Fernando Crôtte liked the forum thread, Cover Art
For Quill projects the author is left to his own devices for the cover. I believe that they will let you know politely if your cover can be improved. 

For Inkshares projects they have a budget for illustration and a designer from Girl Friday Production will work on your cover.

I’m fortunate enough that one of my buddy who is a talented professional illustrator is also a beta reader and absolutely LOVED The Life Engineered. I asked for reader comments and he came back with fan comments, if that makes any sense. So when it came time to decide on cover art I knew I had to hire him because there was no doubt that he understood the book. Also, he gave me a very good price. 

I suggest that people who are funding get a ’striking’ cover above all else but allow themselves leeway after funding. Your goal is to attract attention and get people to read your initial pitch (which should lead to the synopsis which should lead to a pre-order). Focus on making sure your cover is legible and stands out, even as a thumbnail.

Check out my buddy’s art. He’s amazing.

http://www.ericbelisle.com

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    Fernando Crôtte liked the forum thread, How I got to 250 orders in 10 days
    Perfect advice Tal - may I also add that the personal approach is very important. 
    I learned the hard way. I.E. that if you have list of mates that you used to play basketball with every week for a while, or even guys from uni that you used to be very close with.  If u send a general email you’ll get 0-2 orders.. if u approach each in a personal email, the success ratio is much highe, close to 100% if these are real friends.

    I haven’t reached Quill in ten days, took me a month+ but just a small bit i found out the hard way :)

    thanks for the below Tal! 
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      Fernando Crôtte liked the forum thread, How I got to 250 orders in 10 days
      So I’ve gotten a ton of messages about how I got The Punch Escrow to "Quill" in 10 days. Hopefully this is useful to some of you. I think it basically boils down to: Treat it like a job. It’s your job to get your book sold. If you believe in what you’ve got, if you think you know the audience you wrote it for will love it, then invest your time, energy, and money in your project.

      1. Get lucky. Luck is something you need to succeed. Luck is something you can actually control. If you don’t believe me, do the research. Having a lucky attitude makes a huge difference. 

      2. Move quickly! I learned this through a couple decades in marketing. When it comes to contests, creating a distance between you and anyone behind you pays back huge dividends. Once you’ve established yourself as the frontrunner, you gain the benefit of being perceived as the favored incumbent. It pays to burn through all of your promotional energy early. If you manage to grasp first place, trust me, you will find a second wind. If you don’t, then you’ll have a pretty good perspective of your likelihood of winning and you can make the call on how much energy to reinvest based on that analysis.

      3. I steadfastly followed the advice given by previous Inkshares contests winners. I hustled really really hard and harassed everyone I knew through multiple channels: Texts, twitter, FB, WhatsApp, Snapchat, even LinkedIn. I would say personal contacts accounted for over 50% of the pre-ordered books. I injected a sense of urgency by explaining the contest, the timeline, and the ask: "I’m in a contest to publish my first book. If sci fi is your thing, you’re going to love it. Especially if you like hard sci fi, like The Martian. I need to get 250 pre-orders to get it published. Please click here to pre-order it."

      4. Engage engage engage!  Every single time someone bought my book I acknowledge and thank them. It makes them feel good and it encourages them to engage back with you and help promote the project. They’re part of the team now.

      5. Get to know your fellow authors. Inkshares is an AMAZING community of readers and authors. I have yet to have a negative interaction with anyone here. I’ve joined three Syndicates and have interacted with countless authors. Everyone here has something valuable to pass on to you. It’s worth listening.

      6. Promote and Invest! Remember when I said treat your book like your job? Well, you should also treat is like an investment. There’s a flywheel effect when people see you investing in your own work. It makes them feel like you really believe in it. I’ve been creating a ton of world-building content, videos, as well as taking advantage of every interview opportunity, promoted tweets, Facebook boosts, and such. If publishing this book is your dream, invest in making your dream come true. 

      So, these are the six steps I followed. Hopefully it’s useful to you. If you have more specific questions about those or the book itself, I’m at your service.


