Guest Post and Giveaway: Arcanum by M.C. Moulton

Description:

Between fighting a race of magic-wielding winged monsters, scaling Krakens, blinding Cyclops, running from Sirens, and being abducted by pirates it's all Arc Arcanum can do to keep his head on straight; literally. 

After losing the only home he's ever known, and with nowhere else to turn, Arc enlists with the Human Liberation Front to help fight against a ruthless species known as the Winged Ones and stop them from unleashing a world-wide human holocaust. He quickly finds that he may have bitten off more than he can chew when he's tasked (completely by accident) with escorting humanity's last hope, a red-eyed android named Celeste, across the sea to one of the few remaining human safe havens. 

To make matters worse he's accompanied by two fellow cadets: the feisty vixen Rose and the polyamorous playboy Prince, both of whom seem entirely set on making sure nothing goes as planned. It's a magical journey that proves blood isn't the only bond that makes a family.

GUEST POST

Why Book Covers Are So Important 

While we all want to liken ourselves to Belle and her ability to see past what’s on the surface and love something for what’s underneath, we need to keep in mind that before she loved the Beast she was locked in a dungeon and held against her will for months and months with both sleep and comfort used against her. 

Now, at least as far as I’m aware, not many of us have enchanted castles in which to imprison our audience and force them to love our books or die. I’m assuming most of our audience isn’t comprised of beautiful French maidens with hearts of gold either (if yours happen to be please email me with where you live). 

For most of us we get judged by a quick glance at the front of the book. The lucky ones might get a glance at the back cover or inside flap, and the very lucky ones might actually get that back cover or inside flap read. 

It’s sad, but true, that your cover is far more important when it comes to sales than whatever happens to be written on the inside. I would venture to say it might be the single thing you should not only spend the most time and money on, but it should be the thing you’re the absolute pickiest about. 

Just about anyone can toss together some hackneyed photoshop cover. You can almost always spot these instantly by weird/bad cropping or things that just don’t go together. There are also the generic templates you can find around that make your book look the same as everyone else’s. But in a sea of literally millions of books to choose from, you have to have a cover that stands out and calls attention or it’s going to end up the wallflower that no one asks to dance. 

Whenever I go to signing or conventions the one thing people always remark on are my covers. As they should, because I paid an arm and a leg for them, but it was money well spent. If nothing else it makes people stop and look, which is about the best you can hope for when trying to sell a product. 

There’s a reason the term starving artist exists. There are thousands and thousands of people out there who are expert artists, designers, and photoshop users that depend on freelance work to survive and continue doing what they love. They’ll be more than happy to design you a cover for a minimal fee. 

There are dozens of ways to get in touch with people like this. My personal favorite is www.deviantart.com. For those of you not too familiar with deviantart it’s a resource for people to host their art. They have job wanted boards where you can post exactly what you have in mind or what you want. People will send you examples of their work and basically beg and plead for you to hire them. It gives you a large pool of people to choose from to help you find your perfect cover and price. When I originally posted to find an artist for the cover of my book, I had received over 100 bids for the job in less than 48 hours. 

Whatever you do, know that your cover may end up being the most important part of the project you’ve spilled blood, sweat, and tears over. Go the extra mile for it, spend the extra dime, it will come back to you in spades.

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