Showing posts with label covers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label covers. Show all posts

Monday, February 20, 2017

Cover Reveal: All That Glitters by Tracy Krimmer

Today is the cover reveal for All That Glitters by Tracy Krimmer. This cover reveal is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The cover is designed by K Creative Designs.

All That GlittersAll That Glitters (Songs of the Heart #1)
By Tracy Krimmer
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Women’s Fiction
Age category: Adult
Release Date: summer 2017

Blurb:
Country-music star, Dory Walker, never wanted to come back to the small town of Sycamore Bay. But after her fairy-tale life is flipped upside down, and her marriage becomes a casualty, she has no choice.

Harris Malone is a man with few commitments. He keeps a low profile most days while he cares for his young daughter and helps run his dad’s hardware store.

But when he and Dory run into each other at the local gas station, all either can think about is the searing kiss they shared many years ago.

Can a woman who only wants to rekindle her career and a man who enjoys a no-strings attached lifestyle find everlasting love?


You can find All That Glitters on Goodreads

Tracy KrimmerAbout the Author:
Tracy's love of writing began at nine years old. She wrote stories about aliens at school, machines that did homework for you, and penguins. Now she pens books and short stories about romance. She loves to read a great book, whether it be romance or science fiction, or any genre in between, or pop popcorn and catch up on her favorite TV shows or movies. She's been known to crush a candy or two as well. Her loves include fitness, reading, coffee, dogs, and naps (not in that order), and her dislikes are blue cheese, cold weather, and burpees.

You can find and contact Tracy here:
- Website
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Goodreads
- Amazon
- Instagram
- Newsletter

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Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Fantasy Review: The Water Road (Book One of The Water Road Trilogy) by JD Byrne

The Water Road by J.D. Byrne
Genre: Fantasy

Description:
Two women are about to expose a terrible secret that will turn their world upside down.

For centuries the great river known as the Water Road separated the Altrerians in the north from the Neldathi in the south. When the Neldathi clans united and struck out across the river, the nations of Altreria formed an alliance, the Triumvirate, to drive them back. For more than a hundred years after, the Triumvirate kept the Neldathi barbarians at bay, fighting amongst themselves across the Water Road.

Antrey is a woman without a country, the daughter of a Neldathi mother and an Altrerian father. She’s found a role for herself in Tolenor, the headquarters of the Triumvirate, that's given her access to a secret the alliance has kept for generations. When she finds it, she explodes with rage and embarks on a quest to find justice for the Neldathi people.

Strefer is a reporter without a story, desperately working the streets of Tolenor for any kind of lead. When Antrey flees the city, Strefer slips in and discovers her uncovered secret, stained with blood and fury. It’s the story of a lifetime, one powerful forces want to keep her from telling. With the help of a renegade Sentinel, Strefer sets out for a mythical city in hopes she can make the world listen to the truth.

Together, they’ll inflame the passions of a people and set the world alight. The Water Road - first book of The Water Road trilogy.



My Review:
The Water Road is an epic in the making. Antrey’s story is all about righteous indignation and a quest for justice and vengeance. Strefer’s story is about revealing the truth to a people who don’t want to hear it.

I thought this was a rather well put together read. Both stories and heroines are fully developed and engaging. In both cases, their chosen path is something they feel is right, but is it? That’s a question that can only be answered in later volumes. This story sets the stage for what promises to be an epic-scale struggle both between two civilizations and within each of the two women that spark it in the first place.

As a fantasy, this one isn’t concerned with any magic systems or peoples. However, the world building is flawless and the history is intriguing and rich. I love the details sprinkled into the story, but also how they don’t take over. The focus is on the people and the struggles they face: past, present and future. And the characters are relatable, and the pacing is steady, but good for this sort of book. There’s a balance between information and action with no unnecessary romance clouding things up.

Overall, I loved this story, and I’d strongly recommend it to fans of fantasy, intrigue and politics, and other worlds. You won’t find dwarves or elves in these pages, but you won’t miss them either.

I received a copy of this book from the author so that I could write this review.


