Ride 'em Cowboy

Another cover, coming soon to TEB!!

Ride 'em Cowboy by J.P. Bowie.
(can't add links atm, so I'll come back to those)

*sigh* Cowboys .... yum!

Okay. Thinking, thinking. We can all thank Claire for the image of the sexy cowboy in the back. He was originally leaning up against a barbed wire fence, but I cut that out. Obviously ;)

The guy in the front I made blonder to suite the city boy character. Actually, he kinda reminds me of a Lesser from JR Wards Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I don't know if that's such a good thing, now that I think of it LOL!

The background was a bone of contention and it took a bit of back and forth before we found the right image. All the pretty country images showed mainly run-down, dilapidated old sheds. At least with this one the shed looks like part of a working property, instead of a ruin in the middle of a deserted paddock.

Had something interesting happen this week. I'll sit on it for a bit to see what comes of it before I share.

Now speaking of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward. I just finished Lover Enshrined. That would be Phury's book for fans. I can't believe I've finished it already. No. I can believe it. I absolutely love this series. I can honestly read one of these books within 24 hours. Anyway, I've finished it and will now have to wait another 12 months for the next in the series. God I hate that. I think it's Revhenge's story from what I've gleaned from the forums. Which will be interesting as I don't know how he's going to do the deed unless he's matched up with another Sympath. The old 'fish-hook' thing wouldn't help matters in the bedroom. WHAAAT? I hear you cry LOL! Oh well. I guess you'll have to read the books to find out ;) Still. It will be interesting to see what JR has planned for Xhex and John.

I finally got around to doing Amarinda & Dakota's banners - Yay!! Can't figure out why they're not changing though. Maybe one of the girls can give me some tips.

Having it All

Coming soon to TEB - Having it All.

Having it All by Jamie Hill is Book 3 in the Unexpected Love Series.

Geez, this one was a while ago so I'm having difficulty remembering what I did. It was pretty straight forward from memory. I just cut out the characters and fit them onto the cover.

Of course it's never THAT easy. I need to blend them so they don't look like paper cut-outs. This can entail adding shadow and highlighting or a few strands of 'fly-away' hair to soften edges. Colour matching the characters or adding a bit more contrast, etc.

Then I need to juggle the size of the characters so they 'look' right. I like them to fill the cover, whilst not overcrowding it.

I've kept to the same style with this book, as you can see below.















So I've been totally sucked in by Facebook. There are loads of fun games that you can play over there. Who knew! I'm already addicted to PackRat and Scramble. You can play anything from Sudoku to Majhong. PackRat is a game where you collect sets of themed cards either by purchasing them with game credits or stealing them from your friends. The collector in me is in heaven with this game. Unfortunately it has become an obsession. Thanks April!!

Heatwave V2

Here we have another version of Heatwave.

This cover was put together for a couple of M/M stories that crept into the mix for the Heatwave Anthologies.

Yummy!!

The Harder they Come

The Harder they Come coming soon to Total-E-Bound!!

The Harder they Come by Kaenar Langford.

Yay!! It took some mucking about but I finally found my biker. Oh, I'm sure he's been well and truly used around the publishing houses, but he was all I could afford LOL!

He comes as is. I chopped off his thumb, which stuck out like a .. well, a sore thumb I suppose you could say. I think Claire asked me if he was holding a spoon or something in his hand LOL! So, off it went. I then added his luscious long hair to get our bad-boy, younger man biker.

The bike I had from a previous cover (yay! I'm finally starting to re-use some stock). I'd saved it as a PNG file so that I didn't have to cut it out from the background again. I do that with anything that I cut out - people, objects, backgrounds. Just in case I need to use them again.

The Cafe in the background took a bit of searching. I had a picture in my head of what I wanted, but of course that just doesn't exist, but this one worked out surprisingly well.

So, yep. After the initial mucking about and three covers later. This was the winner.

Thanks everyone for your support on my Writing post. As it turns out I haven't had much time to sit down and focus this past week. I've had some covers come in, but hopefully I can get onto it and start trying to get myself organised this week. I'll keep you updated.

How do you do it?

Geez this writing business is damn hard work.

Okay. So I have this story that I've been dabbling with for a good 3 years now. I've named it Dragon Lord and as you guessed. It is about a Dragon Lord. Yes, my own creativity leaves me baffled and open mouthed in wonder. But I digress.

See, I've been plugging away at this - this THING. Leaving it and coming back to it. Adding. Subtracting. Heaven forbid re-writing. Until I've come to the point where I now have DL WIP 1, DL WIP2 and numerous versions of DL WIP3.

I've kept text that I'd removed and popped it in it's very own special document, just in case I wanted to come back to it. (I was so over remembering that I wrote something only to find out that I'd deleted it, so hence the Deleted Text document). Then there's the character charts, Idea documents and vague attempts at Plot lines and world building.

So of course I've totally confused myself to the point that I can't even remember which DL WIP 3 I was working on. Yes. I opened them all on the same day. *smacks head*

So. Over to the right there, you can see that I've put up a little progress meter. It shows progress on what is obviously Dragon Lord version 4. Yep, yep. I'm an idiot.

But this story wants to be told. I just don't know how to tell it. I thought that by starting from scratch it would be easier to pull together. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case. I can't totally turn my back on what I have previously written (17,000 words). There are some good bits there. Somewhere. In amongst the mind numbingly boring bits involved with getting from point A to B.

