Back in the saddle and a couple of cover designs

According to Write or Die, I’ve only done about 3700 words since yesterday afternoon, which is a little depressing but still way better than the zero I was logging before that. This doesn’t count the bits I added to the master document outside of Write or Die, but then again once I get to the editing stage I’ll be chopping like crazy so I suppose it evens out.

I have three shorts I think are publish-worthy, and have been looking into KDP (Kindle Direct) as an initial outlet. I still have no idea what I’m doing regarding marketing, so I suppose that will be new and exciting. However, I do know that I need covers even for short stories, and considering my available discretionary funds (zero) I’ll have to do them myself. At least Amazon will allow me to change the covers later in the circumstance that I can afford a cover artist, although it still seems excessive for short stories.

The Kindle guidelines on book covers are absolutely humongous, probably future-proofing against 4K monitors. In addition, they request a 1.6 aspect ratio, but my old Kindle 3 is a 3:4 portrait screen and a 1.6 ratio image pillarboxes and looks silly. I’ll deal with changing the aspect if it becomes a problem.

I’m still stuck on a cover for the other short, since I have an idea what it should look like, but have no talent at sketching it to life. Same thing with the novel-length work, which I suppose I have some more time on since I can barely remember it at this point (meaning it’s almost time to bring it out of mothballs for a fresh look).