I've been busy elsewhere

Anenome Jones | Flickr

What a horrible horrible blogger I am! It's been nineteen days since my last post. I'm glad to say I've been decently productive during that time. I've been doing a little reading, a little editing, a little outlining and a whole lot of book cover making. 

Inkpop has dictated most of my time. I've met some really nice people and its fun to read the awesome projects that others have written. I do worry sometimes that I come on a little strong in my comments, since I live to line edit apparently, but all has been so far. I hope. I like to think I've been helpful to someone, at least. 

My favorite project so far is the wonderful, Margaret Loves Mr. Darcy by Brianna Elizabeth. Brianna has a way of writing scenes that makes me painfully envious. MLMD is funny and bittersweet and I enjoy reading it. Brianna has graciously allowed me to help with editing the project and I've also made a cover for it! The project now sits on the Top Five on the website, so as long as it maintains its position, it is heading for the editor's desks at HarperCollins. Good luck, Brianna!

As far as my own projects are concerned, Ghosts of Fallen Leaves has returned to my main publishing focus. I've got the whole project posted on Inkpop on a temporary basis. I'm curious to see how far it gets in the ranking system. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to start promoting it. I plan on starting the editing process again soon. Hopefully it will be ready for publication by the end of the summer. 

Some Say in Ice, the sequel to GOFL, has hit a few rough patches recently. I started writing from my outline and already I can tell it's a bit weak. I realized with a onslaught of dread that nothing actually happens in the book. Sure there are plenty of lovely scenes and the mystery is laid on just as thick, but at the end of the day, nothing is answered and there are barely any new questions. It was basically just a remashing of GOFL, which does me no good. Oh well, the middle books are always the hardest, aren't they? In order to fix its limpness, I've taken some planned parts from the third book and added them into the second. This significantly changes and enhances Nathaniel's role in the book, which is as it should be. He always seems like the most neglected character, which is silly because he's the one with the most to offer. I'm nearing completion of chapter one and I can't wait to move along with this story. 

In the meantime, I am being a bit distracted by another project. I don't want to talk about it too much just yet. The project is a planned trilogy and I'm in the process of outlining the entire thing. I've made it through the first book and find that I quite like it. The characters appeal to me and the plot, while rough at the moment, looks like it's going to be an interesting challenge. The general mood of this project should be much lighter than GOFL, and without the bittersweet fringes of Loch Raven, so we'll see if I'm able to pull it off properly. I won't begin any actual work on the story until I finish outlining the whole thing, which, at the rate I'm going, shouldn't be much longer now...

Very soon, I hope to be adding a book cover section to this blog. I would very much like to start helping authors fulfill their book cover needs. In the meantime, here is a selection of some of my work.

It's been a long time...

Jackieleigh | Flickr

Well, it's been ten days since my last post. Bad blogger! I wish I could report that I've been wonderfully productive during all that time, typing away at my book, but I haven't. At least, I haven't been productive on that front. 

There were a few things taking up my time over the past week and half, not the least of which was work. I've just had a crappy schedule recently, which hasn't allowed me much time for myself. What time I did have was taken up by other things. I obsessed over a British period courtroom drama called Garrow's Law for a while. Plus, I helped my dad with planting the garden, which looks amazing, if I do say so. 

Beyond that, Inkpop and my commitments there, such as they are, have been taking up my time. I've made a couple of deals to create book covers for people and these easily take four to six hours each, depending on the complexity. I absolutely love the challenge, though, and to be able to design cover after cover has been create. When I finished making all the covers for my current projects, I was kind of depressed that I had no reason to make more. But thanks to Inkpop, now I do!

Very soon I'm going to be adding a book cover section to this blog. There I will show a gallery of my work, plus possibly start offering my services for a modest fee. These covers would be available for commercial use, such as ebooks and print on demand. So far I've only worked with free materials, but if I could get paid for my covers, I could then purchase better images and thus make better covers. All of this is in the very early stage of planning, but I'd love to be able to help fellow authors, while also doing something I love. 

Anyhoo, I will be back more consistently from now on, I promise. Happy Tuesday!

Book cover, thou art judged.

While setting up a new release display the other day, I noticed a trend forming among some new paperbacks. Cover trends are a regular thing. Over the winter, there were a ton of books with bright orange on the cover. Currently, everyone's cracking jokes over the profusion of books with the word 'tiger' in the title. Sometimes trends can be a good thing. Sometimes they can go horribly wrong. Like when a publisher uses the same painting on two books by the same author. Very shabby. (This happened with two Georgette Heyer books.)

