So, I’m still fiddling with the cover for The Choosing (A Novel of the Pruxnae). That shouldn’t surprise anyone. The change this time was prompted by the discovery that my background picture was only 72 dpi, which, of course, isn’t nearly a good enough quality (especially considering that, for some odd reason, all the other pictures defaulted to that lower dpi, too). I started searching for alternate backgrounds and ended up with something with the same general color scheme but a completely different feel.

Thing is, though, that once you change one element in a cover, chances are good you’ll have to change other things, too, and that was exactly the case here. The original cover model photo was too difficult to isolate (from the background), so I went with a different one, and then I had to add another moon, and because the lighter elements in the background were in a different place, I re=positioned the spaceship…

A long while later, I have a new cover. I’m still not quite satisfied with the fonts; those might change. But, I’m quite happy with everything else, so hopefully, this will be the last iteration, fonts aside.

Am I upset that I had to redo the cover? Not a bit. Every time I work with Paint.NET, I learn something new. Among the lessons I learned this time was how to do the glowy thing behind the title’s text on the front cover. (Also, sometimes plugin .dlls don’t install correctly, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I have a fairly simple philosophical approach to writing, including learning how to do my own covers, and that is this: Don’t be afraid to try until you get it right. Maybe there’s a more positive way of stating that, but the way I put it there will do. If I got angry every time I had to redo something, I’d never make it through the nitpicky editing/revision stages of the story production process, nor would I have attempted a rewrite of The Prophecy. Contrary to what others might say, I didn’t do that as a boost to my own ego. The writing needed work. Turning a blind eye to that need would be completely contrary to my writing philosophy, and it would’ve been a poor business decision to boot. Now that I’ve had a second go at The Prophecy, I’m satisfied it’s right. The cover below? Well, it’s right-ish. 😉

26 March, ETA: Finally found the right font. Pretty cool, huh?