If I had bought the software and done it myself, it would have taken me hours to figure out how to do it, and it would not have looked as good as what the seller on Fiverr delivered. I ended up spending about $15 on the perfect image. I wasn’t sure they would do a good job, but I figured it was such a low cost I wouldn’t lose much if it didn’t work out. On Fiverr, I found someone making them for $5. The software ranged from $37-$200+, and it all looked like it had a steep learning curve. I wanted to do my own box set image and searched out software to make clean box set images. I doubt I’ll ever do a series again, but I will plan it better if I do. You can apply your own style sheets (CSS), but you would have to know all the existing styles first, and I wasn’t able to identify them other than sifting through the class descriptions in the code. If I did ebooks every day, I would take the time to figure it out, but it made little sense to tackle the process when I was already frustrated. There is a way to change styles and link them in Jutoh, but it wasn’t easy to figure out. I discovered that the best way to do this is to put everything in one document and fix it before importing it into Jutoh. Maybe I should have made the images the same size, but it was too late for a major alteration like that. One book contains illustrations of different sizes and shapes, so I had to go into Sigil and adjust the HTML code for the image sizes. In my case, if you figure 40 chapters for five books, that makes 200 heading style revisions, and at least that many changes of the body text. I had to reformat all five texts individually. There was probably a way to merge styles and batch format, but I don’t use Jutoh often, so I didn’t know how. I ended up adding the pre-existing manuscripts to my Jutoh project, and then I had to go in and reformat everything. I improved the formatting I should have kept each novel’s layout, fonts, and styles the same. Over the decade I wrote the stories, I learned more about book design. Sometimes you make ill-advised decisions, but you must trust yourself in the end. I have read up on book design considerations and understand that readers want to have that quick visual approval that the genre is correct and the author understands conventions. I have an art background and strong opinions on visual impact. I kept looking for designers that matched my style and ended up going with a minimalistic design that felt like a better fit. My stories aren’t swashbuckling romance stories, and the buxom women and muscled males with thunder in the background and large neon text didn’t seem right. I thought I would ask someone on Fiverr to create new covers for the entire series so it would look more like a fantasy book series, but when I looked at the art of typical fantasy series, I had second thoughts. The imagery wasn’t cohesive the fonts were different, and the books didn’t look like they belonged together. When I looked at the collection of covers a decade later, I realized it didn’t look like a series. As each book came out, I created cover designs specific to each story. It took me ten years to write and finish the series. This strategy also helps marketing and publicity – releasing each book close to the others builds momentum. This allowed me the time to make changes throughout the series for consistency. I waited to release the last three books and did so within a month of one other. After publishing the first two stories of my series, it occurred to me it might have been wise to withhold publication and release the series all at once so I could change characters’ backstories or names if it made sense for later stories. Like most new writers, I stumbled along and changed my mind about story arcs, improving my writing skills as I went. Your first book is probably the most important story of the collection, but if you are a new author, it will not be as well-written as the later books.
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