How not to make your print cover

As promised, here is the whole sorry saga of why it took so long to make the print version of Succubus Summoning 201 available.

First off I should go through the process I follow to make print versions of my books available for readers to buy.  My publisher, eXcessica, uses Amazon's CreateSpace to produce Print On Demand paperback versions of their books.  The files they need from me, the author, are a correctly formatted manuscript and a high resolution pdf of the coverflat.

The coverflat is the full cover of the book - back, spine, front - laid out flat.  In order to create this CreateSpace asks the author to fill in a bit of data on how big they want the finished paperback to be and how many pages the manuscript is.  The number of pages value is needed to determine the thickness of the spine.  Once CreateSpace has all the info it spits out a template that looks like this:

I'll go over what the dotted lines and other stuff means in a mo.  First there's the obvious dependency - CreateSpace can't give you this template until you know the total number of pages in your book, and you won't know this until you've finished and correctly formatted the manuscript.  This is a problem for people like me who have an unfortunate tendency to push our deadlines rather fine.

When I get caught in a time crunch, my usual approach is to focus on making sure the ebook version is ready in time and then try to get the print version done as soon after as possible (the manuscripts are formatted a little different - nothing major, but it does take a little fiddling around).

As a result the cover art is done backwards.  Rather than getting my artist to create the full cover art and then cutting out the front cover part to serve as the ebook front cover, I have them create the front cover first and then give them the full template to do the rest as soon as I have it.

The ebook front cover is relatively straightforward.  What you see is what you get and the artist has control of where the boundaries occur.  For Succubus Summoning 201, that gives us this front cover:

My art direction was to follow on the theme of Succubus Summoning 101 and make the cover look like one of those old leather-bound tomes with clasps and bits of metal around the edges.  Sort of like this:

For the ebook cover this is relatively straightforward as the artist knows the exact margins and where the exact edge of the cover is.

For the print coverflat is becomes a little more complex.  If you look at the template above you'll see there are dotted lines and a salmon-pink border.  The dotted line indicates where the cover will be cut out, but this is not 100% precise, hence the salmon-pink border.  This represents the bleed area and everything in it is a sort of Schrödinger's artwork - it might get cut off and not appear on the final cover, but you have to have something there in case it doesn't.  So this something should look okay enough that you don't mind it being on the front cover, but also shouldn't be important enough that it has to be on the front cover.

For most book covers (and the case with all my short story collections) this isn't a problem.  The edge is background stuff that can be chopped off at any point.  Then we have the Succubus Summoning 201 cover and those little corner pieces...

Oh boy.

Somewhere in the (sort of) commissioning process I managed to totally confuse my artist on what the bleed area was and what it meant.  Many mistakes were made, over and over...

I should also mention at this point that my cover artist is also my brother and he volunteers his time for nothing more than thanks and beer.  As he has a family and full-time job, he only has the spare time to work on things at his own pace.  This means that turnaround times are going to be, by necessity, slow and inconsistent.

The first mix-up was with the dimensions.  The correct dimensions for the coverflat should be 3468 x 2475, 600 ppi.  The coverflat template comes with a resolution of 300 ppi.  In between our respective art programs we managed to get stuck between the right resolution but four times the size, or the right size but the wrong resolution.

I found this out after sending a ridiculously huge file to Stacey, the assistant at eXcessica, that took some finangling to even send it through email before she realised it was way too big for CreateSpace.

We managed to get that sorted and then the bleed area problems hit.

The next submission was rejected by CreateSpace for having text too close to the edge.  This was where I managed to confuse my brother.  He misunderstood what I meant by having a bleed area around the edges and his first fix was to increase the size of canvas to add a bit around the edges.  This doesn't work as the cover is still going to be cut out at the same dotted lines.  The next attempt had the right-sized canvas and the blurb on the back moved away from the margins.  It also positioned the corner ornamentation right in the bleed area.  When I overlaid the template I saw straightaway that virtually all of the corner pieces would be cut off, and sent it back.

