I think that even from only the first few chapters of intro you have created an instantly engaging character with this Muldoon. I do have an image of him in my head but I can't for the life of me remember the actor's name. And he does play a detective. Sort of gritty. Grrr. Can't remember.
But it does make me realise what a wonderful series of Sunday night detective stuff these Muldoon books would make (preferably BBC rather than ITV then you don't have to put up with bloody adverts - and also preferably with a Chinese takeaway). So if I was giving you careers advice I would definitely advise you to go for the adaptation potential. If you don't know anyone in the production business then the best thing is I'd imagine is to find the right agent (a local/Liverpool based one would be ideal of course) - having your book ready to go as it were would, I imagine, be a massive advantage there - that's one of the advantages of self-publishing initially I guess. So if you find an agent who is really enthusiastic and immediately sees the potential for adaptation then you will be almost there. I'd do it in 12 parts, so you could have Act I starting in October, so you get the spooky stuff in the Hallowe'en season, then November/December you get the mystery, with the great denouement happening over the Christmas season. How cool would that be - listed in the Radio Times! I remember getting the xmas radio times and diligently going through it to plan all the xmas viewing and what things would have to be videoed cos of clashes. Sorry, mustn't digress.
But yeah - definitely play the Liverpool card too.
That would be very, very cool. I'd love a BBC drama like that, too. Oh, it would be competing with strictly but best for a Sunday night. I've seen some good things on a Sunday night.
Thanks Evelyn. I don't think there's enough positive things about Liverpool in people's minds, which is weird considering we're in the top 5 friendliest cities in the UK.
This might just be a me problem but one thing I notice straight away with cover design is alignment. If it’s not perfectly centered I can see it, even if it’s slight. Now, not centering can be a design choice but the cover looks like the slug line, your name and the title are all slightly to the left towards the spine, leaving a light of “white space” on the right. Then there’s the back cover. The spider between both paragraphs is closer to the bottom than in the middle. Again, could be intentional. In which case ignore me. If not, might want to look at those things, especially if you’re making print copies, which I imagine you must be or you wouldn’t be making the cover wrap the way you are. Otherwise, I love everything else about it. Oh and one last suggestion that I learned the hard way when it comes to printers and each book being slightly “off” from each other, if you can make the spine a part of the full wrap around (ie front cover and back cover) then do it. We unfortunately run the risk of any difference, such as a different color box that helps us separate the three parts of the wrap, can end up on the front or back cover in the printing process. It’s happened to me and I hated it. But there are small tweaks that can be done to prevent that from being an issue when a book leaves the printer.
No, it's not a you problem. I've moved the text around since this post. It still needs aligning. I kept having to drag the template back up 😄 I did the entire cover as one big image, to avoid that thing you said. Thanks Erica. I appreciate it!
I must say I’m just impressed you did this on Canva! I use Photoshop and now I feel like that’s cheating when I see people creating amazing covers using less intensive software! lol
It can be a lot of hassle sometimes as I need the graphics to layer without being able to see any hard edges, but I try to get there. Thank you, I enjoy it. It's the creative release after the hard work. The Muldoon mystery thing has been moved and what I do is download the image so I can see it properly. Of course, I still have yet to mess up the proof copy 🤣
I’m terrible with my sight and zoom a lot to see down to pixels. But I also use opacity like it’s my job in order to make sure everything lines up with the template and I use squares and rectangles to separate each section and to make sure things are centered to the front rectangle or spine rectangle vs trying to eyeball it to the template. Little tricks that no one sees so who cares, right? lol
Love the cover design and the chapter heading graphic, Hanna. Are you going to create a little spider dinkus for the scene breaks (like a 🕷️ or 🕸️ graphic to replace the standard *** ?) Think it would be a great additional touch.
Please don't call me a genius, I just connect the dots.😊
Dinkuses (Dinkii?) in Canva / KDP might be relatively easy, but they're a pain in Substack. You need to make the image background transparent and the full sizing is crucial to be full width - at least 1024px. But even then the email vs Web vs app appearance differs. You'll probably work it out better than me.
I think that even from only the first few chapters of intro you have created an instantly engaging character with this Muldoon. I do have an image of him in my head but I can't for the life of me remember the actor's name. And he does play a detective. Sort of gritty. Grrr. Can't remember.
