Friday, April 19, 2013

Happy Stone: Cover Artist Interview


 "Happy Stone," my latest short story, is now up on Smashwords and B&N.  Amazon and other vendors are coming soon.  Cheryl Casey Ramirez designed this great cover for me, and here is the interview we had.

1. You designed the cover for “Happy Stone,” turning a concept and a simple stone into a creepy, weird cover perfect for my story.  Can you give us a little information on the process?

I had looked at your website and noticed that your writing leans a little toward the diabolical, so I, even before you answered whether the stone needed a happy smile or a wicked smile, I was expecting wicked.
I browsed the internet for jack-o-lantern faces, because if you can make a pumpkin look wicked, you can make a rock look wicked.

I found a couple that I kept on my desktop for inspiration and then used the natural lines of the stone you sent to find the “eyebrows” and “eye sockets.” After that it was mostly a matter of using the painbrush tool on my software (I use GIMP rather than PhotoShop) with a sort of spackled setting to highlight and darken in all the right places.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Doh

I don't know what is more annoying--that I forgot to include cover copyright information when I uploaded LoDW to Smashwords and the 'Zon or that I didn't realize it until now.  Doh.  I'll work on a revised version tonight and hopefully it will trickle through by next week.