Bringing the Book to Life

I’ve been very productive while waiting for my beta readers to finish the book. Since my last post, I’ve hired Damonza to design my book cover. Their sign-up process was easy. I gave them very specific feedback, and after three rounds, I’m almost ready to formally approve the design. I’ve never designed a book cover before, but I loved the creative process. I now have custom icons for each trial in Uncrowned Heir that feel like they came straight out of the world of Riverset.

I’ve also been working on designing the interior of the book. As an indie author, I wanted to be fully hands-on in every aspect of the book, and the interior was no exception.

Oh my, the discussions we had at home trying to decide whether the page numbers should be centered at the bottom or in the top outer corners were extensive! We even went to a local bookstore and looked at a wide variety of recent books to see what was trending. Afterwards, I bought hubby a hot dog. I think I can expense it as "research." HA!

The interior also includes all the non-chapter pages: the title page, copyright page, acknowledgements, dedications... it felt endless! I think I added 20 pages to the book when all was said and done.

However, this whole design process led me to the conclusion that the book really needed a map of Arenthis. So YES! It now has a two-page spread of Arenthis created by yours truly! I’ll need to write a separate post about creating the map itself.

I’m very excited about how the book design is coming along. This process has made me appreciate every book sitting on my shelf just a little more. There are hundreds of tiny decisions hidden inside every finished book that most readers never notice.

I hope you love the final results too.