Post-Production Chores

Book releases are fun! But, also, I'm discovering, a lot of work.

Since the novel, I've been working on the website--which I had expected and planned for--and putting up bonus features for my readers, such as timelines and author commentary, and some free computer backgrounds I designed in Photoshop.

You can find them on the
main website here.

Then there were all the author profiles on various platforms, such as Goodreads and Facebook, to fill out and set up. Each individually easy, but there's a lot of them!

Heehee. Butterfly stamps and
monster heads. Heeheehee...

I'm designing bookmarks, too, to hand out for promo materials. Getting a bookmark I like took a while, since I had to decide what style I wanted and then put the images together in a satisfactory way. Also, I may have a Photoshop addiction. (I can stop any time I want to... Now shush and hand me that jpeg file. It needs a new gradient.)

Colors. Must...
perfect... color...

And I've had tons of fun creating a logo, which I'll use for promo materials, the website, the CafePress store, and just about everything. I probably shouldn't have spent four days working on it, but I do like it, and it's flexible enough to cover a variety of situations (turns out, layers are great!). Now I just have to decide what promo materials I'm going to get.

Ever suspect your dog is
really Lost?

I hadn't really thought about the work that goes into making a CreateSpace format. In my head, it was just a quick conversion, print, etc. And surely the cover would be a quick and easy thing to make, since I had the front cover, right?

Of course this would probably be a lot quicker if I weren't a pocket perfectionist, and didn't insist on getting fancy in my layout. But creating the perfect layout has turned out to be a several-day project, and the cover is now on its second day.

Meanwhile I've been dithering away extra time by playing with Photoshop to create lovely art for my CafePress Store (I can justify it because it's for the store, right?), and planning blogs, both guest and hosted, in addition to my own.

A close-up of what's on
that dog's shirt. Also available
on gym bags and other items.

Amazing how time flies, isn't it?

Especially when I'm having fun in Photoshop (My pretty pixels!).

What are some interesting things you've designed with photo editing software? Is it as dangerous for you as it is for me?

Book release!

Be one of the first to get your hands on a copy of Into the Tides! As of today it is available on Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, and Amazon; and it will soon be available on iBookstore and CreateSpace (print editions).

Music magic would be more useful if Kelly weren’t tone-deaf. As it is, she barely qualifies as having magic at all. But she’s learned to make some use of her magic: she can hear the rhythms of things. Footsteps, heartbeats–the in-and-out rush of the tides. Ocean tides, that is, not the Tides that drowned the South.

That magical disaster wiped out most everything east of Texas and south of Virginia. The world lost millions of people; she lost nearly everyone in her family. But it’s three years over, and now it’s time to try to move on.

Or so she thinks.

But something’s wrong with the rhythms of local lake. Something magically wrong. And while environmentalists hail the return of otters to the lake as a victory, she can’t shake the feeling those aren’t normal otters.

Her brother and her handsome neighbor Derik, another Carolina orphan, refuse to let her investigate alone. Derik, from a family with a military legacy, swears he’ll keep her brother out of danger. Only, Derik’s got this thing about letting people make their own choices, and with everyone else her brother loves lost to the Tides, she doesn’t think her brother will choose to stay safe. Not even when the investigation leads into the heart of magic itself.

Also check out my main website, rebekkahniles.net, for book extras such as maps, calendars, author commentary, and more.

Thank you all for reading, and for supporting me in my journey as an author. 

Happy reading!