Each workshop is 6 weeks long and is limited to twelve people. (It will take you about four hours per week to do each of these.) These are the starting dates of upcoming workshops.
All have openings. For sign-up and more information about each workshop, click the Online Workshop tab at the top of the page.
Starting July
Class #22… July 8th … World Building
Class #23… July 9th … Plot Your Novel
Class #24… July 10th … Designing Book Covers
Class #25… July 11th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #26… July 12th … Essentials
Starting August
Class E-1… August 5th... Promotion
Class #27… August 5th … Ideas to Story
Class E-2… August 6th... Promotion
Class #28… August 6th … Openings
Class #29… August 7th … Genre Structure
Class #30… August 8th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #31… August 9th … Cliffhangers
Starting September
Class #32… Sept 2nd … Essentials
Class #33… Sept 3rd … Plot Your Novel
Class #34… Sept 4th … World Building
Class #35… Sept 4th … Pacing
Class #36… Sept 5th … Designing Book Covers
Class #37… Sept 6th … Designing Book Interiors
Starting October
Class #1… Oct 7th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #2… Oct 8th … Promotion
Class #3… Oct 9th … Genre Structure
Class #4… Oct 10th … Openings
Class #5… Oct 10th … Cliffhangers
Class #6… Oct 11th … Pacing Your Stories
Starting November
Class #7… Nov 4th … Essentials
Class #8… Nov 4th … Ideas to Story
Class #9… Nov 5th … Plot Your Novel
Class #10… Nov 6th … Designing Book Covers
Class #11… Nov 7th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #12… Nov 8th … Promotions
Starting December
Class #13… Dec 2nd … World Building
Class #14… Dec 3rd … Pacing Your Stories
Class #15… Dec 4th … Cliffhangers
Class #16… Dec 5th … Genre Structure
Class #17… Dec 5th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #18… Dec 6th … Promotions
Sign-up and more information under Online Workshops tab at the top of the page.
Very nice. The new covers allow much more room for the thumbnail images to have an effect. They still have enough small text to look like “real books” but are optimized for ebooks, imho.
I’m really thrilled these are finally available as ebooks! Now to buy them!
Not yet, Bridget. All proofed and ready to go, but only Dangerous Road is up with the old cover and needs to be changed out. All six will take about a week or ten days. Now that the covers have settled. (grin)
They are fantastic books, though. It’s been a crime they have been out of print in my opinion. The wonderful nature of this new world.
Great covers and a huge improvement. I’m starting to see a house style come through and I really like where you are going with your work. Plus Edgar award – jealous!
Thanks, “Same” for the comments. Much appreciated.
It’s a little frustrating not to be able to explain to myself why I like the new covers so much more than the old ones. I thought the old covers were good and absolutely professional, but somehow the new covers send out an almost subliminal message, “buy me, buy me, buy me …”
Nice covers and I do think the newer versions look better. It is a wonderful world for authors that we can not just decide what our covers should look like, but go in there and make changes as needed after initial publication. It only makes sense that your skills evolve as you do more covers and the world of POD and e-publishing means we can easily bring those newer covers online.
I recently changed the art for my Valda & the Valkyries book and it has given a nice boost to sales. Actually, I made several changes and once so it is hard to factor which one helped the most. I did a new cover, a new polish on the manuscript, changed the category the book was listed in and went with the Kindle Select Program.
I know you’re going to chide me for that last part, Dean. But I didn’t sacrifice any sales from other sites since I only had one single sale over the past year through those other guys.
I believe in my book and felt it just needed the exposure to get things rolling. Now when my KSP agreement expires in a week I can go back to those other outlets after having gotten my title into Amazon’s algorithms.
Thanks for showing the subtle differences. Covers look great.
Hey, is there a publishing date set yet for a NEW Smokey Dalton novel?
Rob, it’s actually not that far off. Kris needs to do a research trip to Chicago and she’s hoping to do that at any point this late summer or fall. It will be extensive, so sometime next year for Smokey #7. Cool, huh? (grin)
Well the 70th WorldCon is in Chicago this year at the begining of September. Combine the trips to save on travel costs? Early Sept should be great weather as well.
Dean:
It’s like an ongoing master class. Thanks for bring us along for the ride.
Taking notes here. Subtle but striking difference, they made for distinctly better covers. Thanks for sharing your expertise!
grace
Good changes to the covers. Dropping the upper quoted recommendations makes them much better for electronic display (where such recommendations make much less difference than do the site’s reader reviews/ratings).
You would think that simply moving the author from the bottom to the top wouldn’t make much of a difference, but here they make the “brand” stand out much better. To enhance this more, I would even consider moving the “A Smokey Dalton Novel” to the same location on all the covers.
Adjusting the size of the title and moving them to better allow the picture to show are a big help. This is especially true of the “Thin Walls” where the combination of the stacked title and the very narrow illustration sells the concept at a glance. This is what I think is the stand-out of the redesigns.
As someone said above, it’s interesting seeing these evolve and makes me think more about what to include in my own.
I like the new covers, too…my more artistic friends (who are always cracking on me about mine) would probably say they are more harmonious. The images and the text and everything just look more balanced to me.
Mostly though, like others have said, I’m thrilled these books will be out in ebook soon! I can’t wait! Ebook is the only practical method for me right now, so I will be in the front of the line to get mine…
Interesting. I see you are using the diagonal theory in the new covers. I didn’t know it was preferred even for eBook covers but, from the reactions, it apparently still works. Good to know. Thank you for sharing both versions of the covers as illustration.