{"id":624,"date":"2007-06-14T12:17:18","date_gmt":"2007-06-14T20:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=624"},"modified":"2007-06-14T12:24:57","modified_gmt":"2007-06-14T20:24:57","slug":"latest-work-2007-week-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=624","title":{"rendered":"Latest Work, 2007 Week 24"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The\"Passionate\"Reaper's<\/p>\n

Still about three covers pending approval, and one ready to go into a second draft as soon as the author deigns to respond to my e-mail.<\/p>\n

[Rant]<\/p>\n

E-publishing must be coming into its own. Three or four years ago, my first drafts today would have earned reverberating SQUEEs, prayers of thanks and worship, and tons of chocolate in the mail, especially considering the state of e-book covers in general back then.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, I find myself jumping through hoops to please every single little nitpick because either this or that tiny detail isn’t quite right or because, “I don’t know. You gave me everything I asked for, but it’s just not amazing enough. It just doesn’t stand out enough. It’s just not better than the best thing you’ve ever done. Ever!”<\/p>\n

So I’m guessing, yes, e-publishing has really made some strides in the cover department because authors have completely forgotten what it’s like to have a butt-ugly, amateurish piece of crap for a cover and now have this giant sense of entitlement and demand only the very best that anyone can ever give, no matter how much an artist might have to spend again and again on time and stock credits.<\/p>\n

I found myself spending $20 and 20 hours on a cover once, through I-don’t-know-how-many drafts, and I was so frustrated I wanted to slap someone. So I slapped myself. An author’s lucky to sell 100 units of a book in the first month out, so I thought, “If this book doesn’t rake in enough royalties to pay off my costs and labor, I’m going to start doing ugly Poser covers for everyone.”<\/p>\n

And then I gave birth to a final draft, everyone finally so cooing pleased with the cover that the frustration simply melted away, all but forgotten in the basking glow of contentment. I once said that creating a cover is like making a movie<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s a collaborative work—if the actors, director, screenwriter, and producers can’t get along or agree on a single vision, it’s a pain in the ass to make. And sometimes, you get Casablanca. Nobody liked working on Casablanca. They were always rewriting it on the set, no one knew how it would end, and they all just wanted to get it over with. But in the end, you got Casablanca.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it’s also a lot like giving birth. During labor, you want to kill the man next to you, the one who has been so supportive, the one for whom you are having this baby in the first place, all the while screaming in a bloody rage, “You<\/em> did this to me!” But after the baby comes out, and the man beside you praises the job well done and the cute little nose and toes of the baby, the labor pains start to fade and are soon forgotten, and everyone’s full of love and joy.<\/p>\n

“Oh, my God! What a beautiful baby!”<\/p>\n

You smile and say, “Thank you. I know.”<\/p>\n

[\/Rant]<\/p>\n

This week, I also completed matching designs for a business card, a bookmark, and a web ad banner for Paz Edwards:<\/p>\n

\"Paz<\/p>\n

Hopefully a whole lot more covers to show next week…<\/p>\nShare this post:

\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still about three covers pending approval, and one ready to go into a second draft as soon as the author deigns to respond to my e-mail. [Rant] E-publishing must be coming into its own. Three or four years ago, my first drafts today would have earned reverberating SQUEEs, prayers of thanks and worship, and tons of chocolate in the mail, especially considering the state of e-book covers in general back then. Nowadays, I find myself jumping through hoops to please…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}