A Matter of Talent

A good friend of mine and fellow author, A. Lee Ripley, with whom I worked for several years (and with whom I frequently cut a swath of rationality through our often irrational corner of the IT world) is a very talented graphic artist with a design eye that a klutz like me just cannot match. She is also a Photoshop wizard, another talent that eclipses my poor abilities.

Recently, she offered to give my Siobhan Dunmoore book covers a significant refresh, which brought tremendous changes to the paperback edition appearance, replacing the standard spine and back with beautiful custom designs, as well as significantly updating the front cover, which carries over onto the ebook editions. You can see the results in the banner at the head of this page and of course on the book page. The base pictures remain the same, but what she did with them, and with all the text on both front and back, left me in awe.

This is the kind of thing where I can clearly see the difference between mere technical ability and real talent. Sure, I can put text on a picture and manipulate images – which photographer can’t? But I clearly do not have what it takes to do so in a manner that creates something much better than the sum of its parts. A. Lee Ripley is one of those rare people who have the talent to do so.

I don’t know what you think, but to my eyes, she did a tremendous job in improving the look and feel of the entire Siobhan Dunmoore series. You’ll have to take my word for the fact that what she did for the paperback edition spine and back cover is simply magic – or you can order a copy from Amazon once the new versions are available in a day or two.

You can read about how she did it at her blog My SciFi Life.

In the meantime, Howling Stars (Decker’s War Book 4) passed the 80% completion mark, so another week and then, the first round of revision. If you haven’t yet picked up your copy of Like Stars in Heaven (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 3) check out the reviews on Amazon.com.