Tag: crime book

Covering the Covers, Part 1

On By dphauthorIn Through Sweet Like Sugar, You See MeLeave a comment

Let’s talk about making book covers.

The good thing about being an independent (indie) and a self-publishing (self-pub) writer is that you get to prepare your own book covers. The bad thing about being an indie and self-pub writer is that you get to prepare your own book covers.

You either love doing it, or you don’t. Luckily, there are many book cover designers that you can hire to do your book cover these days, but as I haven’t used any, I’m here to talk about the other option: making it yourself.

I am merely writing this down to record my own experience and journey, and in no way I am saying that this is what one should or shouldn’t do. If you are a fellow indie/self-pub writer, at the end of the day you’ll realize that you’ll find your own voice and ways to do things.

Though the appeal of using ready-stock images and easy-to-use image editing apps may be calling, for my previous book and the coming one I used the old-fashioned ways. I took the pictures myself or I drew things by hand and used a ‘licensed for commercial use’ program to make them. One might argue that such licensed programs are expensive and since we don’t even know yet if one would make profits from the book itself, why pay that much? Well, I can tell you one thing: some things are worth investing in. If something can put an ease to my mind for not having anyone claim that I stole their photo/illustration some time in the future, then by all means, sign me up!

To be honest, the main reason why I do this the old-fashioned way is because I do judge a book by its cover. In my humble opinion, when one uses ready-stock images or easy-to-use image editing apps, there’s always a risk that the book cover in question would end up looking similar to others’. If I only have one shot to catch a possible reader’s attention, I’d want my book cover to be different than others.

So the first thing I did when designing my very first book cover was to decide what I didn’t want. Psychological thriller/mystery books often have a person on the cover, with his/her back facing the viewer, usually either a person that looks like a detective or the ‘victim’ running away to the dark. Have you ever noticed this? I have. And speaking of dark, dark colors are used immensely as well. Early on in the days of my designing my book cover, I knew that I didn’t want any of these.

By this time, I already knew the title of my book (FYI, it’s not strange for me to not have a title until the very last moment) so for my first book, that was what I looked at next, and took quite a literal translation to it.

early sketch for the cover

Of course it was only natural that I had to have sugar on the cover of my first book, Sweet Like Sugar. Sugar was, after all, the coating of everything in that story. But underneath the sugar lies something dark, so I had it photographed on top of a black plate, with just a tiny bit of black lurking from beneath it.

just white sugar on a black plate

As seen from my sketches, I didn’t plan on having a hand print on the cover. But as I was trying to get the right kind of surface, playing with all the sugar with my bare hands, the idea started to form in my head.

hmm, kind of cool

After taking dozens of the same shots, I decided to develop both ideas and see which one came out better.

I don’t know about you, but I liked the hand print better! And yet, something is still not quite right. It wasn’t until I played with the saturation that it dawned on me: the color had to be something else than white.

You know that feeling of craving for something sweet, and then you finally get to eat a whole lot of that sweetness until you get so sick from it? Sickeningly sweet. That was what I wanted it to be. That was what I wanted the book cover to ‘taste’ like.

voila!

And that was how I got to this end result.

To others, it probably doesn’t seem like it was a lot of work, but I did spend a considerable amount of my time for it. Maybe I was just too slow, but I am still damn proud of my first book cover. It has the right amount of eye-catchiness, the right amount of sweetness, and the right amount of unsettling darkness.

The Next Book

On By dphauthorIn I See You, The Invisible Ones, Through The Invisible Ones, You See MeLeave a comment

Months ago, I wrote about winning a writing competition for a short story with the genre ‘crime’ or ‘possible crime’. This same winning piece is now fully developed into a longer story, bearing an altogether different title. As you can now see from my newly designed website, the title of my next book is The Invisible Ones, whereas the winning short story was called Best Friends.

A few things about my coming book:

It’s all about the rule of 2 for my next book: 2 main characters, 2 cities.

The 2 main characters are Indonesians, and the 2 cities, Jakarta & Bandung, are in Indonesia. I didn’t ‘choose’ this location because I’m from there, but because for this story to be believable, it has to happen there. Things that may not make sense anywhere else in the world, they do there. And I’m hoping that by the time you finish reading the story, you will see why & won’t be left with questions.

The story, much like my first book, spans out a bit over 3 decades. The earliest year recollected here is 1986 & the present time is 2018. It’s a long process. One part of the book takes you back & forth between all those years, the other part goes in a linear way.

Everything that happens in the book happens for a reason. Nothing means nothing.

There’s also 2 trigger warnings: mental illness & domestic violence. I’m sorry to say that this book is not a light one to stomach. Instead, I’ll admit, it is an ugly one that paints an ugly picture.

But it’ll all end well, right? Well, see, I can’t give you any spoiler. All I can say is that this is not a ‘feel-good’ kind of book, more of a ‘wake-up call’ kind, for us to start becoming aware of things that go on around us, even if they happen in a far away place. I’m still trying to figure out myself what the genre of the book is, but it has crime, suspense, and darkness written all over it.

Winner

On By dphauthorIn You See MeLeave a comment

I love libraries. I’ve been going to one, even before I could read. My mother, sister, and I would go to the only library available for public near our home, which only had Dutch books. We would borrow children books and my mother would read them at night before we slept. I didn’t (and still don’t) speak or read Dutch, but I loved hearing the stories and seeing the images on the book.

