Earlier this year Sense of Wonder Press released The Writer's Spellbook: Creating Magic Systems for Fantasy, with cover and formatting by Zone 1. Lillian Csernica—whose fiction has  appeared in such venues as Weird Tales, 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2, HORRORS! 365 Scary Stories, and Year's Best Horror Stories XXI—quickly followed that up with a second volume of writing tips: The Fright Factory: Building Better Horror. 

The Fright Factory is based on Lillian's horror fiction-oriented columns for Speculations magazine, an excellent publication for writers that ran from 1995-2006. Inside is advice on setting, suspense, monsters good, bad, and otherwise, and lots more useful information for anyone wanting to write effectively in this increasingly popular genre.

Lillian asked me to follow up on my far gentler Writer's Spellbook cover and interior design with something appropriately chilling. Borrowing the type color and positioning to carry over the branding from the Spellbook's cover, my task was to create quite a different atmosphere for this book. After a few rounds of design prototypes, we settled on emphasizing the "fright" aspect with the cover above.

The interior design utilizes blood-splatter illustrations to mark the ends of chapters and graphic chapter headers that match the dominant cover typeface, Nightbird, here combined with the condensed and slightly dramatic sans-serif font League Gothic. It all goes together to create a creepy little package suitable to the book's content and audience (horror writers and the horror-curious) .

The Fright Factory is available from today on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, and all Amazon stores, and will appear soon at other e-book outlets. If you're interested in the horror genre, you'll want to check it out.

Two years ago I published The Little Book of Self-Editing for Writers, a book about common early-draft mistakes that writers make over and over. The Little Book showed writers how to recognize those kinds of errors and correct them, thereby cleaning up their manuscripts, saving time and money on editing services, and strengthening their writing in general.

When I updated The Little Book and expanded it to nearly twice its length, I wanted a new cover to bring it to the attention of potential new readers. To that end I studied the covers of best-selling writing books and came up with a design I thought fit into the genre pretty well while also standing out with bold graphic elements and color. To point up the “writing” theme and harmonize with the antique look of the quill pen, I chose Century, a classic text typeface dating back to the 1890s that happily does double duty as display type. Many text faces do not, or at least not successfully. Century is both timeless and versatile.

I added a few touches of Allura script to echo the red color and curvy shapes of the quill pen. I tried out quite a few lovely script faces before settling on that one for having just enough contrast with Century’s shapes, and being just modern enough to stand out from it while still feeling harmonious.

I carried the red into the book’s interior with the headlines and ornaments. The red quill pen re-appears inside as section and chapter break ornaments, and in the color of the Table of Contents links.

At the back of the book is a quick reference that reiterates the major points of the chapters. Writers can use it to check over a manuscript without having to flip back and forth through the book. Red graphics in the shape of a magnifying glass, a question mark, and tools create quick visual shorthand for “look for this,” “ask yourself this,” and “here's how to fix it.”

The Little Book of Self-Editing for Writers (Revised and Expanded Edition) is available now at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, and all Amazon stores for $4.99 or the local equivalent. It will be available soon at Kobo.

Heinz Glas was a young medical student in Vienna when Hitler annexed Austria in early 1938. Six months later, Heinz escaped deportation to a death camp by the skin of his teeth and fled Austria for Switzerland, leaving his family behind but hoping for their eventual reunion.

“My biography is in many respects a tribute to my father, Ernst Glas,” says Heinz, who changed his name to Henry Grant when he came to the United States. “I loved my Papa and his philosophy of living. Papa was generous, grateful for his friends, and always forgiving.”

When Robert Dailey brought Henry's story, Resilience, to Zone 1 Design toward the end of 2013, I knew this book would require a very personal cover that emphasized Henry's love for the exceptional man that was his father—a cover that showed the relationship that forms the heart of the book. I went through the photographs that accompanied the manuscript and found the snapshot of young Heinz and his Papa in happier days, before Hitler's insanity destroyed the lives they knew. Over this lovely photo I placed the last postcards Ernst sent to Heinz from Thereisenstadt, the infamous concentration camp near Prague in the present-day Czech Republic. Dr. Dailey picked the bottom two photos of Henry from later in his life in the U.S. I sepia-toned the photos to harmonize with the hue of the postcards.

