Book Covers and Proverbs

                With my son gone to Fort Leonard Wood for military training and my daughter in school, this week my goal for my writing was to tackle book covers.  Now, I realized I wouldn’t have a finished product by the end of the week, but I didn’t think the book covers would tackle me.

                On Monday and Tuesday, I worked on my ideas of a cover for my first short story, Brother and Sister.  In June, I took a picture of my son and daughter out in the woods.  I plopped this into PowerPoint put in a title and author name (oh, so pretty) and my author brand with a nice background.  Now, I realize PowerPoint is not designed for book covers, but it is the only software I know how to run successfully.  I produced two examples of potential covers.  I liked them though they weren’t exactly the way I wanted them, but that is why I need a graphic designer.

                Wednesday morning, I grabbed all my things and drove to town.  I started the morning holding a beautiful baby boy and chatting with friends.  My nerves did fairly well until after I left and drove to the graphic designers’ storefront.  I chatted with the receptionist.  None of the designers were in at the moment, so she took my name and e-mail address.  She asked for my card.  I really need to get cards!

                I also messaged a friend of a friend that day and waited.  I hate waiting!!!  My cousin heard my impatience and need, so he gave me the name of an old friend of his.  I quickly sent out an e-mail.  I liked this last one.  He is an amazing artist.  I would love his illustrations to grace the front of all my work.  I waited a little longer.

                Friday, the company here in town e-mailed me and called to give me a quote on pricing, $400 for a cover.  Ugh.  The illustrator quoted me between $1400 to $5000.  Oh, my.  Chatting with a graphic designer friend, she thought the $400 quote reasonable.  Well, now I know.  Book covers are not going to come about this way until I am making up to a thousand dollars per project.  I can’t justify paying this much for a $2 short story which hopefully will make me music money.

                Plan Alpha, pay for a few book covers until I learned how to do them on my own, crashed and burned.  Plan Bravo is now in effect.  I am going to take two photography classes, a class in Photoshop, and an on-line book cover class.  Instead of publishing my first stories this month, I will be publishing at the beginning of 2014.  Again, I am waiting.  Have I mentioned how I hate waiting?

                This morning, I read from the Bible and found this beautiful proverb.  “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty,” Proverbs 21:5.  All week I prayed about book covers.  I released the project for Him to work.  I must admit I was anxious for an answer.  Here it is.  Buying book covers was the hasty plan and not financially sound.  Spending all of this money could very well lead to poverty.  Hard work it is!!!

                Blessings.