My proposed fix was to position the whole coverflat inside the salmon-pink border and then fill the edges with background cover.  I wanted to extend the pseudo-metal ornamentation to the edges, so I told my brother to widen them to fill out to the edges.

This didn't work either as Stacey came back to say the coverflat had been bounced again for having essential art bits within the bleed area.

I asked her if we could just overrule it as I didn't mind if some of it was cut-off.

Unfortunately this was something she didn't have any control over.  My guess is CreateSpace has some automated checks on the cover art.

So, back to the drawing board for the umpteenth time.  As my brother's time is limited, these back and forths took place over the course of a couple of months.  Rather than bother him again I repositioned an old version of the coverflat inside the safe area and filled the borders with a flat colour taken from the background to blend it in.  This left me with this:

...which was thankfully good enough to pass as well as turning out okay when displayed on the Amazon site:

So there you have it - less of an excuse and more an acknowledgement of me and my brother being giant idiots.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes of the publishing process.  Thankfully, there is a happy ending.  As I posted on Monday, the print version of Succubus Summoning 201 is now available to buy on either Amazon, or directly from CreateSpace.  Sorry for making you all wait so long!

Print version of Succubus Summoning 201 is finally here!

A little (lot!) later than planned, I can finally say the paperback version of Succubus Summoning 201 is available to buy.  This continues Phil's sexy (mis)adventures with Verdé, Rosa and friends as the hapless warlock tries to learn magic while surviving the amorous advances of various seductive succubi and monster girls.

You can get it from Amazon here, or directly from my publisher, eXcessica here.  I get more money from the second link, but sales from Amazon bump up the book's rating and make it easier for new readers to find, so I don't mind where you get it from.  Go to whoever suits you best.

Here are some 'inside-baseball' answers to a couple of questions I imagine people will have.

Why is it so expensive for a paperback book?

POD (Print on Demand), I'm afraid.  This is the reality of being a quasi-independent author.  Mass-market paperbacks have print runs in the thousands to keep the costs down (with the downside that the publisher ends up out of pocket if the book turns out to be a dud).  I'm below that level, so the only way to produce paperback versions is as a speciality item with prices to match.  On the flip side, independents can price their ebooks lower as they don't have to worry about cannibalising their print market.

Why did it take so freaking long to get the print version done?

Um, yeah.

The tl;dr version is my cover artist and I managed to get horribly mixed up on what was meant by bleed area on the cover template and mistakes were made... over and over.

The even shorter version - see those metallic embellishments on the corners of the book, don't do this on your book designs.

I'll go into the full sorry saga tomorrow as it might be of interest to other self-published (quasi or otherwise) writers looking to put out print versions of their books through CreateSpace.

But back to our regular scheduled content...

The print version of Succubus Summoning 201 is now out.  Sorry for making you all wait so long.  I hope you all enjoy it and find a place for it on your bookshelves.  Although you might want to put it somewhere where innocent neighbours don't pick it up and flick through by accident.  Or maybe you do... 😈

Game Design Fumbling: An Arachne Scenario

While playing around with some GameBook/text-based videogame ideas I sketched out this scenario for an arachne encounter:

It ended up coming out a little more complex than I thought...

H-space MGB Profile: Leech-Tongue Succubus

Name:  Leech-Tongue Succubus
Type:  Succubus
Habitat:  Unknown.

Description:
Pale or slightly bluish-skinned humanoid with the typical succubus/devil girl additions of horns, wings and tail.  Only one specimen has been encountered so far.  Her horns, wings and tail were very dark blue in colour, almost verging on black.  As with other succubi, she was slightly taller than the average human woman and possessed a figure straight out of typical male fantasy—slender, toned and extremely busty.

Their identifying feature is a long black tongue terminating in a leech-like sucker mouth.

(Again I'm uncomfortable classifying the different variations of succubus as separate species.  They could be, but they could also all be part of the same species, and the different feeding strategies and attack strategies we've observed could be the result of other factors such as exotic body augmentation and different training regimes.)