For the cover type I used the typefaces City Of and Bazar, both reminiscent of the pre-war era, then created a custom effect on the title type to pop it out from the midtones of the photos. I colored both the interior headers and the printer's ornaments the rich brown of the cover type.

Using that same image from 1930, I designed a graphic title page to begin Resilience with the photo that lies at its very heart.

Henry's story of his escape from Austria and his long and accomplished life (he died in 2007 at the age of 95) is one you’ll never forget.  Resilience is available as of today at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, and all Amazon stores worldwide. It will soon be for sale at other online retailers too.

Zone 1 client Lillian Csernica is a veteran writer whose stories have appeared in Weird Tales among other periodicals, and anthologies that include 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2, HORRORS! 365 Scary Stories, and Year's Best Horror Stories XXI. 

Wearing her nonfiction hat, Lillian wrote columns for Speculations magazine, an excellent publication for writers that ran from 1995-2006. One of those columns was The Writer's Spellbook, wherein she outlined the principles of creating believable, practical, and well-grounded magic systems for fantasy fiction. 

 Recently, Lillian decided to use the material in those columns to create an e-book. She brought the book to Zone 1 and hired me to do the cover, interior design, and formatting. The Writer's Spellbook: Creating Magic Systems for Fantasy (US, UK, CA, AU), is the result. Listen up: if you write fantasy, you need this book.

The idea of a spellbook for writers is enchanting all by itself, and the magical book artwork provided a base on which to build a cover design to attract readers. It's a high-contrast cover that jumps off a sales page and pulls viewers into the concept of practical magic, and of writing as a magical act. I repeated the idea with scroll designs on the title page, chapter headings, and end-of-chapter ornaments.

I also used color throughout, repeating the cover's red in the interior's headers. Color is still quite under-used in e-book design, and I like to include it wherever it works with the spirit of the design I'm creating. Readers have long been accustomed to most fiction and narrative non-fiction being presented in black and white, and while I think some aspects of a book benefit from that restriction, there are still plenty of places to use color in ways that don't interfere with the reading experience.

Since I'm offering publisher logos at no extra charge with cover plus formatting, Lillian's publishing enterprise, Sense of Wonder, got a whimsical full-color logo added in to the deal. 

Watch for more great fiction and nonfiction as Sense of Wonder's future unfolds.

The Writer's Spellbook is on sale as of today at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, and all Amazon stores worldwide. It will be available at other internet bookstores soon. Add it to your collection of books for writers. You'll be glad you did.

The image of the earth repeats throughout the book, both in its peaceful blue-marble appearance and its fiery end-of-the-world mode. It appears in various sizes on the title page and at the ends of sections.

The logo for Cherrylog Press, Daniel’s publishing company, came about after a search for photos of abandoned cars to evoke the mood of the James Dickey poem “Cherrylog Road.” This stock photo by Andrejs Pidjass (NejroN Photo) fit the bill nicely, and the typeface Honest John’s  helped evoke a 1930s feeling in a green sampled from the photo, then saturated to help it stand out from the more muted colors of the old car and the surrounding greenery.

This is the premiere publication for Cherrylog Press, and Daniel has more projects planned for the future. Watch this space. Meanwhile, give yourself a reading treat and buy Echo Beach from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, or any Amazon store worldwide. It will soon be available at other online stores, too.

Ken Scholes recently gave Zone 1 the job of designing his new series of short fiction collections. East of Eden and Just a Bit South was the first to go live; One Small Step (and Other Missing Links) is the second. It’s been a joy making books out of these eclectic bundles of short fiction.  They lend themselves beautifully to the kind of work I love to do.

To begin with, I adore Ken’s writing. Whether it’s a stunning 5-volume fantasy series like The Psalms of Isaak or a short story about a skinny alcoholic clown driving a talking monkey from Seattle to New Mexico like “Making My Entrance Again With My Usual Flair,” Ken Scholes doesn’t disappoint. When a writer comes up with ideas like Cain and Abel living with their parents in a trailer on the outskirts of Eden, cover ideas are not hard to come by. 

You can buy One Small Step (and Other Missing Links) at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and all Amazon stores worldwide. It will be available soon at Barnes & Noble, too.

