Smashwords Interview with Brian Ference

Smashwords Interview with Brian Ference

by | Self Publishing

Smashwords Interview with Brian Ference author of The Wolf of Dorian Gray – A Werewolf Spawned by the Evil of Man.

brianprofessionalauthorphoto

What’s the story behind your latest book?

The story follows the life of Dorian Gray in 1800’s England after his soul is linked to the last remaining wolf in a compelling tale of love, lust, and the werewolf spawned by the evil of man. It covers his first experiences of love and beauty and art. He begins to experience more of the pleasures of life under the wing of a friendly mentor Lady Helena. The wolf slowly changes into a monster that is ravaging the countryside. What will happen when the wolf comes to London? Can Dorian save his soul? Or will the beast consume it and his life, along with those of his friends and loved ones? Complete with adventurous romance, harrowing escapes, hell-bent revenge, and a werewolf terrorizing the gentry; The Wolf of Dorian Gray transcends this classic work of literature, into a compelling and most delicious read.

What motivated you to become an indie author?

I have always wanted to be an author and this is my first book. I have long held a passion for reading and creativity. I decided to go the indie author approach and self-publish my first book because of the challenge that it represented. I have an extensive design background so I did all the cover design, layout work, and print formatting myself. It was quite challenging but I learned so many fascinating things including how the ISBN process works, copyrighting your work with the library of congress, generation of the book bar code, and working with different printers and distributors.

What is the greatest joy of writing for you?

The greatest joy of writing for me has to be the creative aspect. It can be a lot of work and the re-writing process can drain me of energy, but I regain that energy and have a great sense of pride and accomplishment at the various milestones including: reading the entire finished book through as if someone else had written it, designing the cover, getting my book listed in Books in Print, receiving that first printed version in my hands.

What are you working on next?

My next project will be the second book in the Wolf of Dorian Gray series. The second book will be titled: The Wolf of Dorian Gray – Purgatory of the Werewolf and will continue the story from the first book as well as transport Dorian to a few different countries throughout the story line.

Who are your favorite authors?

I have so many favorite authors that I draw inspiration from but just to name a few include: Oscar Wilde, Brent Weeks, Brandon Sanderson, Peter Brett, Robert Jordan, and George R.R. Martin.

When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?

I spend my time when not writing playing with my two kids, spending time with friends and family, playing golf and on other creative projects. My wife and I love to travel and have new adventures in other countries. I love new experiences and trying new things. Lately I have spending a lot of time marketing my book which can be a very time consuming process.

How do you approach cover design?

I actually wrote an interesting blog post describing my process on cover design. To sum it up in a few words I did the design myself using Adobe Photoshop and incorporating some stock images that I purchase the rights to. I invite you to view the full post here: Self-Publishing Approach to Cover Design

How do you discover the ebooks you read?

I have primarily used Amazon as I order many household and electronics for the site as well. It has made things easy to have in one place but lately I have been branching out to other ebook marketplaces.

How has Smashwords contributed to your success?

Smashwords expanded the distribution possibilities greatly. I originally published the ebook only in Kindle format. It wasn’t long before I started getting questions like “What is Kindle?” and “How do I download Kindle?”. This convinced me that it was necessary to offer the ebook in different formats and marketplaces including the Apple Bookstore, Barnes and Noble Nook, Kobo, and .pdf format. Smashwords made it simple to do that in one shot once the necessary formatting for their premium catalog was also done and approved. I found that process interesting as well and downloaded an ePub reader on my phone to preview my book in that format.

What do you read for pleasure?

I read so many different types of books for pleasure but mostly fantasy, science fiction, epic fantasy, and I love a great book series that I can follow the characters through several books.

Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?

I grew up in Phoenix Arizona. I have always had creative writing come easily to me in school and even during my M.B.A. process which involves a great deal of writing. Writers block has never been an issue for me and hopefully continues that way. I am not sure if where I grew up has influenced my writing so much as exploring the world and trying new experiences has.

Published 2016-11-03 originally posted here

My Self Publishing Journey as an Author Writing His First Book

My Self Publishing Journey as an Author Writing His First Book

by | Self Publishing

This is the first of hopefully many posts about my self-publishing journey while I was writing my first book.

Cover & Title Design

Unlike many authors, I have a background in web design and Photoshop so I naturally wanted the challenge of both writing and designing/laying out my book. This proved an incredible learning experience for me.  Writing the book was a journey in of itself but more on that later.

In this post I would like to highlight some of the major milestones and provide a few helpful tips regarding cover design.  First, let’s break things up visually with an image I designed for my title page:

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A great resource to buy large, high-resolution images like the moon in the background is ShutterStock.com. There are plenty of other stock photography sites as well.  The key is to get a large for print size (as well as buy the rights to use in print and eBook format) and then to modify the image. In this case, I changed the color of the moon, added some lighting effects, made it semi-transparent, added a glow effect, and put it behind the title of my book. You will notice that the actual cover of the book has the moon in a different location, is heavily misted with fog, and also has an image of Big Ben in the background:

The Wolf of Dorian Grey A Werewolf Spawned by the Evil of Man by Brian S. Ference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cover of the book took quite awhile to design and the fog and mist effects required custom brush shapes in Photoshop and several versions.  The eyes were enhanced to glow red (I tried several different sizes and effects), and the claws are actually cut out and pasted on top of the lamp post to give the effect that I wanted of the werewolf reaching out from behind to mist to you the reader.

If you do not have the necessary design skills or budget to have it professionally done, I recommend a site like Fiverr. Again, make sure that you are buying the rights to any images used for use in mass print and eBook production and distribution.

Since we are talking about the cover we should also discuss the back page and author page. My author photo was taken by my brother Dave Ference who is a professional photographer. We tried several different locations and poses. A few interesting items to note about myauthor photo:

  • Although I do wear glasses, these were the cheap kind that I purchased from Walgreens. My brother recommended removing the lenses to reduce glare in the picture. It’s a good thing I used the cheap ones, as I ended up nearly cutting my hand and destroying the frame as I used a hammer and screw driver to smash out the stubborn left lens which wouldn’t squeeze out like the right one had. I know what you are thinking but there weren’t any screws on the frame to loosen so it was really the only way.
  • We settled on a serious, frowny-face despite the objection of my wife and kids. Although I may look angry, I was trying to convey an intensity and passion that my normally smirking face doesn’t always show.

Here is a black and white version of the photo:

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In my next post I will talk about some of the layout templates I used to write the book for Kindle version and for conversion to 6×9 print paperback and hardcover as well as some of the self-publishing print services that I used.