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Book Links:

Official Webpage: The Water Road Trilogy
Goodreads: The Water Road (book 1)
Amazon: The Water Road


About the Author:

 
JD Byrne
JD Byrne was born and raised around Charleston, West Virginia, before spending seven years in Morgantown getting degrees in history and law from West Virginia University. He's practiced law for more than 15 years, writing briefs where he has to stick to real facts and real law. In his fiction, he gets to make up the facts, take or leave the law, and let his imagination run wild. He lives outside Charleston with his wife and one-eyed dog.

Follow JD Byrne:
Official Webpage
Facebook
Twitter @JDBAuthor
Goodreads




Monday, June 27, 2016

Tour Stop and Guest Post by Aaron Safronoff, Author of Sunborn Rising

Sunborn Rising banner

Today is my stop during the blog tour for Sunborn Rising: Beneath The Fall by Aaron Safronoff. This blog tour is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The blog tour runs from 27 June till 10 July, you can view the tour schedule here.

And now, I'm excited to share with you this guest post by Aaron about books, particularly that most debated element of them, their covers.

Guest Post:
Big thank you to Lola for setting up this tour, and to I Read Too Much! for inviting me to post! Always a joy to talk books.
People judge books by the covers. They do. In fact, they often happily admit it in face-to-face conversations, and I applaud their candor. I agree. The cover and its contents might not match as the saying goes, but that’s the extent of accuracy of the old adage.
Visuals matter, both in function and form, and judgements begin there. It’s probably just human. I mean, we even taste with our eyes, as though all of our other senses are informed by what we see. If you’ve ever eaten Jelly Bellies you know that information isn’t always reliable, and that seems to bring us full circle to _not_ judging. But Jelly Belly doesn’t eschew the visual vocabulary; they expertly utilize it as their staple intrigue, a jelly bean that tastes nothing like the conventional candy. Beyond the initial twist they develop their own vocabulary because they know how important it is. As an author, I don’t want to ignore existing vocabularies, I want to understand them. I don’t want anyone to pick up my book thinking it’s chocolate pudding when it’s tabasco, unless I want people to make that face when they’re reading my book. ;-)
The front cover begins the story, the illustration as essential as the title.  In fact, the font, the paper, the chapter headings, and even the margins affect a reader’s experience in profound ways. I only possess an amateur understanding of those factors, but to illustrate the point, so to speak, Comic Sans elicits a different emotional response than say, Times New Roman, or Corsiva, and Wing Dings are right out. ;-) Entire professions revolve around understanding typeface because it’s so important to get it right in the world of publishing. As a storyteller, I embrace each element of the total package, and where my knowledge falls short, I do my best to ask questions, and frequently tap the shoulders of friends and colleagues for advice.
At the end of the day, the philosophical debate regarding the pros and cons of a quick to judge culture forks orthogonal from developing a modern franchise. It’s important to remind people to look deeper than the uncontrollable, superficial aspects of one another in life, but a book cover is neither fated, nor genetically determined; it’s something we create as artists and storytellers, and I care about it as much as the chosen words.
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And now for more about Aaron's book! Looks like a great story for folks young and old.

Sunborn Rising Beneaht the FallSunborn Rising: Beneath The Fall (Sunborn Rising #1)
by Aaron Safronoff
Genre: Fantasy
Age category: all-ages, Middle Grade and up
Release Date: May 2016
Publisher: Neoglyphic Entertainment

Blurb:
Cerulean.

A distant world of Great Trees floating on an ocean surrounding a star.

The flotilla forests cycle light and water through their boughs into their lush canopies. But the once vibrant treescape has grown dark, slowly, subtly over many generations. The civilization of creatures living among the boughs believe the darkness is normal. That is, until one willful young girl named Barra discovers the hidden journal of her late father.

Pouring over her father’s writing, Barra learns of a mysterious plague, a creeping vine choking the flow of light and water into the canopy. Her father warned the Elders. He urged them to take action. Those were his last words.

Together with her two best friends, a Rugosic named Tory and a Kolalabat named Plicks, Barra will explore every bark, wood, and leaf of the Great Forest to relight her world and complete her father’s story, even if it leads her beneath the Fall.

You can find Sunborn Rising on Goodreads

You can buy Sunborn Rising here:
- Amazon
- Amazon paperback
- Amazon hardcopy

View the book trailer for Sunborn Rising here on youtube

Meet the Characters


Characters-of-the-Book


Barra-Swiftspur


Tory-Mafic


Plicks-Battidash


The World


Cerulean-World-Slice-copy


Aaron SafronoffAbout the Author:
Aaron Safronoff was born and raised in Michigan where he wrote his first novella, Evening Breezes. In his early twenties, he moved to California to attend culinary school. He fell in love with the Bay Area and has never considered leaving, although he did eventually leave the school.