One of the things I recommend Zone 1 clients include in their books is a catalog of other works they’d like to promote to readers. In print books, a list of “Other books by Insert Author Name Here” may lead to a reader looking up additional works, but it’s a long way and a lot of steps from reading a title on a page and holding the book in your hands. A lot of opportunities to miss the sale. 

A catalog with links to the e-books sales pages at Internet retailers, on the other hand, makes it seductively easy for readers to tap links and buy books which the retailer delivers in a matter of seconds. Each book does double duty as a promotional tool and easy sales channel for as many others as the writer cares to include. In One Small Step, Ken links to four novels and three collections that many readers might otherwise not know about, and the links make instant purchases a likelihood.

Ken has several other collections in mind, and I'm making room on Zone 1's calendar for them. he promises readers a seasonal treat toward the end of 2013 with a compilation of his “Santaman” stories. I’m clearing the decks for that one, and remember, e-books make great presents!

Bruce McAllister is well known in the world of science fiction and fantasy. His novelette Dream Baby was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, and when expanded into a novel it won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Publisher’s Weekly called Dream Baby “A stunning tour de force.” His first novel, Humanity Prime, was chosen by legendary editor Terry Carr as one of the Ace Science Fiction Specials, alongside such talents as Roger Zelazny and Ursula K. LeGuin. His short story “The Boy in Zaquitos” was reprinted in Best American Short Stories 2007, edited by Stephen King. These days he coaches other successful writers in Southern California.

Bruce recently decided to take a flyer into the indie publishing world. He chose the name Archangel Media for his new enterprise, and I designed the logo on the left for him.  Archangel Media, in turn, has just published two of Bruce's short stories, with covers and interior formatting and design by Zone 1.

Hit is the tale of a young contract killer offered an assignment from God: forgiveness in return for killing the world’s oldest vampire. But even angels can lie, and Anthony must penetrate the mysteries of the Vatican to discover the truth behind the hit and win his real redemption.

You can buy Hit for 99c at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and all Amazon stores worldwide. 

The Passion: A Western takes us to a nameless dust-and-adobe town where a nameless man must once again shoot his way out of another spaghetti western. But there’s something different about this one. He can’t read the script, he doesn't know who's directing, and the mysterious voice-over narrator portends sacrifice, blood, and death. 

You can buy The Passion: A Western for 99c at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and all Amazon stores worldwide. 

When I heard that Zachary Jernigan was looking for an e-book formatter, I rushed to throw my hat in the ring. Zachary's  a rising star of science fiction and fantasy, someone whose award-winning professional colleagues say is "a new writer who has found his voice," and who "...can't write a bad story...even if he tried." I really, really wanted to be the one to format his first collection of short fiction, and I'm so happy he chose me for the job.

Zachary had already done a great job of photographing and designing his own cover for the collection. He has a wonderful sense of typography. His design gave me places to go when I began to work on the interior of the book.

Water.

The sea, and a subdued gray-blue I sampled from the place where Zachary's inverted sea meets the sky. Those made up my theme. I purchased the lovely woodcut-style illustration of waves you see here, then colored it that same blue.

The waves recur as scene break and chapter break images throughout the book, carrying the water theme all the way to the end.

Zachary's publishing imprint, Danoor Press, didn't yet have a logo, so I devised the one on the left. Danoor is a city in Zachary's science fiction novel No Return (2013, Night Shade Books), and has a bit of a North African feel to it. The artwork of a North African walled city seemed to harmonize well with a Lapidary Roman typeface, a type of  serif font with letters spread out evenly, much the way Roman stonecutters would have arranged them on the front of an ancient building. Zachary wanted to keep the colors of the artwork subdued, but he liked the eye-popping contrast of the red type, which I think looks gorgeous with grayscale.

The Bottom of the Sea is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and all Amazon stores. I hope you'll read the sample and find out for yourself why people are so excited about Zachary Jernigan.

Amy Sisson is another Zone 1 client who came to us through our mutual association with Æon Speculative Fiction (The first was John Kratman, whose story Harry the Crow was featured in an earlier post. )

Amy's e-book short story, Patriot Girls, is now available at all Amazon stores.

