Upon the Wings of Greater Things

The creative endeavours of Starla Huchton

Making Your Self-Published Book Look Good, Part Six: When DIY Isn’t An Option

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Welcome to this post series! If you’re unsure what this is or where I’m going with it, I’ll refer you back to this post for all the intro stuff. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in!

Does all this cover stuff seem like a lot of stuff to learn? Just because you could do it yourself, doesn’t mean you should. A lot of thought goes into successful cover creation, and an experienced artist brings skills and an eye for aesthetics to the table, not to mention a wealth of knowledge on best practices. A good designer is worth every penny, but is it possible to get that same goodness with half pennies?

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Making Your Self-Published Book Look Good, Part Five: Building the Cover (Print)

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Welcome to this post series! If you’re unsure what this is or where I’m going with it, I’ll refer you back to this post for all the intro stuff. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in!

So your ebook cover is complete and ready to knock the socks off of readers. It’s possible you’ll decide to stop there, but… why? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to invest time and money in editing and cover design if you’re going to ignore the huge segment of the literarily-inclined population that EXCLUSIVELY read print books. If you want to see a return on your investment in this endeavor, you want to make your novel available in as many formats as possible. So how do you go from ebook cover to print spread?

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Making Your Self-Published Book Look Good, Part Four: Building the Cover (eBook)

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Welcome to this post series! If you’re unsure what this is or where I’m going with it, I’ll refer you back to this post for all the intro stuff. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in!

So you’ve decided to DIY your book cover. You’ve nailed down your visual genre markers and collected the elements you need to assemble the idea floating around in your head. Now what?

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Making Your Self-Published Book Look Good, Part Three: Stock Imagery

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Welcome to this post series! If you’re unsure what this is or where I’m going with it, I’ll refer you back to this post for all the intro stuff. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in!

Now that you’ve figured out what you’re aiming for with your book cover, it’s time to put the plan in motion. Where do you start?

Unless you’re a highly skilled artist or photographer, it’s likely your next step will be locating stock imagery to match the vision in your mind’s eye.

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Making Your Self-Published Book Look Good, Part Two: Beginning Steps for DIY Covers

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Welcome to this post series! If you’re unsure what this is or where I’m going with it, I’ll refer you back to this post for all the intro stuff. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in!

A good book cover will take a combination of money, time, consideration, and effort. Either be prepared to invest money in a knowledgeable designer, or time and effort (and maybe money, too) in developing a LOT of new skills. When it comes to design, you should know your limitations and your budget, and plan appropriately with them in mind.

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Making Your Self-Published Book Look Good, Part One: Introduction

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For events all around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced gatherings to be in one of two states: cancelled, or virtual. Balticon 54 was no exception to this. For the past decade, Memorial Day weekend has been spoken for on my calendar because of this convention, and this year was no different, thanks to a lot of hard work from a lot of volunteers. I was again an invited guest, and Zoomed my way through different online events, which will all, at some point, be available to view on YouTube.

However, one of them simply didn’t have enough allotted time for me to get out all of the information I’d prepared to present. It’s an enormous topic, but folks were really interested in what we offered, and so I decided to compile a blog post to share the notes I’d originally intended to deliver verbally. But what was planned to be done with that singular panel, I’ll be breaking up into a few different posts, because… well, it’s A LOT of stuff, and the whole goal was to offer good advice and resources for people seeking information from those who’ve been doing this for a while.

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Guest post – Swimming Upstream: Telling the Story that Doesn’t Sell

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I have a guest post for you! I’ve known Tee Morris (and his amazing wife, Philippa Ballantine) for many years, and have been blessed to have their support and wisdom at my fingertips whenever I needed it. So today, I’d like to share the thoughts of the Yodas I’ve had access to since the earliest days of my writing career. I recently posed a question that I think a lot of authors have asked themselves (or been asked by others): What makes you keep writing certain books when you’re made to question whether or not they’ll succeed?

Tee brings up some excellent points to consider here, so if you’re debating whether or not to write the thing you want to write, do keep reading.  -SH

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World Building at ZappCon!

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helpful tips

I had a little adventure this weekend! I had the awesome opportunity to fly out to Fresno, CA for a great little convention called ZappCon. I’m still working through some of the awesome of the trip, but I’m feeling over my jet lag enough to address one of the happenings today.

On Sunday, I had a Q&A session with a small group of folks about world building in fiction. At first, I wasn’t really sure I was overly qualified to speak on such a topic (or anything, really, LOL), but there were some excellent questions raised that maybe others are curious about, in as far as my opinion on them exists.

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Humaning 101 (Or, How to Fake Extroversion)

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helpful tips

Being an author is sort of a strange thing. As a writer, I spend a lot of time by myself, submerged in worlds only I live in. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, when I call myself an introvert. I’m not good with large groups of strangers and, more often than not, I feel like a failure as a human when I’m unable to do what “normal” people seem to do in those situations.

So what happens when it comes time for events when success is riding on coming across as human? Basically, you fake it.

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