Map of Caledan Revealed!

Hi all,

Hope you're well! Here's a pre-release goodie for you to feast your eyes upon - the map of Caledan that will be going in the kindle/ebook version of the book. It's a slightly different size than the one that will be going in the print book, but much the same! I hope you like. Click for the larger version. :-)

Ciao for now,

Meg

The Tainted Crown: 50 Days Until Release!

Yes, that's right! The book release is now only 50 days away!
 
The Tainted Crown: The First Book of Caledan will be releasing on 31 July 2014!

I'm hoping to run some kind of launch event, either on Facebook, Twitter or Google Hangouts, technology permitting - we shall see how that pans out!

Either way, this means I have 50 days to get my behind in gear to make sure this all runs smoothly. It will of course, all.. run... smoothly... (famous last words!? Hopefully not. ;-) )

By the way, if you're a reviewer and would like to review TTC pre-release, please drop me a comment below, a line on Twitter, or a nod on Facebook! I'll be releasing ARC's in July. :-)


Ciao for now!


Meg

COVER RELEASE - The Tainted Crown: The First Book of Caledan

Behold! The new cover for The Tainted Crown :D


and... here's how I created it!

It took me 10 hours of illustration work on the crown alone (in Photoshop using my trusty Wacom Intuos 4) and about an hour of playing about to format and arrange the elements to create the cover image. This will be the kindle format image - I'll have to create another format/arrangement for the paperback version and other ebook formats. :-)

The crown itself was super fun (though time-consuming...!) to create. Although my initial visions of the crown were almost identical to the Palatine Crown of Queen Anne, wife of Richard II, the final image was much more inspired by the crown of Queen Maria of Romania, which has a beautiful, flowing design.

During the process I honed my metal painting skills and I also learnt how to create faceted jewels with this epic tutorial! The blood was really fun to do also. I had to hand paint the crown's reflection onto it, but it was worth doing to make the image feel more believable (liquids reflect, after all).

The backlighting/glow behind the crown helps it to pop away from the blue cover background - and the contrast between the blue background and yellow crown again helps that stand out as the focal point for the cover. I kept in mind Joel Friedlander's advice on good cover design for ebooks as I was creating this, trying to keep it simple and eye-catching, so that it will also be effective on a small scale.

I textured the background to make it more interesting (aiming for not too much blank space, but not too much detail, as either would be distracting). For the texture, I used a photo of a weathered iron grate I took at Upper Barden Reservoir - so there's a little bit of Yorkshire in my book cover!

I also used Joel's advice to improve my typography (the font, words and placement of text), which was, let's face it... pretty bad in my very first cover design! This can really make or break a cover.

Overall, I think it comes together as a much more effective cover than the previous version - I still really love the illustration on the previous cover, just as a standalone image. I'll probably offer both images as signed prints when the book is released. :-)

Hope you like!

If you're interested in cover design, here's a list of really useful resources to check out: 

15 Articles on Cover Design for Self-Publishers, by Joel Friedlander

Self Publishing: Cover Design, by CompletelyNovel 

Four steps to create a great cover for your self-published book, by Anna Lewis

(VIDEO content!) Book Cover Design: The Process Explained With Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer, by Joanna Penn

Ciao for now!

Meg