Done and Done.

Phew! Four brand new spanking covers for my Fated for Love Series. I need a vacation. Ha! Like that will happen anytime soon. This year is our 10 yr wedding anniversary and with a 3month old baby who refuses anything but boob, I told dear husband next year we will do something cool like one of those weekend Carnival cruises. They're cheap and I like cheap.

Speaking of money and the lack of it, I've decided to gamble. I've gone all in with KDP Select. It isn't for everybody, but some have found success and I hope I will too. My sales have really tanked since the introduction of Kindle Unlimited. Things have slowed so much at other retailer's that I thought to give it a shot. It's only for three months, so if it doesn't help me then I can always go back to what I was doing before.

It's scary being in business for yourself. I can't count on the same money every month and that is difficult when my husband and I want to plan on purchasing our own home. It also makes it difficult to publish. Family comes first, which means when my royalties are less, my budget to publish is less, or for this month, nothing.

This, too, shall pass.

Check out my new covers!

DIY Cover Design

The phrase never judge a book by its cover is bullshit. We all do it. A quality cover is a must in publishing, especially self publishing. I'm very proud of my covers. They may not be the best, but they sure as hell are not the worst. I do them myself because of lack of funds, and because I like it. Its fun! When I design a new cover, I first check out Amazon for the cover trends of my genre. Some I like, some I don't. My goal is to fit in but stand out. I need my cover to look professional and eye catching. I start with a background image based on a general theme for the series. Its good for books in a series to go together. Not matchy matchy, but similar and complementary.

For my Desperate and Daring Series I am featuring  men and each book is a different color with a background that connects to something about the heroine or the book. These are the first three of the series so far. (Just One Kiss is not yet released).

 

Once my background is chosen, I pick my stock model for the front, play with brightness and contrast, color changes, different fun effects, and fonts until everything comes together the way I want it to. There was a learning curve. The program I use is a Freeware called Gimp. When I come across something I don't know how to do I Google it. There is a Youtube video for everything these days. My stock model images are purchased through Periodimages.com, and my backgrounds from Dreamstime.com. Both sites are very affordable.

Gimp can seem confusing at first, especially if you are like me and have zero experience with photo editing. With the tutorial I was able to use it right away. Here is an image of my screen while working on the new cover for Sweet Torture.

I started designing my own covers out of necessity, but I find I really enjoy it and I like having full control over what the outcome is. I can also change it when ever I want. I have no training in cover design or anything like it. I had a need and the drive to do it, so I applied myself, read and researched, and spent hours learning and tweaking until I came away with my own knowledge. It's just another part of my journey as a self published author.

Here is a sneak peek at the new covers of my Fated for Love Series. Two down, two to go.

Resource recap:

Dreamstime.com for stock images of backgrounds.

Periodimages.com for stock images of models.

Gimp.org to download freeware to do your own photo editing.

Dafont.com for downloading free fonts.

*Disclaimer

Always give credit where credit is due. Don't steal images and be sure your use of the images falls within its license.

I Suc-

-ceeded.

This first post on my new blog is about success and all the reasons one might not achieve it. Fear, distraction, self sabotage, lack of discipline, lack of confidence, etc. There are infinite reasons and/or excuses for why one may never find success no matter how badly one wants it.

There are also different levels of success and different meanings for everyone. For example, I have seven published novels. I am a successful author. But, am I really? To others maybe, to me, not at all. I measure my success in different ways. Yea, I'm proud I finished and published seven novels and I have readers who enjoy them. I am making money, enough to cover what I would make working part time at my old job, which means I get to be home with my kids.

Being home with my kids was a personal dream of mine and I have achieved it. I succeeded. But, it would not be happening if not for my husband and his job which provides the majority of our family income. Therefore, my success is diminished. As an author I want to be earning more, publishing more, reaching more, more, more, more. That just isn't the case right now.

Success is hard. Everyone knows this, but why it is hard is different for every person. For me, its hard because I've never had great success at anything. My middle school chorus was exceptional. We won awards and we were better than the area high schools. But, that isn't my success, it was our success. I've never worked for and won anything all by myself. I've never tried. Why?

I might have to ask a therapist about that. What I do know, from the actual hypnotherapy education I learned but have not professionally used, is it that I subconsciously don't know how to succeed. It is unknown to me and therefore categorized as scary. I even will attempt to sabotage myself, mostly through procrastination. Why try if I'm only going to fail? I'm already outside my realm of comfort. There is only one job I KNOW I can do successfully, but I'm not doing it anymore.

I succeeded at being a veterinary technician. I was damn good at my job. But I didn't want to be a vet tech forever. I wanted to write, I wanted to publish, I wanted to be home wiping my kids, not wiping dog butts. I also wanted to make more money. Vet techs don't make good money. It's not a job you do for money. Neither is writing, but with writing the potential is there. Being a vet tech, there is no potential to earn enough money to support a family, a house, a car, etc. There are fewer and fewer jobs  that can support the American dream. A vet tech is not one of them and never was.

Enough negative, lets look at the positive. What am I doing to counter act my own self sabotage? How do I get out of the comfortable subconscious cage I built that tells me to be a vet tech and not an author? I needed motivation and that came in the form of my son. I had to go back to work six weeks postpartum. I worked grave yard shifts and came home to care for a newborn. I had help from my husband, but only one of us had boobs that made milk. It was brutal, and financially it wasn't enough. We struggled, we've been struggling. I'm done struggling. He was just starting his career, and I was beginning to see that I needed to start mine if I ever wanted to see the day where I wasn't just a vet tech, but an author and a mom who could support her family without struggling, and BE THERE.
My successes have been small, but I haven't been a vet tech for over a year and I spend every day with my two favorite people.

Now I will write about how I'm going to make my successes bigger. One of the hypnotherapy tools I learned is called Mental Bank, created by Dr. John Kappas.

"So what is it that you desire? A happy relationship? A higher income? The Mental Bank Program puts you in the driver's seat for programming your subconscious mind to achieve those goals and attract those opportunities automatically."

Click here for more info about the Mental Bank Program.

Here is a picture of my Mental Bank ledger. I made it myself :)

I will admit I'm not the best at keeping it going. Change takes work and so does success. I won't achieve either unless I put in the effort. Mental Bank is so easy its stupid, so there isn't I good excuse except maybe my own self sabotage. The mind wants homeostasis. It wants to stay the same. When the process of change begins you may find that the biggest hurdle is yourself. I have found that to be true for myself. My biggest walls are the ones I built. I will have to be ruthless with my sledge hammer, metaphorically speaking.

I am also upping my social media participation, hence the blog. I've got to put myself out there (something this introvert hates doing) so readers can find me.  Its all uncomfortable and scary, but necessary, for myself and my kids.

Cheers to success,
Ella