But it does make me realise what a wonderful series of Sunday night detective stuff these Muldoon books would make (preferably BBC rather than ITV then you don't have to put up with bloody adverts - and also preferably with a Chinese takeaway). So if I was giving you careers advice I would definitely advise you to go for the adaptation potential. If you don't know anyone in the production business then the best thing is I'd imagine is to find the right agent (a local/Liverpool based one would be ideal of course) - having your book ready to go as it were would, I imagine, be a massive advantage there - that's one of the advantages of self-publishing initially I guess. So if you find an agent who is really enthusiastic and immediately sees the potential for adaptation then you will be almost there. I'd do it in 12 parts, so you could have Act I starting in October, so you get the spooky stuff in the Hallowe'en season, then November/December you get the mystery, with the great denouement happening over the Christmas season. How cool would that be - listed in the Radio Times! I remember getting the xmas radio times and diligently going through it to plan all the xmas viewing and what things would have to be videoed cos of clashes. Sorry, mustn't digress.
But yeah - definitely play the Liverpool card too.
That would be very, very cool. I'd love a BBC drama like that, too. Oh, it would be competing with strictly but best for a Sunday night. I've seen some good things on a Sunday night.
Thanks Evelyn. I don't think there's enough positive things about Liverpool in people's minds, which is weird considering we're in the top 5 friendliest cities in the UK.
This might just be a me problem but one thing I notice straight away with cover design is alignment. If it’s not perfectly centered I can see it, even if it’s slight. Now, not centering can be a design choice but the cover looks like the slug line, your name and the title are all slightly to the left towards the spine, leaving a light of “white space” on the right. Then there’s the back cover. The spider between both paragraphs is closer to the bottom than in the middle. Again, could be intentional. In which case ignore me. If not, might want to look at those things, especially if you’re making print copies, which I imagine you must be or you wouldn’t be making the cover wrap the way you are. Otherwise, I love everything else about it. Oh and one last suggestion that I learned the hard way when it comes to printers and each book being slightly “off” from each other, if you can make the spine a part of the full wrap around (ie front cover and back cover) then do it. We unfortunately run the risk of any difference, such as a different color box that helps us separate the three parts of the wrap, can end up on the front or back cover in the printing process. It’s happened to me and I hated it. But there are small tweaks that can be done to prevent that from being an issue when a book leaves the printer.
No, it's not a you problem. I've moved the text around since this post. It still needs aligning. I kept having to drag the template back up 😄 I did the entire cover as one big image, to avoid that thing you said. Thanks Erica. I appreciate it!
I must say I’m just impressed you did this on Canva! I use Photoshop and now I feel like that’s cheating when I see people creating amazing covers using less intensive software! lol
It can be a lot of hassle sometimes as I need the graphics to layer without being able to see any hard edges, but I try to get there. Thank you, I enjoy it. It's the creative release after the hard work. The Muldoon mystery thing has been moved and what I do is download the image so I can see it properly. Of course, I still have yet to mess up the proof copy 🤣
I’m terrible with my sight and zoom a lot to see down to pixels. But I also use opacity like it’s my job in order to make sure everything lines up with the template and I use squares and rectangles to separate each section and to make sure things are centered to the front rectangle or spine rectangle vs trying to eyeball it to the template. Little tricks that no one sees so who cares, right? lol
Love the cover design and the chapter heading graphic, Hanna. Are you going to create a little spider dinkus for the scene breaks (like a 🕷️ or 🕸️ graphic to replace the standard *** ?) Think it would be a great additional touch.
Johnathan, you're a genius. That's a really good idea and you just know I'm going to have a go at that this week! 😄
Please don't call me a genius, I just connect the dots.😊
Dinkuses (Dinkii?) in Canva / KDP might be relatively easy, but they're a pain in Substack. You need to make the image background transparent and the full sizing is crucial to be full width - at least 1024px. But even then the email vs Web vs app appearance differs. You'll probably work it out better than me.
Love the inside graphics of the spider 🕷 hanging from its Web. Makes it stand out.
Thanks, Jason! I think I'm going to go for it with future projects, too.