27 8×10 Color Glossy Pictures With Circles And Arrows And A Paragraph On The Back Of Each One

Or at least, one 6×9 glossy book cover and one 6×9 matte book cover, neither with circles or arrows.

There is, however, a paragraph on the back of each one.

The unanimous preference among those who have inspected the physical books (including me) is for the matte cover, which pretty much clinches that I will be going through CreateSpace for Amazon distribution, as Lulu does not make a matte cover available for paperbacks of this size. However, CreateSpace does not offer as much flexibility as Lulu in its Flash-based online cover creator, and because the consensus was also that the text on the spine of the CreateSpace cover was both too small and not really in the right place, and I couldn’t use the online cover editor to resize or move that text, I ended up dusting off Scribus to help me create a one-piece cover. So far I’ve just done Shards:

I am currently waiting for a new CreateSpace proof, which will include smaller text and the updated cover. If that looks good, I will release Shards for sale on Amazon via CreateSpace, and make a similar cover for Ravels.

The perspicacious reader may note that I keep qualifying all the previous distribution statements with “Amazon”. This is because, thanks to D.K. Wall’s comments a few weeks ago, I decided to do some research into Ingram’s relatively new IngramSpark printing program. Based on what I’ve read (especially here), I’ve decided to go through Ingram for non-Amazon distribution of the print books, as well as non-Amazon eBook distribution. There are fees associated with making changes to a project via IngramSpark, though, whereas with CreateSpace the only fees involved are for new print proofs.  In the interests of not paying $25 to move text three pixels to the left, I’m planning to get everything done to my satisfaction on CreateSpace, release the books there, and then finish up with the same interior and cover (modified for Ingram’s specifications, which are slightly different from CreateSpace’s) over at IngramSpark. And then, we will call the “Strings” duology done after, oh, almost five (or — if you go all the way back to the very first version of Shards — over twenty) years of editing and rewriting.

Finally, in case you’re wondering what’s next after “Strings”, it’ll be Television Man, a dark fantasy/horror novel set in the Adirondacks, more or less, which involves vampires, ogres, zombies, goblins, sprites, ghosts, and Let’s Make A Deal.

“So who is this vampire hunter?”
“The undertaker, Mr. Toomes.”
Bob scratched his head.
“The undertaker.”
Paltruck nodded.
“Is a vampire hunter.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And his name is Toomes.”
“Yes.”
Bob said: “Are you putting me on?”

I’m already eyeing some Émilie Léger artwork for the Television Man cover …

Not to spoil anything, but that nervous-looking little dude in the picture? That’s going to be Bob.