Amy's original story knocked the Æon editors' socks off back in 2008 with its lovely writing and haunting, innocent voice. We immediately snapped it up for a future issue. Before we could publish the story, Æon ceased publication. We gathered up our remaining inventory and took it to Patrick Swenson at Fairwood Press.

The ultimate result, topped  off with a stunning cover by Jeff Sturgeon, was End of an Æon, a lovingly designed and published anthology that featured "Patriot Girls" as its lead story, accompanied by a version of the illustration above. The anthology is available in trade paperback and e-book formats from amazon.com and other retailers, or direct from Fairwood Press.

The Patriot Girls Cover
The illustration for Amy's story was one of my very favorites of the dozens I'd done for Æon's four-year run. To create it, I placed the picture of the girl in a prom dress in front of a photo of an antique American flag postcard. The flag is a bit dirty and tattered, which suggests that all is not right with America in this story, while the girl is oblivious and happy in her innocence.

When Amy agreed to use my illustration as an e-book cover, I was thrilled. To reinforce the theme of government, I used a classic Roman font, Perpetua Titling, for the title. I chose the matching Perpetua for Amy's name. The blue is a tint of a color taken from the flag behind the girl. Her hands lead the eye directly down to the author's name and the title.

Because the letterspacing in Perpetua Titling is a little wonky, it takes five separate pictures to properly kern the letters in "PATRIOT GIRLS" so that they look like two typeset words. The "A" is too far from letters on either side, so the "P" and "A" must be separate files. The letters "TRIO" had pretty good form, but the following "T" had to be separated and kerned in alongside the "O" so it looked like it belonged there. The letters in "GIRLS" had good letterspacing, but the space between words was excessive, so "GIRLS" had to be a separate graphic, pulled in toward the first word.

Not all typefaces require this much extra work, but when I was done the results were worth it. Patriot Girls presents a very pretty face to the world. 

The Logo
Amy also needed a  publisher logo to represent her imprint, Tuxedo Bear Press. She wanted a simple graphic that evoked the spirit of the name, and I was lucky to find a nice negative-space drawing she loved for her logo. I added a geometric bow tie of the style seen in illustrations of the 20s and 30s, and chose the Art Deco typeface Broadway to evoke both the formality of the "tuxedo" idea, and the humor inherent in the concept. Its shapes also work well with the curves of the bear and the geometric shapes of the bow tie.

The Pages
For the interior design of Patriot Girls, I wanted to incorporate elements from the cover. I used a scaled-down white star from the original flag artwork for the large images at the beginning and end of the story.

I wanted something slightly different for the scene break ornaments. Keeping with the red, white, and blue of the flag, I decided the pages needed a touch of red. There were of course no red stars, so I cut the white out of a star and inserted a red background in the form of a piece of one of the flag's red fabric stripes. Now everything in the book was working in visual harmony. I think the design does Patriot Girls justice, as I'd hoped I could.

Patriot Girls is available for sale at all Amazon stores, including Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. I think you're going to love it.

I've been building e-books and designing e-book covers and interior illustrations since 1999 for a Very Large Software Company's e-book reader division, for e-book publishing companies, and for an e-book magazine, but Zone 1 is my design business, and it's brand new.

While I've been getting the website ready to go public, I've been working with clients to get their books ready to publish. Yesterday, the first of those books went live on Amazon.

Hello, world. I'd like you to meet Harry the Crow, by John Kratman.

I originally designed a magazine illustration for Harry back in 2007, when Harry the Crow appeared in Æon Speculative Fiction, which I co-edited and co-published for four years with Marti McKenna. Using the original illustration as a guide, I reproduced the layout on a shiny new cover, which also appears in the cover gallery.

John's publishing imprint, Laughing Crow Press, needed a logo to face the world, so I created one featuring a couple of highly amused corvids. You can see it above, and a bit larger in the logo gallery.

The interior design of Harry the Crow uses the feather and robot hand from the cover as design elements: small and large full-color chapter and scene breaks and a graphic title page. You can see more of Harry's pages in the formatting gallery.

So here's Zone 1's first baby to see the light of day at an e-book retailer. As one of its original editors and publishers, I can testify to it being a remarkable story. I hope you'll download, read, and enjoy Harry the Crow.