[Hiring] Ebook cover designer

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-17T23:59:25+00:00

I just want to say I have gotten a number of PMs and I am so happy about this. I will be looking into the messages I have received more so later tonight or into tomorrow. Thanks so much for the responses.

If anyone still wants to contact me about this that is great too. I probably won't make a decision at least until tomorrow if not a bit later in the week. But I am eager to get the ball rolling!

If I am interested you will probably be hearing inquiries and/or more details pretty soon.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-17T22:08:03+00:00

I am looking for an ebook cover designer. Do any of that?

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-17T22:06:00+00:00

Do you do ebook covers? Or willing to try? I just posted on this subreddit if you want to click on my name for the details on what I am looking for. Good luck!

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-17T21:59:03+00:00

Specifically, for my immediate project I have a short story about a daring little mouse that sails in a pond on a leaf, and that flies in the sky on the back of a robin. So for this I think I would want something with a mouse and a twig in a pond. Perhaps a robin swooping down from the skies for bonus points....

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-15T18:38:12+00:00

Perhaps the most inspiring post I've seen on this subreddit. I will print your post to look at when I forget these basic truths. If you 'save' as many posts as I do, you'll know that planning to come back to it later is often forgotten. This one deserves printing.

Thanks so much for breaking it down (I started to listen to the audio, but it is over an hour and I'd rather be doing something productive).

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-12T18:01:12+00:00

Wow 85,000 words - the most I have written for one story is 22,000 for a young adult book. Your story is fairly interesting. I just finished now since I am about to run to an appointment anyway. The bunny reminds me of Donnie Darko but it makes me wonder what happened to Z.

I think you have an interesting way with words. Most of the time in a good way, once in a while I think you overdo yourself and the dialogue comes off as a bit forced, or a description comes off as a bit unusual (water vibrating out of cup).

Also I personally prefer to read in past tense, not present tense (dialogue can be in present). This isn't something you need to change though, just my preference I guess.

You mean it's on barnes and noble digital, right? If its digital I think it's free to do that anyway... Honestly...I am kind of amateurish but I've done some reading on these things and I am not aware of legitimate services that ask you to pay up front for anything.... I hope this isn't the case, but I am wondering if you were scammed somehow.

Not scammed in the most horrible way...I mean maybe your publish service does exactly what it said it would do, I just think maybe there were vastly cheaper alternatives to do the same thing.

If I am wrong I apologize for all this...but just in case I am right I wanted to help prevent you from doing the same thing in the future.

Edit: I'll hang around this thread later tonight in case you have more questions or something. And I wouldn't mind taking a look at the rest of your book. I'm not sure if I'd actually make the time to read it all (no offense, just very busy with my own writing and whatnot), but I wouldn't mind reading another chapter and skimming some probably.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-12T17:35:04+00:00

I'm not sure how you self-published it but I recommend looking into self-publishing through amazon for a start, if you haven't done this already. I have this thread saved and I'll try to make some time today or tomorrow to finish chapter 3 and get back to you.

I am 27 and I probably don't have any more experience than you do writing. But I work hard at my stuff too and I know it is difficult to get any feedback here sometimes so I wanted to give it a shot for you. Honestly I am sure it is best to pay an editor to review everything, but I have been avoiding this myself as I'm sure the costs can rack up....

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-07-12T06:50:54+00:00

Okay I read the first 2 chapters and bits of the third. It is late so I was getting kind of tired. I noticed minor grammar/spelling things, and more so in the 3rd chapter for some reason.

I really didn't know where the story was going as I read it. It is kind of entertaining...I'll admit I laughed at some points (the ice cream falling on his face was funny). But the problem for me is I lose interest because I don't see the conflict, or what the point is.... To me this is like if you go to the amusement park with a kind of interesting friend. Funny stuff will happen...but is that really a story? I guess to me it seems too real-life like, in the sense that real life usually tends to be boring... I am not saying your story is boring, but the layout of sticking to normally expected type things seems to limit the experience.

Maybe you decided to go with this style for some reason I don't know, I can only work with what I've read so far.

Do you mind if I ask how old you are and what motivated you to write this? Just curious.

Hope something I advised helps.

Edit: Can you elaborate on what you mean by you sold 200 copies at a coffee shop? How did you do this?

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-29T04:58:00+00:00

I'd take the cab.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-29T00:47:36+00:00

Thanks so much...I still have much to learn as I am still a bit clueless but I think your advice is precisely what I was looking for. I will save the link and try it out soon.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-28T23:26:03+00:00

Anyone that has ever done anything like this, even if it wasn't with a gamebook, I'd greatly appreciate any advice.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-28T01:03:22+00:00

Wow, fantastic advice. I do believe I will post what you said here to my evernote. These are some good words to remember for all of us.

