Good news, everyone: I have found a skilled cover designer to do the text that I am obviously not qualified to go anywhere near. The designer and a pack of sharp-eyed folks in an online art forum found all the places I’ve messed up, and pointed them out.
It’s called a critique, and it’s a good thing. Workshopping this beast through my more-informed peers is only going to help it.
Here’s the newest version. I added still more height and more space on either side. Where the stock photo original had the subject almost parallel to the horizon line, I angled him into the light. Refined his face and the shadow-cloud figure in the background. Trees and fog provide some more depth. A darker foreground gets rid of the light tan tangled weeds, adding a suggestion of shadowy foliage. More stars!
I’m still tweaking the text of the novella. Stop at decorously-vanilla romance? Include the next part of the story, which is fairly explicit, and fulfills all the innuendo of the first part? It would mean a 20K novella instead of a 16K one, which might make buyers happier about the projected $2.99 price. There is sex running through this whole series to greater or lesser degrees. I’d feel bad if someone read ‘Singer in Rhunshan’ and loved it for its oblique sensuality – and then read ‘Saints and Heroes’, ‘The Rubbisher’s Apprentice’, and ‘The Blue House’ and had a heart attack over the sex.
I’m also obsessing back and forth over buying one ISBN number, or a related block of ten for a relative pittance more. The jump from $125 for one, to $250 for ten, is substantial value. Having an ISBN on the novella means several good things. Print versions would be eligible to go into major retail and warehouse outlets, as well as some of the bigger romance, science-fiction, and fantasy genre contests. I’d have linked ISBNs ready in case I have to self-publish the whole bloody Lonhra Sequence. I could print respectable-looking Advance Review Copies. A book with an ISBN looks more professional to critics and buyers. I could add an ISBN later, but that would mean taking down the current version and completely re-doing everything…
These are the questions a self-publisher must answer, long before the book is launched.
I’ve also decided that my current human-figure rendering program is too old and clunky to deal with anymore. I’m looking at more-modern alternatives (as opposed to bullying my friends into photoshoots. Not enough beer in the world, one of them has informed me.)
This is all part of the adventure, I keep telling myself.