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 |  Life, Adventure, Family, Writing what else is there? Random thoughts. |
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WELCOME TO: GEMINI RISING   UPDATED INTRO 28 MAY 2024: Just a little about me. I've been married for 32 years this past NOV and currently live in Southern California, but I grew up in New Hampshire. I've got 2 boys who are young adults. I work as a 911 dispatcher for LAPD. I enjoy my job a lot. Still. If you can believe that. I love to write. Thankfully both of my boys achieved Eagle Scout. My Scouting days are over and I'm back to focusing on my writing. I like to get out in nature, drink coffee and watch football. Here's a little bio about my zodiac. GEMINI: Gemini, the sign of the Twins, is dual-natured, elusive, complex and contradictory. On the one hand it produces the virtue of versatility, and on the other the vices of two-facedness and flightiness. The sign is linked with Mercury, the planet of childhood and youth, and its subjects tend to have the graces and faults of the young. When they are good, they are very attractive; when they are bad they are more the worse for being the charmers they are. Like children they are lively, and happy, if circumstances are right for them, or egocentric, imaginative and restless. Their good qualities are attractive and come easily to them. They are affectionate, courteous, kind, generous, and thoughtful towards the poor and suffering - provided none of the activities resulting from expressing these traits interferes too greatly with their own lives and comforts. Geminians can be successful in many walks of life though their general characteristics tend to make them unreliable. They are often skilled manipulators of language, in speech and writing, and may be: debaters, diplomats (though in politics they are more interested in theory than practice), orators, preachers (brilliant rather than profound), teachers, authors, poets, journalists, or lawyers. This is me. I am a Gemini. Pure, Raw, passionate. The NEW focus of this blog is to share my adventures, travels, random thoughts, book reviews, thoughts, opinions, and writing adventures from actual writing, writing/editing tips, marketing, research. I'll get there. BLOG ACCOMPLISHMENTS: SEPTEMBER 2024: I participated in the
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Congrats on your Honorable Mention in Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Nonfiction.gif) Big thanks to WakeUpAndLive~doingNaNo'24   for hosting the contest! OCTOBER 2024: I participated in the
![Merit Badge in Halloween
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Congratulations on completing the 13 Poetic Days of Halloween.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Halloween-2026567.gif) Big Thanks to Lyn's a Witchy Woman  for hosting the contest!Find me at: WEBSITE: http://www.stephanieburkhart.com FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieBurkhartAuthor GOOD READS: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4031660.Stephanie_Burkhart YOU TUBE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/user/botrina?feature=mhee Previous GRATITIOUS Warning, that I decided to keep in case I post about something that might offend.  WARNING I intend to be open, honest, and forthright. No topic is off limits from religion to you name it, I'm going there. If you think you might be offended...back up now - this blog isn't for you. For those who "dare"  check out the "Gemini Rising..." 
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| Once you have the story and the editing has been done, you want a cover. The cover should reflect the story in some way. I am not a graphic arts designer, but I have had the fortune to work with my small press cover artists to design a cover for my stories. One of the things they have me do is fill out a “Cover Art Form.” A Cover Art Form is one that you can design yourself, to give you an idea what you might want on a cover. A Basic Cover Art Form might include the following: A bio on your hero and heroine with a physical description and an excerpt of an important scene in the novel. The Cover Art Form might also include other elements such as the setting and objects that have an important meaning to the story. While I have purchased most of my covers from before, I did want a new cover for “Christmas in Bayeux” so I reached out to my formatter who also does covers and she put me in touch with the previous cover’s creator to work on a new cover. Now, you can also do an internet search for graphic artists and people who create covers, but I’m very comfortable working with those formatters and cover artists who are now freelance from my old publishers.  The cost for the new cover was $50.00. Costs for a cover will vary from $50.00 to up to $150.00 or even more. There are a lot of factors in play. Do you need an ebook cover? Audio book cover? Print book cover? What is the dpi needed for the cover? Does the cover artist need to buy the photos for the cover? How much “photoshoping” or layering do you need in the cover? For my new cover with “Christmas in Bayeux” I went to Dreamstime, a place where you can buy photos, images, stock photos, and royalty free photos. If you need to buy a photo, you can pay royalties for it and then you can use the photo. The royalties are typically not that expense and I believe I paid about $20.00. I bought 3 different possible photos for the cover and sent them to the cover artist to design a cover. In that regard, I’m getting exactly what I want for the cover. I filled out my version of a cover art form, went to dreamstime, and picked the photos I wanted the cover artist to work with. They came back with 3 designs, and I picked the best one I thought would fit the story. “Christmas in Bayeux” would be an ebook and a print book, so the cover had to be a certain dpi. I’ll share some of the other cover versions that were done for the story.   Here’s a helpful checklist when working on your cover: Cover Art Form? Select photos from Dreamstime or another Photo seller? Select a cover artist and agree to a price for the cover? Tell the cover artist the intent of the cover – do you need just an ebook cover? An Audio book cover? A print cover? One for all 3? Creating a cover that fits your story might take between 1-3 weeks to get the one you want, but it’s worth it because a cover is a big reason why a buyer will buy a book so making sure you have one that is reflective of the story you wrote is very important. Part 4 – ISBNs – Why do I need one? |
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