Today I woke up determined to get something done. I didn't care what as long as I accomplished something with my day. I kept thinking of Storm of Masks and what I could do for it... We have a complicated relationship, since it's my least popular book and totally flopped upon release, but I still have a soft spot for it and want it to find an audience even though I think it's kind of slow-paced and boring.
I decided I would revamp the cover yet again. I love the ghostly turquoise cover and I think it fits the mood of the novel really well, but I don't know if it communicates urban fantasy or paranormal romance. It looks like a horror story. I wanted something that would telegraph the genre immediately. I also decided to go ahead and rewrite the entire blurb. The new synopsis is much better so I'm glad I went for it. And the synopsis for book two might be one of the best blurbs/descriptions I've ever written. I'm super excited to share it!
Once I'd finished a new cover and synopsis I decided it would be cool if I could finally get around to creating paperbacks like I keep saying I will. I designed a simple, cute wraparound cover and downloaded a paperback template, formatted everything and converted it to PDF....only for Amazon to tell me the paperback would cost $53.00! Obviously that's not acceptable. I have to bring that cost down to $11.00 or something because I'm not rich and neither are my readers.
I'm pretty sure I chose the wrong size or trim. I guess I should go for something a little taller so it's using less paper? I'll experiment with it a bit this week but for now I published the expensive version because I'd already set it up and I was tired and frustrated. I do like the idea of having fat doorstopper copies of my books just to stroke my own ego, but it's probably not in the cards. Paperbacks and physical copies in general are the main part of being indie I dislike because they're so pesky and time-consuming.
This makes me nervous for the Shadows of Ourselves paperbacks coming up because that book is a beast even in ebook format. I may have to split it into two volumes for the paperback, like they do with A Song of Ice and Fire in France...it's an excuse to make more cute covers so I'll keep that in mind, lol. I have no idea where I would split that huge book in half though.
Aside from that I spent today lazing around and drinking too much coffee. I watched a few episodes of The 100 (I'm finally on season 6 and it's amazing) and listened to the new Trisha Paytas EP which is her best music yet. Advice has to be her best song so far, I'm in love with it!
Anyway, I'll leave you with the new cover for Storm of Masks:
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