Amanda Orneck liked the forum thread, ATTN Quill Authors re: cover design
As many of you know, we are currently entering Quill books into production with more vigor than we’ve been able to in the past several months. We look forward to working with each of you! In the meantime, I want to ensure that you have access to helpful resources for creating a successful book, starting with cover design.

Although cover design isn’t offered through the Quill imprint, we’ve negotiated a pretty fantastic (and very affordable per industry standards) cover design package for Quill authors with our friends at CoverKitchen. CoverKitchen is a small team of incredible designers who are as flexible and energetic as they are creative and talented. Of note, they have designed the Sunshine is Forever, The Haida Gwaii Lesson, and the Life Happens covers, and we are soon to release their newest work on Inkshares with the Everything is Normal cover. They’ve also created some wonderful science fiction, fantasy, and action/adventure covers you can find in their online portfolio.

Below you can find a break-down of the comprehensive service package for Quill authors for a total of $600, including full cover design, and creation of design elements for marketing and social media purposes. 

If you’re interested in getting in touch with them to discuss a potential collaboration I’m happy to assist! You should also feel free to reach out directly to them at info@coverkitchen.com. Be sure to let them know you are a Quill author!

Happy Friday!

CoverKitchen Book Cover Design Package: Paperback/Hardcover + eBook

Included:

– Entire spread design of the print version (cover, spine and back cover), all images and original illustrations, text correction rounds, barcode placement, spine width adjustment and delivery of ready-to-print Adobe Indesign final artwork based on the specs provided by the printer as well as ready-to-print PDF.

– Low and high-resolution JPGs of the cover.

– eBook cover master file based on the specs of the distribution platform and reading device.

– 3D mockup of your book in PNG format (transparent background) for promotional purposes leading up to book release.

– Separate elements from the cover and back cover in JPG and PNG formats, optimized for use on banners across your social media platforms, website and other marketing materials.


Process:

– Briefing: CoverKitchen provides a creative brief template for you to fill in with their assistance. A comprehensive and efficient brief ensures that the creative process leads to a successful cover. This is helpful not only for the designer to better understand your book, particularly its tone of voice and mood, but also for you to sort out and prioritize the concepts and elements that will shape the cover of your book.

– Besides stock imagery, CoverKitchen often uses in-house illustration, which allows creative leeway and solid conceptualization. The use of original illustrations provides more value and uniqueness to the covers.

– Proposals and timing: CoverKitchen usually submits 3 or 4 different concepts within a week of receiving the creative brief. During this first round, it is advisable to narrow down the choices to one or two. Afterwards, they allow up to 3 revisions of the chosen cover. However, their designers are reasonable and flexible; a small tweak does not count as a new iteration.


Payment:

– Total cost for this package is $600 USD. CoverKitchen waives retainer requirements for Quill authors! Based on their experience, the completion of a cover final artwork, including the back cover text, spine adjustment and barcode, might take a considerable amount of time, sometimes months, depending on the publisher and the stage of your interior book design. Hence, a full payment following the approval of the cover spread design is always preferable.

– CoverKitchen accepts PayPal payments and wire transfers. An excellent way to make international transfers while avoiding hefty bank fees is by using https://transferwise.com or https://www.ofx.com/en-us. Both provide an easy and reliable way to send money online.


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    Amanda Orneck liked an update for A God in the Shed

    Time’s up.

    If you haven’t voted for the DragonAwards yet, your last chance is nigh. Of course, what I’m hoping is that you’ll vote for A God in the Shed in the Horror Novel category, but obviously you can vote for whatever you want and I encourage you to do so.

    So fill out the form and once you get the email, vote your heart out

    Feel free to encourage others to vote too! The more the merrier?

    Thank you

    JF Dubeau

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      Shirley Kennett followed Amanda Orneck
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      Author of Sister of the Circuit, Shadow of the Owl, and a recipe for a pretty decent mushroom fritta...
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      Amanda Orneck sent an update for Deus Hex Machina

      Yesterday I got the clearance from editing master extraordinaire Matt Harry to start writing my final draft of Deus Hex Machina. Today I built my new editing scene list to help as a roadmap for what I’ll be doing for the next month. As you can see, most of the book is changing in some way, although a lot of the changes are going to be minor.  I love this part of the process: Getting to dive into the book, polish up the rough edges and round out the wonky corners. It’s like falling in love with the story in a completely new way.

      I’m unsure what happens once I’m done with this draft, so for the moment I’m going to assume that I go into an edit phase like the rest of my cohort. My guess is that such an edit will be very brief because we spent so much time upfront preparing for the 4th draft writing phase. 

      I can’t help but smile to think how far Isidore RAM has come. I am so proud of this little book, I can’t wait for you to get a chance to read it.

      Cheers,

      Amanda

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        Amanda Orneck liked an update for These are my Friends on Politics


        If you followed along last year with my updates on the publication of These Are My Friends on Politics, you’ll recall that the real stars of those updates were the pictures of my 16-year-old dog Nina.

        Last month, she passed away. I haven’t brought it up much because (a) I didn’t feel like it and (b) I didn’t have anything valuable to say about losing a beloved pet beyond the fact that I do not recommend the experience. For those who didn’t know Nina firsthand, I’d rather leave you with something uplifting that characterized her life than simply share some sad news amid the endless bad news that keeps hitting us these days. 

         So I did the reasonable thing and wrote and illustrated and published a book about her instead. It’s nothing extraordinary — look, *you* try making a book in a month in your spare time during one of your busiest work periods of the year — but it conveys much of what made Nina such a big deal in this little corner of the world. And it has some pretty pictures in it. And it’s more funny than sad. And perhaps it’s a nice distraction and reminder that the world isn’t all bad even if we’re threatening to end it with simultaneous nuclear and civil wars. 

         Anyway, it’s available now if you’re interested in taking a look. Thanks for reading, and enjoy. If you have any dog-loving friends whom you think would enjoy this, please pass it on. 

        Amazon (paperback and Kindle): dog.billyok.com/amazon 

        iBooks: dog.billyok.com/ibooks

        Kobo: dog.billyok.com/kobo

        Barnes & Noble: dog.billyok.com/bn

        Indiebound: dog.billyok.com/indiebound

         

         

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          Rob is a game designer and software developer living in west Marin County, California. He’s been wri...
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          Amanda Orneck liked an update for Ghosts of War


          The first transport is away...


          As promised, the manuscript is in. I still have to finish polishing up the summary that’s required for the editors, but everything that’s actually going to be content in the book has been handed over.

          I think I might go watch that Game of Thrones finale again now...

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