• Our first trend is covers featuring piers. I've always been a partial fan of rustic wooden peirs, so these covers appealed to me right off the bat. The first book I've got here is Please Don't Be True by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I've liked all of the covers used for this series and this one was no exception. I did a little digging (by reading on the back cover) and this one has fallen somewhat because of the Photoshop origins of the cover shot. (Hint: it's in three pieces) It's still a nice addition to the series, though.
• Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler has been getting attention on the blog circuit. I'm not totally in love with this cover, to be honest. It's too blurry and washed out for my taste, but it does have a smooth matte finish that I do like. 
• The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti is my favorite of this bunch. I like the details of the image--the rough wood and the darkness of the waves. Unlike the other two covers, this one is definitely meant to be colder and the tone of the photo shows this (with a little help from the girl's coat, obviously). This feels like a complete image, which sets it above the Naylor cover. 

• Trend number two is that cheeriest of all cheery colors: YELLOW! I'm a big fan of yellow even though I can't pull it off in my wardrobe. The first cover here is the first reprint of the Alice series by Naylor, I Like Him, He Likes Her. Did I mention that I love the titles used for this series as well? I would wear this outfit and grow those tulips in a heart beat. Does anyone know where I can buy a jacket like this? That bow is so cute!!
• I've seen Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley popping up on the blog circuit as well. It looks like a cute little country story and I've got the sample sitting on my Nook waiting to be read. Again I was pulled in by the yellow of her dress, as well as the nice plaid shirt on the guy.  I want to sit on a fence in a pretty dress, basking in the summer sun! 
• Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani is the first YA book written by this author. She seems like a decent writer with good storylines and I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get past the narrator's voice. Something about Viola just didn't ring true to me and I abandoned the book. This one makes the list because of the model's cute little yellow shoes. Geez, all of these covers make me want to go shopping...

A Childhood Garden

If I had to name a movie that had an everlasting affect on my imagination as a child, it would have to be the 1993 adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Everything--the costumes, the settings, the cinematography, even the colors--has stuck with me over the years. Both of Mary's homes, Colonial India and rural England, were equally exotic to me. The mysterious manor house with its thick shadows and dark paneling still represents the stereotypical 'spooky mansion' in my mind. It's a beautiful film, a true classic. And besides, who doesn't love Dame Maggie Smith as a strict housekeeper?

When Penguin released a new series of classics for children a couple of years ago, I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of The Secret Garden to read. For better or for worse, I managed to get through my academic career without reading many 'classics'. After having to suffer through Wuthering Heights and Les Miserables, I've always been very wary about reading classics. I didn't read any Jane Austen, Robert Lewis Stevenson or Charles Dickens until well after graduation. 

I was, therefore, very pleased to discover how much I enjoyed reading The Secret Garden. Granted, I'm sure my reading experience was somewhat influenced by the movie, but I found the atmosphere of the movie matched the book completely, so it wasn't difficult at all to imagine myself in that world. Obviously the people behind the film took extra special care while adapting this story. 

I was reminded about this very special story by a blog post brought to my attention by Etsy's Facebook feed. Penguin seems to love popping out new, attractive editions of classic literature and later this year they are going to release three titles with very awesome covers made by artist, Jillian Tamaki. She designed and hand-stitched covers for The Secret Garden, Black Beauty and Emma for a series called Penguin Threads. Though I already own two copies of the book already, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to add this one to my collection as well. 

Classics are called classics for a reason, I guess, and that's because they have staying power. The Secret Garden is one book that will always stay with me in my imagination. Which 'classic' story has stuck with you throughout the years? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Covers, prepare to be judged.

This seemed to go over well last time, so here we have it again!


From my original Cover Judgment post:

I spend five days a week walking the aisles of a bookstore. Needless to say, I get to see a lot of a books. So many books, in fact, that I've kind of grown numb to them. I know, sad for me, right? That's why I always enjoy it when a special book cover catches my eye.

The old adage is that you shouldn't just a book by it's cover, but the truth is that everyone does it all the time. Otherwise every book would have the title and author's name and that's it. Sounds boring, right? That's why I would like to take this time to highlight some books that have awesome YA book covers (in my humble opinion, of course). 

