Kelly Batten's Blog: The Closet Writer - Posts Tagged "covers"
First Impressions
I'm quickly realising that I'm not doing these blog posts in chronological order, but then again, I didn't exactly learn it all in chronological order =)
As you may already have or may already have found out, you need to get a beautiful, awesome, professional headshot of yourself and use that one photo EVERYWHERE. Because you are creating a brand identity (you are the brand here) you need to have something people can identity with, and a photo of you will do that. You don't even need to spend much money, or any! Luckily for me, I happened to have my nice camera at the right time and the right angle whilst on a sunset photo shoot in my driveway and managed to take my own as a selfie... cost free! Others may not be so lucky. However you go about it, you need to go about it. Simple.
And on the topic of professional photos, if you haven't already (and even if you have!), you simply must invest in your book cover. You cannot cut corners here. It is the first thing people will see of your books, and though we have that saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" we DO, and first impressions are majorly important. If you have to cut costs elsewhere on the journey or make the journey take longer so you can afford it, spend the extra money on a really good cover designer and end up with a high quality, beautiful cover to plaster everywhere and be proud of (and that will eventually rake in the sales). I used BespokeBookCovers.com and they were so easy to work with, and have unlimited changes! (who for someone as picky as me was necessary) So go the extra mile and don't let that addition $50 or $100 or even $200 downgrade the perceived quality of your hard work! It makes a difference in the long run, and even if you try to publish on a shoe string (I did, it's possible) you have to fork out a certain sum of money anyway. Don't make a decision that you will later change your mind on and have to redo, thus spending even more. Do it right the first time, so you can move on and focus on other aspects that will get your book sold, leaving you to work on your next book!
As you may already have or may already have found out, you need to get a beautiful, awesome, professional headshot of yourself and use that one photo EVERYWHERE. Because you are creating a brand identity (you are the brand here) you need to have something people can identity with, and a photo of you will do that. You don't even need to spend much money, or any! Luckily for me, I happened to have my nice camera at the right time and the right angle whilst on a sunset photo shoot in my driveway and managed to take my own as a selfie... cost free! Others may not be so lucky. However you go about it, you need to go about it. Simple.
And on the topic of professional photos, if you haven't already (and even if you have!), you simply must invest in your book cover. You cannot cut corners here. It is the first thing people will see of your books, and though we have that saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" we DO, and first impressions are majorly important. If you have to cut costs elsewhere on the journey or make the journey take longer so you can afford it, spend the extra money on a really good cover designer and end up with a high quality, beautiful cover to plaster everywhere and be proud of (and that will eventually rake in the sales). I used BespokeBookCovers.com and they were so easy to work with, and have unlimited changes! (who for someone as picky as me was necessary) So go the extra mile and don't let that addition $50 or $100 or even $200 downgrade the perceived quality of your hard work! It makes a difference in the long run, and even if you try to publish on a shoe string (I did, it's possible) you have to fork out a certain sum of money anyway. Don't make a decision that you will later change your mind on and have to redo, thus spending even more. Do it right the first time, so you can move on and focus on other aspects that will get your book sold, leaving you to work on your next book!
The Closet Writer
There is really only one very obvious difference between a dark stone cave in the side of a mountain somewhere perfect for hibernating bears and my bedroom and that is the sheer quantity of books that
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