How Art and the Written Word Come Together

I find it interesting to follow a piece of work from concept to completion. I thought I would give you a glimpse of how something recently came together.

Darris, a twitter friend and dragon persona, and I, were tweeting with another friend who lives in Australia. He was praising my Farloft Chronicles and telling us he was reading them to his niece Nakita. He even sent us a photo on the DM side of twitter. She looked about five years old. Travis said Farloft was her favorite dragon.

I think it was Darris who suggested that we have a piece of art done to show "Darris the dragon, and Farloft, with Nakita." He found the artist and it came together.

We wanted something that placed the drawing in Australia, and what better to do that then the Sydney Opera House.

First came a sketch of the dragons. We thought it would be fun to have Nakita sliding from Darris to Farloft on their wings as they flew.

Next came the line art.

Baring the Bones of Proofreading and Editing

October of 2015 I opened up shop as Affordable Proofreading & Editing Service, LLC. Why did I do this? I was already a published author in my own right. I certainly did not have a wealth of time on my hands. I hold down an 8-5 job and am caregiver to my elderly father - and still must find time to write. What was my motivation to give up what little free time I did have?

I’ll tell you what… The need to see polished work in the self-publishing field. Manuscripts that are of a better quality assist all of us in sales, not just the author of the particular book.

Thinks about this…

A reader sees an ad on social media, be it Facebook, Google+, Twitter, wherever… They are intrigued by the cover and click on the link… The blurb for the book sounds interesting and the price is reasonable… (Anything 99 cents to $3.99 is reasonable.) They think, ‘heck, that’s only the cost of a fancy coffee.’