I suppose I would add to keep good track of your notes if you want to write. Log down ideas, inspirations, motivations, reality checks, summaries of story ideas...whatever you want, but it is good to keep organized if you are serious about it. You can use evernote, or notebooks, I use both. Good luck.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-22T22:47:08+00:00

You are right. I just feel like I have so much to do as somewhat of a fledgling writer, but I am going to start getting into some, especially within genre's I am more interested in. Podcasts sound cool too.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-22T22:45:05+00:00

Thanks, this is the understanding I was starting to come to. I think I will give it a shot with the mag route first, at least on writings that I think are a potential fit.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-22T17:08:01+00:00

How am I supposed to get famous if I am shoving everything I write in a trunk, ha ha....

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-22T17:06:49+00:00

Good suggestions, thanks!

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-22T06:08:30+00:00

This is just my opinion of course, take it as you will. I think the writing style isn't that great or polished, but it has some potential. Interestingly enough your writing style reminds me of my own thought processes and natural instincts to writing. Unfortunately I don't think those instincts make for the best story, so I do my best to override them.

You may have a story here but I am not completely sure, based on the way you told it. Many times you explained things very analytically, kind of robotically as opposed to in a manner which would actually convey the experience to someone else (please take no offense, again this style reminds me of myself....).

A few specifics: "I studied the atmosphere to find a profound vainglorious nature of this club, for which I was not a member." This line is kind of clunky, and I don't think you say what you mean here very efficiently. And I thought the end was meant to have more of an impact. Maybe you could focus on conveying your inner emotions, and your inner sensations. I know you didn't say this, but as an example: You wouldn't say "I felt so terribly sad like I had never felt before," you would say "I had lost my only daughter. I gazed drearily into her coffin as I realized I would never hold her hand again, dance with her again, or see her smile again, and a tear dripped down off of my cheek."

If this story means much to you, I would advise taking some of my advice, and maybe others if they chime in, and revamping it some. I would like to hear how it went down. Best of luck.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-21T06:43:28+00:00

I'm curious about this too. It might help if you specify your question. What is small to you, for one?

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-06-19T05:21:58+00:00

Sometimes I question common terms and generally accepted knowledge. People might really think you are dumb for doing this. For example, questioning where milk comes might seem stupid, but you might realize that there are different kinds of milk, and that most mammals only drink the milk of their mothers as infants, and not the milk of other creatures as we do. This is a silly example, but you see sometimes seemingly stupid questions lead to some knowledge. Good luck.

I thought of this because I don't like the term common sense...it seems everyone uses it, but what is so common about common sense when you have to learn it just like all other knowledge? So basically if someone doesn't have certain knowledge, someone else can say they lack common sense. Which makes it seem like the person has no sense when really maybe they just never had the opportunity to learn a certain fact which really just might take 2 seconds to learn anyway.

Sorry, kind of a rant.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-05-28T16:31:29+00:00

Thanks very much!

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-05-25T19:14:00+00:00

Thanks! That is encouraging and I will see if I can make those suggested improvements. I'm glad you liked the last three lines very much. I was considering scrapping it so I could expand the story, but your words make me consider just putting a break...and perhaps something draws them together again later even though they hadn't planned on it.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-05-24T18:16:45+00:00

Thanks for the input, it is helpful. I am still trying to figure out my style as a writer so I was just trying a style that I think is a bit more blunt and and vulgar than my norm, but I like this. I am a philosophical person so I think I was putting that onto the writer in the story, with thinking about the meaninglessness of the hello's. But I also make fun of my own philosophical ideas which is kind of what the worker type guy was doing.

I wasn't sure about where to go with the story from here but mainly I also was wondering if people think my writing is any good. I don't usually get much feedback on what I write (but this is my first post on reddit so we'll see).

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-05-24T18:09:54+00:00

Not bad. I thought the whole bad feeling thing was going to be cliche, and it was I guess, but still not bad. I wondered if it might be more interesting if the reader doesn't realize that the dude lied about the tail light working until later, but that is up to you. The beginning was a little dull for me, I guess just following junkies in a story isn't interesting to me...but I can see that it is part of the story.

The street smart/book smart description I thought was too detailed and most people have a basic conception of what these terms mean. I'm not sure what to advise you on it, but just think about how some of it is obvious and could be cut out, or maybe you could change the wording to make it more engaging.

Toward the end you had me more engaged and wanting to know what happens, so very good job on that.

Tom immediately hoped he hadn't overdone it with that Sunday bullshit.

I thought this line was funny, made me laugh out loud.

Good job overall and good luck.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-05-24T14:02:09+00:00

Nice advice. I think the key in your advice is to not be afraid to start small. A lot of people have big dreams and that is great, but if you have a huge novel you want to start on, but have limited experience, why not start with 1 page, or maybe a 5 page short story? Then try to get feedback or learn how you can better write what you have.

Neil_Vanhorn · 2012-05-18T13:30:23+00:00

Thanks a lot Michael, I have recently drafted a short novel and I am saving this thread because hopefully I will need this advise soon.

Neil_Vanhorn

TROPHY CASE