Attack Strategy:
Only the primary feeding mechanism is known for this succubus.  They feed using their long leech-like tongue.  They use it to suck in a man's penis and then stimulate him to repeated ejaculations (usually with the help of mammary intercourse) until the man is fully depleted of fluids.

This happens rapidly, as fast as if the succubus was draining their blood.  How do they induce the man to produce so much semen, so quickly?  An agent in the saliva can't be enough.  There must be some other factor.

Countermeasures:
As of yet we don't know anything about the offensive capabilities of this type of succubus.  It's possible they are part of a civilian class and rely on other HSIOs such as the scarlet imps to bring them human captives.  This is not an assumption I feel safe making.  All succubi-class HSIOs encountered so far have shown formidable mind control skills and regenerative abilities.  As always the best strategy is to disengage.  If this is not possible, hit fast and hit hard before the mesmeric abilities of the succubus compromise your ability to fight them.

Threat Level:
Unknown.

(Who am I kidding—High!)

H-space MGB Story: Leech-Tongue Succubus (part 2)

continued from part 1

The wet, slurpy sounds grew louder and sloppier.  Kowalski's moans rose above them before tailing off in an exhausted rattle.  Then...

Silence.

Bate heard the clicking sounds of the succ's high heels against the stone floor.  She rounded the pillar and turned to face him.  Was it his imagination or had the pale round globes of her boobs grown even bigger since he'd last seen her?  It didn't matter that she wasn't human.  Those twin bulges triggered a powerful surge of arousal in his groin.  She crouched down and smiled sluttily up at Bate.  Her hands were covered in shiny black gloves.  She stroked one hand up his cock and it swelled out rigid like an iron bar.  Her other hand pulled down her top and let her big tits flop out.

Bate spat on her face.  With his arms and legs currently trapped within the meat wall it was all the defiance he could muster.

The she-demon smiled up at him.  She licked the spittle off her face with a tongue as black as the lingerie she was wearing.  It wasn't just the color of her tongue that was off.  Bate thought he saw the end open up, like the blind maw of a leech or maw.  Only briefly, easy enough to miss, but Bate had seen it.

Not that it mattered to his raging hard-on.

The succ slid Bate's cock between her big slutty tits.  Being wedged between her big soft boobs felt even better than the soft caress of her hand.  Her skin was warm and silky smooth, and her boobs felt like big soft pillows.  The succ pressed them together and they smothered his cock completely.  She looked up at him with her smoldering slutty eyes and started to tittyfuck him.  She pressed her hands into the sides of her swollen breasts and lifted them up and down, rubbing that sensually smooth skin against Bate's bulging cock.  Her lips pouted in a wanton pout as she switched to alternating her up and down movements, jostling Bate's member between her flesh cushions.  The movement and the feel of her tits turned Bate on even more.  He felt like he was heating up all over.

Squeeze.  Rub.  Plump plump.  Jiggle.

Bate's temperature kept rising.  His balls felt tight and itchy.

They made you want to come.  They made it so good it felt like you had no other purpose in life but to come.

The scarlet imps watched like creepy children out of a horror or science fiction film.  Bate barely noticed they were there.  The succ pressed her tits together around his cock and a cracked moan escaped his lips.

The succ's mouth opened and her tongue fell out, and kept falling.  It was long, far too long.  It was black and shiny like a leech, and with a gaping maw at the end like the mouth of a leech as well.  A mouth within mouth.  The inner one dilated like it was tasting the air.

Her tongue kept reeling out of her mouth like a snake slithering from a cave.  It was long enough to reach all the way down to her breasts.  There, it wormed down into her cleavage.  Bate felt it sucking on the end of his cock.  It stretched and engulfed first his glans and then the rest of his penis.  He felt the muscular walls grip him as her tongue covered him like a warm living sheath.

"Now she's going to suck you all up," one of the imps said, her eyes shining in expectation.

The succ pressed her tits together and started jiggling them again.  Her tongue flexed and squeezed so that it felt like continuous rings of pressure were rolling up his shaft.

Sucking on him.