In all honesty I'm starting to go stark, raving BONKERS. This then sees me disenchanted with the latest version so I return to the previous one, telling myself that it wasn't that bad to begin with. Which means that I shelve the new one I started BUT there are parts of that that I quite like and may just be able to slot into the storyline, so it get's it's own little document. (can you see a pattern here?)

Also. I've noticed that V3 and V4 seem to be written in two very different voices and the characters are a bit different. For example in V3 my Hero is quite defensive and manipulative but in V4 he's coming cross as caring and a bit pathetic.

Plus, when I go back and read what I did in V3 I sometimes find myself stitting back and wondering. Who wrote that? Surely I didn't write that? But I did. See. Somewhere in there there are little hints of genius. Well, maybe that's taking it a bit far but there are things there that impress even myself.

Oooh look. Yummy. There's my hero *drool* It's as sexy as a half a head can get I suppose. ->

So. Where do I go from now? I probably shelve the whole lot. Because this is what I do every time I get in the mood to write. I start, get confused, get bored with getting confused and then put it all away. *sigh*

I think I have commitment issues.

I need to find myself a small Critique group that specializes in Romantic Paranormal Fantasy, or there abouts. I need to discuss my work with other writers. I need to learn so I work out how to get the Heroine to invite the scary Hero into her house ASAP so we can can get the story moving. Now keep in mind he will be naked and she will be sporting a wound thanks to him. Oh and then there's him changing into a Dragon thing. Geez, talk about baggage! Who in their right mind would invite THAT into the house? Honestly.

*sigh* I need a bex and a good lie down.

Heatwave

Oooh lookey, Heatwave's been released. Coming soon to TEB!

I was beginning to think that this cover had been swept under the rug. It's been a while since I did this one.

TEB made a light change and moved the Author's name down to just above the Title. Makes sense as in my version it's covering part of the woman's face.

So. It was a pretty straight forward cover. Changed the couples colouring (hue) to match that of the sunset a bit more. Then just blended the two images together using a layer mask.

The font was one I downloaded and from memory I just added a glow to the text.

I like how this came together. Let's hope it works for the Authors.

Not much else been happening. Been finishing up some more covers.

Don't you just hate it when you do something that you kinda know you shouldn't be doing but you do it anyway? It was suggested that I contact one of my authors to discuss a cover I was doing. The first version was vetoed and I needed to get more of a feel for what she was after. So I'd mocked up another cover and sent it to her for approval. I also sent that version to the publisher. Fine. Dandy. Not a problem. However, I stupidly created a 'option' version and for some reason sent that along as well. The publisher came back preferring the first version and of course the Author came back preferring the 'option'. Argh!

Stupid. I felt so bad. So there was a bit of bending over backwards to make up for my mistake. Claire was SO understanding. God she's awesome! Anyway, it all sorted itself out in the end. Mind you I ended up with THREE covers for them to choose from because I felt so awful LOL! I guess that's why contact with authors should be left to the publisher. Suits me to a tee. Too many cooks ... yeah, you get the idea :D

Oh. Did I mention my husbands van was written off the other night? A young fellow on his P's and driving dad's car hit it head on. He said a dog ran across the road in front of him and he swerved to miss it. I appreciate that he didn't hit the thing but I always remember being told not to swerve to miss an animal. Aaanyway, no biggie. The insurance will cover the cars and no-one was hurt, except maybe his pride. His young girlfriend was in the car at the time LOL! Oh well. We live and learn.

Edited to add: Hubby wasn't in the car. It was parked out the front of the house! LOL Thought I'd better add that so I didn't sound more worried about the animal than my husband. As tempting as it can be sometimes :D

Taking Control

Taking Control by Jamie Hill. Coming soon to Total-E-Bound.
Jennifer Steele is plagued by memories of a violent crime. Desperate to pull herself together, she's dealt another blow when her boss hires a new employee for her bank branch. It's Jen's job to do the hiring, and she'd never have chosen a man so handsome—and arrogant. T.K. Knight is a striking part Native American who seems more at home on a ranch than in an office. Jen's not completely sure of his motives, but can't resist his charm or the pure lust that takes over whenever he's around. When Jen discovers T.K. might not have been placed in her office by chance, their already heated situation gets even hotter. The truth can be hard to face, but Jen finds she has to take control of the past, to make way for the future.

Two stock images in this cover. Actually three if you count the background on the back cover which isn't shown here. I guess I could always post the cover flats. We'll see how I'm feeling LOL!

I've had this couple for a while and have actually used him in another cover. It was nice to be able to re-use an image. I don't do that very often so it was a saving on my part LOL.

I darkened his skin a smidge to give him that swarthy Native American feel. I can't believe the amount of covers I've had lately requiring a Native American hero. The stock is soooo hard to find. This fellow is more European than Native but he's dark so that saves having to change hair colours, etc.

The Bank Vault door is pretty obvious, considering the story is about a bank.

The stock situation is really starting to bug me. I've been in the search for a sexy guy on a Motorbike this week. Who'd have thought it could be so hard? Oh of course there are some images available but as you can imagine they've all been well and truly used by other artists/publishers. I swear someone out there needs to start up a stock image site that caters purely to the e-book publishing industry. Oooh could you imagine a whole site with a plethora of gorgeous people all themed out to the max - cowboys, vampires, bikers, pirates, guys & gals who actually look smoulderingly dangerous *sigh*. I could so do dangerous atm but that's another blog ;)

God I'm so tempted to do a photography course and start up my own site LOL! Yeah, like I'd have the time to do that. Anyway, I don't know if my husband could cope with all the beautiful people hanging around. Certainly wouldn't see me complaining ;)