When I moved here to my current hometown, I didn’t have any job/school to attend to and I couldn’t speak this country’s language yet. But there was a big library near my house with all kinds of English books, and I went there almost every day to spend my time with the books. To have access to millions of books for free was like a dream come true to me.

Thirteen years later, I self-published my own book, Sweet Like Sugar. Last summer, when I went to the biggest and coolest library near my current hometown, I took a picture of the ‘Mystery & Thriller books’ shelf, secretly wishing that one day, I would see my own book bearing my author name there.

Little did I know then that my wish was coming true.

Two weeks before the deadline, I came across an ad of a writing competition organized by the city library. The theme was called ‘Tapahtuiko murha?’ (Was There Murder?), a crime/possible crime genre, and it was a short story (8000 words or less) writing competition in Finnish, Swedish, and English. There would be 10 winners, whose winning works would be published in an anthology book.

Having just self-published a book that falls under the same category, after panicking a moment (2 weeks?!?) I finally decided to enter it with a brand new story.

I found out that it wasn’t impossible to create a story and write 8000 words in 2 weeks. I thought that even if I didn’t make it to the winner list, I’d have one good story in my pocket for rainy days.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when I got a letter from them, saying that I was one of those 10 winners.

The best thing about this (other than having my work published) is that I also got to hear what the judges think about my writing. Their exact words were ‘Hyvällä tyylitajulla kirjoitettu kunnianhimoinen novelli’. An ambitious short story written with a good sense of style. 🖤

Other than my own family and friends, I had never had a chance to hear a review of my writing from a total stranger, so this made me realize that maybe I am not such a bad writer after all. Maybe what I’m doing, writing stories over stories, is actually worth it. And maybe it’s okay to dream big, because you’ll never know where you might land one day. 😊

The anthology book will be published next year as part of the city library’s collection.

Click here to see the competition’s result and more info about the competition (in Finnish).

Playing God

On By dphauthorIn I See You, Sweet Like Sugar, Through Sweet Like Sugar, You See MeLeave a comment

The best thing about being a writer, in my opinion, is that you get to play god.

You decide what happens to your character, who dies, who lives, who’s happy, and who’s sad. You decide what your character says, does, wears, eats, drinks, and so on.

Things you may not be able to do in your own life, you can do in your book, through your character.

For example, in real life, I can’t have a dog. I do take care of some of our relatives’/friends’ dogs now and then, but due to my work, I can’t have my own dog. Not yet. And it’s sad, because I’d love to have one.

So I dreamed up a dog and put it into my novel.

I love it. I love the imaginary dog. Through my character(s), I play with it, feed it, and walk it around. It was hard when I had to end my story, because every book has to have an ending. But who knows? I might one day be able to have an actual dog, just like the imaginary one I made.

If you’ve always dreamed of having something nice that you can’t quite have yet, it helps to write it down sometimes. You can be creative about it, visualize it to be as realistic or far-fetched as possible. It’s a fun and harmless way of playing god. At least for me, it also somewhat relieves the itch and craving.

Then, one day, when you finally get to have that nice thing, whatever it is, imagine how fun it would be to read what you’ve written those many years ago.

The Cover

On By dphauthorIn Through Sweet Like Sugar, You See MeLeave a comment

Guess what? The D-day is in 12 days!

Time for ‘last-minute’ checks and preparations for me, but I want to give a small update here in my blog.

As mentioned on previous posts, the book will be available in paperback and e-book version. Once they are launched, I will post the links here. And now I can safely say that they will be published on the same day.

So when will that be, exactly? June 27th, 2019.

And just to make sure you won’t buy the wrong book, here’s what the cover of my book looks like.

 

To Have And To Hold

On By dphauthorIn Through Sweet Like Sugar, You See MeLeave a comment

When I was still writing the book, the thought of holding it in its physical form seemed far-fetched.

But now the proof print of my book is right here in front of me, proving it further that nothing is really far-fetched if you put your mind to it.

17 days from now, the book will finally be ready for the world.

It will be ready for all of you, to have and to hold.

PS. If you prefer to read it from your phone or tablet, the digital version of the book will also be available starting from the same day.

Is It A Nightmare?

On By dphauthorIn I See You, Sweet Like Sugar, Through Sweet Like Sugar, You See MeLeave a comment

About a year ago, I was visited by my dream-giver in the form of a nightmare.

The terrible feeling I had in this particular nightmare stayed with me for a long time afterwards, and one big question arose to the top of my mind: what if it wasn’t a nightmare? What if it was someone’s story, whispered to me through this nightmare?

So I decided to write it down, to make it into a story, to breathe life into it. And soon, I hope to share it with you all.

It’s All About The Setting

On By dphauthorIn I See You, Sweet Like SugarLeave a comment

Setting the stage before performing is just as important as the performance itself, in my opinion. So this time, I’ll try to do just that.

The story in the book revolves around Lafayette, Louisiana – USA and a small town right next to it, called Souk. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of Souk town, it’s a product of the author’s imagination, along with all the characters and everything else in this book.

While the main events took place in 2011, a lot of things began in the 1990s. The main characters were about 30 years old in 2011, so that means in the 1990s they were teenagers.

Does that sound familiar to you? It should. Because, maybe, you will find bits and pieces of yourself in this book.