I may not yet be done with this book birthing process (yikes marketing!) but I thought it would fun to look back on how I created the actual hard copy now that I have that part under my belt and in case anyone else is about to undertake the same thing.

My first step? Shooting the cover art.

Do you need to produce your own cover photos? NOPE. But I thought it would be fun and had some awesome people volunteer to help make it happen–a photographer friend, a colleague’s daughter, and a student at the local Blanche McDonald make up school

2. The Cover Design

This was the original draft submitted by the designer I hired (a full list of designers can be found here). After getting a few friends to review it, I decided the font was not quite modern enough and that the blood and Japanese characters were a bit too much. I also reworked the text a few times. The end result is pictured on the bottom.

3. The Interior

I also hired someone to copy edit the book and design the interior. Though these weren’t as much fun as creating the cover they were very, very  useful in terms of producing a clean and easy to read product. Both of the interior designer and copy editor were recommended by the cover artist–though you can also find more names at the Smashwords link above.

4. Next Steps: Marketing

This is where it gets fuzzy but I’m slowly making sense of how a lone writer gets readers to notice their newly birthed baby. So far I have set up a blog tour with Xpresso Tours and an advertising campaign on on Good Reads. Updates to come (and suggestions always welcome).