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.

Misery, the protagonist of Craig D.B. Patton's excellent short story Misery Loves, is...well...miserable. She doesn't love company, and she doesn't love much of anything else either. Which just might be her biggest problem.

When Misery's roof caves in, letting in altogether too much sunlight to suit her, she ponders her options for getting it repaired. Humor is altogether useless. Joy makes her cringe, and Anger would only make things worse. Honesty offers the advice Misery really didn't want to hear—call on Love. 

Misery was first introduced to readers in the virtual pages of Aeon Thirteen, in 2008. She makes her second appearance as of today in this short story e-book available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and all Amazon stores worldwide, with cover, formatting, and interior book design by Zone 1. 

Misery Loves will be available soon at other e-book stores, too.

From Craig's introduction to Misery Loves:

“Fantasy stories are meant to surprise us—both those who write them and those who read them. Some take us to richly detailed alternate worlds. Others speak directly to the strangeness and mystery that lurks around the edges and just beneath the surface of everyday life. All have the freedom to be outlandish for the sake of exploring some facet of the human condition....” 

Misery Loves explores the human condition with humor and insight.

Craig's Whistling Kettle Press has also produced a chapbook of stories about moments when the boundary between the explicable and the fantastic vanishes. Lifted Veils is available direct from the publisher.

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.

Jeffe Kennedy is a popular and successful romance author, but in 2007 she was just about to make her first fiction sale. That story was “Pearl,” a romantic science fiction novelette, and reading it for the first time I never guessed this would be the first of Jeffe’s fiction stories anyone had bought. The University of New Mexico Press had published Jeffe’s collection of essays: Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel, but she had yet to break out as an author of the erotic romances that have won her an enviable fan following.

As one of the editors who bought “Pearl” in 2007 and published it in 2008 in Æon Speculative Fiction, I always wanted to see this story reach more readers. Now, as a stand-alone e-book, it will have that chance.

To create a cover for Pearl the e-book, I began with the illustration I’d designed for it back in 2008—a closeup of a beautiful young woman in a futuristic setting. Her face and the subtlety of her expression make this a striking portrait of the character Pearl. I didn’t want type to interfere with the utter purity of that face, so I dropped the title and author’s name to the very bottom of the cover and counted on that remarkable face to draw the viewer’s eye where it needed to go.

The hard, almost industrial type of the title suggest the prison colony setting of the story, and the looping script provides a striking visual contrast while emphasizing the story's romantic elements.

The pink title color is taken from the color of Pearl's lips, then deepened almost to red for the script type, to provide lots of contrast.  A photo of a pearl, tinted slightly pink, serves as a chapter and break ornament. 

 Jeffe's publishing logo features an illustration of her iconic purple hat and her initials.

Pearl is available from today at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CA, and all Amazon stores worldwide. It will soon be on sale at other e-book retailers.

Recently I sent a sample cover to my old friend Ken Scholes. I've known Ken for so long I can no longer remember exactly when and where we met, but I suspect it was at a party, and I suspect that party was at a science fiction convention sometime late in the last century. I'm also pretty sure Ken brought his guitar and entertained us as only he can. 

In 2005, Ken sent a story to Æon Speculative Fiction. 
The story was “East of Eden and Just a Bit South, Being a True and Accurate Account of How Cain Found Himself a Wife.” And it was good. And it was funny. And we bought it. We published it in early 2006, and I designed an illustration for it that I was and remain pretty proud of. This was the beginning of what would become my cover design more than 7 years later.

The dominant colors in the illo are the various greens of the trees and weeds, and the kind of biscuit color of the old trailer. I started with that trailer color for the type—a 50s-style casual serif font called BudBird, then warmed it up considerably to make it stand out from the green background. To contrast with that, I chose Marketing Script, which also has a mid-century feel, for the subtitle, and colored it with the aqua from the rear-window angel's wing. Then I sent it to Ken and hoped he'd like it as much as I did.

Ken was just getting ready to go looking for an e-book formatter when my email soliciting his custom arrived in his inbox. He agreed to work with me, and decided to publish some previously-published short fiction and some “bonus tracks” in the form of unpublished stories. The first of these is “East of Eden...and Other Leaps of Faith.”

To keep with Ken's "heavenly" theme for the collection, I made chapter and break ornaments in the shape of angel's wings, and tinted them the aqua from the cover type.

Next up—a logo for Ken's publishing business, which will eventually encompass not only fiction but nonfiction, and not only books but music. Ken decided on "Walking Bear Media," with reference to his very popular (and very good) short story "Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk."

The type choice here is Potrzebie, which is related to BudBird (above) but much more extended, so it occupies the horizontal space well. I colored it with a brown from Edward's nose, then after a little experimenting with placement, I placed him right on top of the type, and the whole thing came together. What a fun project this has been!

So get your clicking finger ready and buy your very own copy of East of Eden and Just a Bit South at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.ca.* You won't be sorry you did.

* The collection will be available soon at other e-book retailers too.

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.