Write What You Know

Fellow novelist, Jeff Bauer, author of Cavern Kings and Wakulla Bones, is a perfect example of a person writing what they know. His years of working as a scuba instructor, specializing in underwater cave diving, led him to the creation of his mystery novels. My favorite thing about his writing is that when his character is swimming through the reefs, it feels so authentic that I feel like I am scuba diving alongside him.

 

One of the things that attracted me to his book, was his cover. He tells us a little about how and why he choose his cover artist. (Same one I went with.)

 

“I chose Elizabeth (of Babski Creative Solutions) for my cover art for several factors:

* I knew her from Outcasts (a diverse and talented group of writers that have a writing critique group is linked to the Tallahassee Writing Association) and have built a level of trust with her. After talking to her and looking at her portfolio, I knew that she’d be able to do the work.

*Her price was competitive with other book cover services, like Create Space.

 

*I much prefer having a person I can physically talk to about the ideas for the cover and, in this case, even show them physical props (the line arrow and line) rather than hoping that an email or phone discussion gets the correct point across.

 

*Being an Outcast, she has read some of my work and therefore has an advantage in being able to help design a cover.

 

*I found out after hiring her that she was very easy to work with and didn't mind tweaking designs to get the results I wanted.

 

*Elizabeth clearly has experience with all of the minutiae of designing covers (the file format, front & back, spine, etc., etc., etc.) that I do not have. For the record, to date the cover art has been the most expensive part of publishing that book (but well worth it).

 

*As far as sales and the cover, it's too early to tell.  I think the cover is much, much, much better than the one I did for my first book (using the free canned templates in CreateSpace) and have gotten much more favorable comments about it.”

 

Thanks Jeff!

 

Well, I’m stirring in my seat and can’t wait to see my first peeks of my cover for the soon to be released southern comedy, Dog Breath by Jolene Fine.