Minor Update

This has been something of a research week. When I first started putting books on Amazon, the cover options were very limited. The way to do it yourself was to buy stock art and create your own. I did a search for that and discovered that it's now possible to buy thousands of pre-made covers in various genres. I've been looking through hundreds and hundreds of choices for AoE and the Mystery/Romance. Most of what I've seen is either too generic or too specific. Quite a lot of them look like more of the same. Why is there a wolf on that cover? Why are so many of the people facing away from the camera? Why do so many of the people project a negative attitude? Why do so many covers not present a scene or a story? Why are so many covers paranormal when that doesn't fit a genre? Why can't I find a cover that looks like it fits the market? I'm finding so many covers that rely on digital skills and not on art skills. It feels like such a waste of time to go through all of that, but it's still faster than trying to paint my own, especially since I'm not convinced my skills are up to that.

Most of the really good covers are too expensive. Another problem is that any cover I got for AoE would have to match the rest of the series. The Mystery/Romance doesn't have that problem. I'm reluctant to try to commission something, although I've looked at Fiverr, too.

Part of what I did this week was review modern comma rules. They've changed since I was in school. I studied that and took a couple of comma tests online and got 100% on both. I've finished going through AoE for commas. I could publish it today if I had a cover. I'm still going through the Mystery/Romance for commas. At some point I need to go back through all my books and update them for modern grammar.

If I can't find the perfect cover, my plan is to paint something as good as I can do and use my graphic tablet to tweak it as best I can. Even if it doesn't look like Michael Whelan, it would be better than most of the assembly line covers I've been seeing. I hope. Time is a concern. I'm a slow painter. I don't know every trick in the book.

Have a great weekend.