During his ten years in the games industry, he worked at various levels and for several disciplines including quality assurance, production, and design. All the while he was writing a novel, short stories, plays, and poetry. His career in design introduced him to amazingly intelligent, fun, and creative people, many of whom he considers family today.

Safronoff self-published, Spire, in 2011, and won the Science Fiction Discovery Award for the same in the summer of 2012. By the end of that year he decided to drop everything and free fall into fiction. In the following three months he completed work on the sequel to Spire, Fallen Spire, edited Evening Breezes, and published both.

Today, Safronoff is co-founder and Chief Storyteller of Neoglyphic Entertainment and working on his fifth novel, the second book of the Sunborn Rising series. In his spare time, Safronoff enjoys reading a variety of authors, Philip K. Dick, Cormac McCarthy, and Joe Abercrombie among them. He enjoys living near the ocean, playing and watching hockey, and video games. He has a deep love of music and comedy.

You can find and contact Aaron here:
- Website
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Goodreads
- Amazon
- Instagram

Sunborn Rising links:
- Website
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Instagram
- Youtube

Giveaway
There is a tour wide giveaway for the blog tour of Sunborn Rising. These are the prizes you can win:
- 5 signed paperbacks of Sunborn Rising by Aaaron Safronoff

For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Trigger Happy Publishing a Book with the Wrong Cover

Hello folks, I was at it again yesterday. Spent the whole day creating a cover for one of my books, posted it on Facebook for opinions, and then overrode sanity and published the book on Amazon with the untested cover.

And then the feedback rolled in...

And I realized maybe I should have waited for that feedback.  So, Avalee and the Dragon is again unpublished pending a more patient development and crowd testing of the cover, and I am reminded of why I asked for feedback in the first place.

So, here's the cover I made. Not going to pretend it doesn't exist, but I figure it might be a good reminder to myself and an opportunity for others to learn from my mistakes.


I like this cover. I think it's pretty and bright, and the picture is something I took, so no worries about anyone else having it on their covers. Sure, and that's why I did it. After all, if you don't like the cover you come up with it is definitely out. The point is, your own opinion as the creator of the book and as the creator of the cover (if you're both) should not be the only one you consult.  I almost did this right, sharing this with friends and asking for opinions. So, how did I come to the conclusion that this cover wasn't right? Well, here's what I got from my friends (and I know they're good ones because not a one of them told me this was fine).

1. What's the significance of the flowers or the yellow? This is called Avalee and the Dragon, right?

I'm paraphrasing this feedback from a few posts from someone whom I know is not afraid to give some good feedback. What this reveals is perhaps the most important flaw of this cover. It doesn't really reflect the title, and since the title does reflect the story, it doesn't really reflect the story either. The cover really needs to communicate what the story is about, give a feel for it either in details or symbolism that is closely related. If someone is asking what your cover means, that likely means your cover isn't ready or just plain isn't right for the story.

2. One generous offer from another author to help me tweak my covers.

Paired with number one, I was beginning to see that perhaps I'd missed the mark. If someone offers to help you with your covers instead of saying, "That's a good cover," you have probably missed the mark, especially if that someone has designed some rather awesome covers of their own for books that are actually selling. I asked for some advice instead, and I got it. Makes me appreciate this guy very much, that's for sure.

3. An enthusiastic reference from one family member to talk with another who is an amazing artist.

Yep, all the signs are there. That cover is totally wrong for my book. Again, no "that's awesome" or "wow, great cover." But a suggestion to get some assistance is similar to what number two's response indicated. I either need help, or I need to put a heck of a lot more thought into this cover.

4. Silence and silent likes.

No one came out and actually said that cover was terrible, but I can connect the dots. Particularly since, other than the tactful and helpful feedback and offers from one through three, no one else said anything. I got a couple of likes. But no one outright said they liked it.

So, here's what we have, a pretty cover that I like, but it confuses potential readers and, to other authors and even family, screams, "I need help."

I'm glad I asked. :-)

(Now that I look at it again, that's awfully yellow, isn't it?)