wouldn't have any control in this when I signed the contract. I weighed it against the benefits of having a publisher for this series. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I at least kind of like the covers when I see them.

Next year, I'm self-publishing an urban fantasy novel. I'm going to hire a cover artist to do it for me. I'll have much more input than I do with my publisher, but not as much as I do if I did it myself. I tried finding images that would work for a cover, but nothing stood out for me. Nothing I wanted for this book. It has to be unique. It has to be made to suit it.

If you're published, did you design your own covers or did someone else? Do you like having control or are you much more easy-going about it than I am?