Wednesday, September 10, 2014

eBook Cover for THE KING OF ROUND VALLEY

Just six months after posting the eBook cover for my last novel, Sunset Hill, I'm posting the eBook cover for my upcoming novel, The King of Round Valley. Let me show you the cover, then I'll tell you a little about it.

the king of round valley ebook cover


The cover was created using Swift Publisher 3 on my iMac. It's not Photoshop but it suits my purposes, and talent, fine. I applied a light shadow around the title text, but didn't feel it enhanced the rest of the text so I left them plain.

Here's the image before cropping:


Back property of Pacific Star Winery

It was taken on an iPhone 3Gs by Ned Raggett. I found it on his Flickr stream. I ran it through DxO 8.0 to improve the lighting and contrast and to increase it to 300 dpi. Ned graciously permitted me to use the photo for the cover, provided I remembered the second 't' in his last name.

The picture is of the back of the Pacific Star Winery, which I renamed Pacific Point Winery in the book. I like the moody atmosphere of Ned's picture. I felt it suited the novel.

I used two Emigre typefaces for the cover. The King of Round Valley was set in Dead History Bold and the rest of the text in Arbitrary Regular and Bold. I've owned these typefaces since the mid-1990s but feel they're still fresh.

This will be the subject of another post, but I enjoy setting my novels in real places as opposed to imaginary places, and I enjoy using pictures of those places when possible. I used my own pictures on the covers of The Mighty T and Death of a Matador, but I've never been to the Pacific Star Winery so I had to find one. I think readers who live locally enjoy reading books set in familiar settings; I know I do.

I'm waiting to get the paperback proof from Creatspace before I publish the eBook. It seems there is always one or two more tweeks before I feel a book is ready to be released.

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