The heat in Bate—the tension in his balls—grew unbearable.  He let out a loud moan as his hips bucked and he spurted cum up the narrow tube of her long flexible tongue.  He heard wet noises as she sucked it up.  The wet noises intensified and with it the suction.

Oh God.

Bate tipped his head back as another ejaculation erupted from him in a white burst of pleasure.  The succubus kept plumping her tits against his cock.  Her tongue kept tugging on him with muscular squeezes.  Kept sucking.

A third ejaculation burst from Bate.  A fourth.  His head thrashed from side to side as he was lost in thrall to the pleasure she was giving him.  A fifth.  A sixth.  He fancied they were travelling up her tongue in little bulges, dragged out of him like a string of precious pearls.

Seven.  Eight.  Nine.

So many Bate could no longer keep count.  They all rolled into one continuous flow of pleasure up her gulping tongue.  His cries and sighs rose to a peak and then terminated in a final weak rattle as the succubus sucked up the last of him.

She retracted her tongue, stood up and moved onto the next one.



"Wait.  Go back to the start."

"Where?"

"The moment the squad was able to fire their guns."

"Oh right, the moment the dimensional phenomenon passed."

"What else happened then?"

"Squad-Sergeant Henry Dunlop ran a succubus through with a piece of steel rebar.  Then Specialist Benjamin Hicks and the other members of the squad opened fire and—"

"Stop."

"What is it?"

"A thought.  No, it's probably nothing.  Unless...  But how?  Hmm, I need to think about this.  You can go now."

H-space MGB Story: Leech-Tongue Succubus (part 1)

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H-space MGB Profile: Nuru Nuru Girl

Name:  Nuru Nuru Girl
Type:  Humanoid
Habitat:  Only seen so far in the inflatable cave system, an unusual structure discovered underground.

Description:
Close enough to human to be mistaken for one at first glance.  They resemble women of East Asian descent, with bronze skin and straight black hair.  As with other observed HSIOs, their features mimicking human sexual characteristics are highly exaggerated.  Their breasts are considerably larger than a typical human woman of their size, although in this case there is a functional reason for this as their breasts contain the glands that produce the copious amounts of lubricating fluid that give the nuru nuru girls their name.

Other divergent features include the hands and feet.  Their wrists and ankles are longer and allow their hands and feet a greater degree of rotation and movement.  The feet also have much longer digits, to the point they resemble a secondary pair of hands.

Attack Strategy:
The nuru nuru girls are named for the complex lubricant exuded by their skin and in particular their breasts and sexual organs.  This has a similar appearance and consistency to nuru gel, a product used in a special type of Japanese massage.

(I assume this is a sex thing.  My assistant was curiously reticent when pressed for further details.)

The lubricant is a complex blend of oils, enzymes and some compounds that defy chemical analysis.  Aside from its lubricating properties, the substance is also corrosive—but only to non-living fabric.  There is also a strong narcotic component that induces a euphoric state in the subject once absorbed through the skin.  The body-to-body massage a nuru nuru girl gives her victim is thought to aid in this absorption.  With their prey docile and non-resistant, the nuru nuru girl covers them with a fluid that softens human tissues while still preserving their intactness.  As of yet, we have been unable to duplicate this softening effect under laboratory conditions.

(Maybe it requires the unusual physical laws of H-space.)

Once her prey has softened to the point of liquefaction, the nuru nuru girl draws them up into her body through her vaginal opening.

Countermeasures:
Physically, the nuru nuru girls are no more strong or agile than a human female athlete of comparable size.  Their main threat is their secretions.  Unprotected skin contact results in a euphoric state that impairs mental acuity and combat effectiveness.

Thankfully, liquefaction of tissues only occurs after prolonged and sustained contact (and possibly only while engaged in physical copulation with the nuru nuru girl).  Smaller exposure to the lubricant appears to have no long-term deleterious effects, although it is advised to wash it off at the earliest opportunity.

Threat Level:
Low.

Some of my colleagues are excited by the pharmaceutical potential of the nuru nuru girls' secretions.  My personal opinion is that the lubricant will not behave in the same way under Earth's different physical laws.