Pumpkin Dreams for Sale

As October rolls around, and I'm busily preparing for the 6th Annual Halloween Trunk Show here in Denver, it seemed only appropriate to create a pre-show discount on this year's new illustrated Halloween poetry book The Pumpkin Dream.

This also gives me a chance to try out this coupon code thingy that you can do as an author of a book via CreateSpace. If you order The Pumpkin Dream via CreateSpace (directly from the distributor that is) in the next two weeks (from now September 24th until October 7th) and use this code: 54G4ZYNU, the book will sell for $11.95 rather than the regular $14.95.

I've also just newly discovered these gallery modules from flickr, and here is a selection of imagery posted from the book's origins to final first edition/industry edition printings:

The Pumpkin Dream - New Borders and Dingbats

After spending some time with "The Pumpkin Dream" (Industry Version) that I had devised for CreateSpace (via Amazon), I started to feel it was missing something. While the book felt fine in its original 7"x7" format for Blurb, the new 7"x10" page felt a little too open to me... and it wasn't long before I was pulling out InkScape (during this past week) and testing some spooky border flourishes for the pages. One such result (below) is this new internal page border, of which a slightly updated version, will soon makes its appearance in the final CreateSpace/Amazon version:

I thought this was great fun to create! And from this border started to go a little crazy putting dingbats in a variety of place - now on the credits, dedication, and biography pages...

From there it was time to attack the cover which was actually the first thing that started to bother me, after I had initially termed the book complete. I felt the cover was not only too plain, but the cover illustration (which at full size has alot of detail) instead looked like a swirl of mush in a reduced size in both real life and as a thumbnail on a web screen. Taking a cue from the border work and dingbats of previous pages, the result came out in this manner:

I have just uploaded these changes to CreateSpace and am awaiting the 48 hour file preview whereby the system makes sure they are printable files. I believe they have just rolled out a new system that lets you publish a book thru now, without having to wait for the proof to arrive at your door, (although I have to say they were always VERY speedy about getting proofs sent). When the files are approved, I plan to go ahead and have that process for sale on the Amazon website. (I'm not sure how long it will take images to update on the Amazon website, so I will submit some images to the book's gallery to make sure the new version is visible with all these new borders and dingbats.