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        Fernando Crôtte liked the forum thread, What is the best image proportion for Inkshares books?
        The standard proportions appear to be 2:3 width to height. For use on the site, it looks as though that comes out as 400 pixels by 600 pixels.

        But you’re probably going to want to have a much bigger, higher resolution "master copy" for when the thing does go to print. For that, I don’t know, but I would suggest being ready with something 6"x9" at 300dpi, or 1800x2700 pixels. Or, if you like, even higher: it’s better to scale down an image than to scale up.
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          Fernando Crôtte created a forum thread: What is the best image proportion for Inkshares books?
          Planning for a final Inkshares project, in both e-book and physical book, I’d like to give an artist good direction in terms of image requirements: pixel dimensions, height/width proportion, resolution, etc.
          Join the discussion
          Fernando Crôtte followed Theron Couture
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          Author of Science Fiction. Transitive Futurist. Ritual Insomniac.
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          Fernando Crôtte commented on A God in the Shed
          JF!
          A huge congratulations! And well-deserved, for such a polished work. I am very happy for you, and for your great example!
          Celebrate!!!
          Ferd. :-)
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            Fernando Crôtte liked an update for A God in the Shed

            I don’t usually do two updates in one day but...

            WE FUNDED!

            So let me make something clear: I use the term ’we’ when talking about this campaign because while I write the book, it’s your support and encouragement that makes it happen. These aren’t empty words meant to artificially include you and make you feel like part of the process. The whole point of Inkshares is that this is a community effort. A symbiotic endeavour between reader and writer to help create works of fiction and bring them to the public.

            There are a lot of people who have gone above and beyond for this to happen and I’d like to highlight at least three that can benefit immediately from your support:

            John Robin, the author of Blood Dawn, spearheaded community efforts to rally people together after I called for help from fellow authors. John is a hard working writer and a helluva guy. Check out Blood Dawn and support it.

            Andre Brun, my CEGEP buddy and author of Lies & Deception campaigned for me harder than I could campaign for myself. He leveraged his own book and his salesmanship skills to gather a ton of pre-orders and get A God in the Shed in front of many new pairs of eyes. Lies & Deception is a terrifyingly ambitious book that deserves your attention. Check it out.

            Paul Inman, my cohost on WriteBrain and author of Ageless also lent a hand and was a big part of the community, leveraging the release of his own book to help get visibility for A God in the Shed. Check out Ageless, I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

            Finally, let me plug my buddy Brian Guthrie who was a great help and is currently participating in the Geek & Sundry Hard SciFi contest on Inkshares. Check out his book After Man and support it with all your heart (and pre-orders).

            More soon as thing develop and, as promised:

            JF

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              Fernando Crôtte sent an update for Mission 51

              I send this brief note in support of Mike Donald’s excellent thriller, Louisiana Blood. He is in his last 17 days of funding and needs just 25 pre-orders to be published. Louisiana Blood is a "Staff Pick," and has earned the support of TWO Inkshares Syndicates. This book is the real deal! In the spirit of crowdfunding excellent work, please support Mike and Louisiana Blood with a pre-order! Thank you!

              https://www.inkshares.com/books/louisiana-blood-a-chandler-travis-and-duke-lanoix-mystery?referral_code=13a0d0cd

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                Fernando Crôtte sent an update for Mission 51

                Hello mis amigos!

                This is my weekly request for the favor of your pre-order, to keep me on track for Quill. Every single order helps! Please take a moment and help me achieve my mini-goal of reaching 80 pre-orders. I need less than 10 for that to happen. (BTW, I do pre-order swaps.)

                Mission 51 is coming along nicely! I am working on the chapter where Deltare gets her first glimpse of the alien. Among the closing lines of the previous chapter:

                “And now," Smith announced, “let’s go see the dead alien. That will be a good prep for the live one you’ll be meeting tomorrow.”

                Officer Smith said that as if it was a normal thing to say. But it wasn’t normal, Henry/Deltare thought...

                Well, I guess Deltare is entitled to her opinion, but things will change!

                Stay tuned! 

                Peace!

                Ferd.  :-)

                (ahem... your pre-order? Please and thank you!)

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