I’m delving into the world of indie publishing. Some authors go the quicker route and use a source like CreateSpace or Kindle Direct to immediately get their books out there.
There’s nothing wrong going that route, but I’ve decided to take a different path.
I’ve completed the final edit and decided my young adult fantasy novel needed a map to help my readers visualize LUNADAR as I see it.
It took me one quiet Sunday afternoon to complete it and I am rather proud of my first time effort to draw a fantasy map. I found some scrapbook paper with a pirate scroll design on it. I researched different fantasy maps and listed all the places around LUNADAR I wanted to show.
Once I found elements I liked, I sketched it out on the scrapbook paper with a #2 mechanical pencil. Then I looked for different compasses. I wanted something to tie the map to LUNADAR’S overall storyline. I knew once I saw the sun/moon compass that this was the one I had been looking for. Once the map was completed, I outlined it with an ultra fine tip black marker.
I then took a picture of it with my iPhone in black and white “noir” so I could load it to the front pages of my book. I thought I was breezing through all this like a boss.
Then I hit a stone wall.
I can’t get the two edges of the map to line up on my formatted pages so it’s going to look dumb on the pages of my finished ebook. I’m going to do a shout out to my illustrator friends on Facebook to see if they know something I don’t that can help me.
Cross your fingers…unless, of course, you are someone with an answer to my problem…and then, please use those said fingers to help another writer out…
PLEASE?
International best selling, award winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy) is scheduled to be released in ebook edition by June 2018 from Story Catcher Publishing, with the print edition coming out by Spring 2019.