• There You'll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones - I'm a sucker for galoshes. And florals. And plaid on men, now that I think about it. There's not much to this over, but I like it. Simple and sweet. And I don't know why this is bothering me so much, I'm pretty sure those boots were Photoshopped green, not that it matters. The story seems a bit all over the place and lord knows I've been burned by an Ireland-set story before (Why I Let My Hair Grow Out, I'm looking at you), but who knows...? It could turn out to be Broken Soup, right? Right?
• Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison - There are two reason why I should hate this cover. Reason one - I recognize the stock photo. As someone who's been scouring stock photo websites, I've been finding more and more of them on book covers. Usually the bad kind. Reason two - It just occurred to me that "Tris" and "Izzie" are a reference to Tristan and Isolde. I hate this story. It's the precursor to Romeo and Juliet, only even more ridiculous and unromantic. BUT. I like this cover. No, I love it. Bad news though, the book still uses the love spell as the McGuffin. Nothing says true love like being forced into it by a spell. Yay. 
• Just Your Average Princess by Kristina Springer - Holy crap! More galoshes! Now that I read that this book is actually pumpkin-based, I probably would have loved it better if her dress had been orange, but I still think it's a nice over. The picture is eye-catching and the juxtaposition of the fancy dress and the ball of hay is quite nice. I also like the rounded effect of the title. It's probably not something I would read, but it could be cute. 

I'll be judging more covers soon, but in the mean time let me know what you think of these! As someone who's constantly thinking about how to package her own story, I'm curious to know what other people think makes a good book cover.

The Princess Experiment

Pineapple9995 on Flickr

I probably should have posted about this earlier, but it happened during my blogging dry spell, so...yeah. Whoops. 

Let me do a little set up here. While ABSTRACT PERFECTION is the name of my blog, it is also the name of my indie publishing company (of sorts). It's basically the handle I'm going to use on all of my self-published titles, as well as any services I provide for other indie authors, such as cover design. As a kid, I always joked ABSTRACT PERFECTION would be my band name, but since I have the musical abilities of a wombat, I decided to use it for something else. 

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(Kindle version coming soon)

As the first title to be put out by ABSTRACT PERFECTION, I chose a pubic domain title that I could format and release myself. Since I'd recently read a horrendous ebook of George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, I decided to make a pretty version of that to put up for sale. I reformatted the text (mostly replacing the single quotes with the appropriate curly ones, as well as double quotes for speech) and designed the cover myself. Neither of these processes took a small amount of time. I will be honest that the cover for this isn't quite as snazzy as I would have wanted, but the selection of stock photos was rather slim for little princesses that weren't dressed like beauty pageant contestants or Disney characters. 

I do highly recommend the book, since it's a super cute story. The whole time I read it, I kept thinking of ways to do an updated YA version, which I've placed on the back burner for now. I've technically made one sale on this book so far (since my own sale doesn't count!), but making money wasn't the point, so yay for extra money!

I'm just waiting for it to rain, basically.

Nikolas B.

This is kind of what it looks like outside right now. Not that this is an actual shot. This is someplace in Germany, but it made me think of the little patch of woods behind my house. I'm so happy I live near actual foliage. I'd probably die if I had to look at endless rows of suburban housing all the time.



I wanted to go outside and take a few photos before it started raining, but when I turned on my camera, it yelled at me because the battery was dead. Which is just as well, honestly. I could have ended up taking a hundred shots and only two of them would have been any good. And even their quality would have been suspect. I absolutely love photography, but I suck at taking photos. I've been toying with the idea of taking some of my tax return money and buying a swankier camera, as a little gift to myself.



An actual photo of mine that I'm proud of.
Taken in the main stairwell in the Met, NYC,
one of my absolute favorite places.

The whole writing-a-novel thing has been going along all right. I've been focusing on the publishing aspect a little too much recently, which has caused me to neglect the actual writing part. I find the prospect of self-publishing (and publishing in general) to be extremely terrifying and yet also thrilling. Throw in roller coaster pun of your choice here.



I've got some rough plans drawing out in my head, not the least of which is this blog. I've been having way too much fun coming up with possible book covers that I find myself wanting to make covers for books that don't even exist. I realize now that I completely wasted my time in college. I should have studied graphic design instead.

Even though it's been a week since I last updated, this blog has been lots of fun. I know I should be looking into getting a new background design, but the strange truth is that I kind of really like this one, even though it's one of the generic freebies on Blogger. It fits my personal style. I'm a big fan of 'distressed' and old timey styling in interior design. I'm in the middle of stripping the paint from an old dresser. When finished a thin layer of paint will give the wood a little character. I'm so excited to have a piece of furniture I actually like in my room.

- heather