This morning I received in my inbox the cover art for my first Kindle Single. Yanks And Rebels is a compilation of comedic Civil War stories. I have an incredible cover artist, a Millennial from the UK named Josh Millgate, he did an amazing job on the cover.
Cool cover Stephanie, I wish you nothing but the best of luck in your endeavor.
Thank you TE.
great cover work…nothing beats originality..
Flash- You dumbass, the picture is public domain from the Library of Congress.
Stephanie ,is this a small book or just a collection of stories.
bb- Both, it is a short read. It is going to be less than 30 pages. It is a collection of “shit happens”. Some of the Stories are:
General Lee’s Chicken (he had a pet chicken for 2 year, the terrible fate of that chicken)
The Other Jefferson Davis (There was a Union General named Jefferson Davis)
The first casualty of the Civil War was because of a dispute over a cow
I recognized the siege gun as a Parrott type with the reinforced breech, but I had no idea they built 100 pounders…
They are correctly called the “Parrott Rifle”, since the barrel is rifled and the trajectory fairly flat. Cannons, howitzers and mortars all have parabolic trajectories.
3 inch Parrot Rifle at Gettysburg. Also known as a “10 pounder”… pretty conventional.
[img
[/img]
6.4 inch Parrott Rifle siege gun on a swivel mount. Also known as a “100 pounder”. Notice the similarities with the cover image, especially the reinforced breech.
[img
[/img]
Believe it or not, they also made 200 and 300 pounders… these were monstrous guns. They also had a tendency to explode and kill their operators (along with plenty of bystanders). Still, gun crews liked them for their accuracy.
And good luck with the book…
Billy, my girlfriend in colleges father had a business builing those carriages for all the battlefield parks. Lots of that stuff around virginia and pennsylvania
Billy says: howitzers and mortars all have parabolic trajectories.
An old guy said due to ground features such as mountains, at one point they had to aim the cannon straight up and even away from the target. Is this true?
I fail to understand how anything related to the War of Northern Aggression could be termed hilarious.
Stephanie Shepard- ” the picture is public domain from the Library of Congress ”
my point exactly…so where does the art part come in?
flash, that was my thought as well when I saw it. My wife is a graphic designer and could bang that out in a few hours or less. I just see it as some words added to a background but quite a bit of what passes for art is lost on me. Craziest thing I ever saw was at a highfalutin art exhibition in Madrid, Spain. It was a modern art exhibit that featured entries from all over the world with one picked at the “winner”. The winner was an American artist who busted his hump and bared his soul for the world to see by placing a large Band-Aid centered vertically on a large piece of white poster board. That was it! Some group of fuktard panty-wastes awarded him $75,000 for his stupendous effort.
No way I’d have ever wasted a minute on that exhibit myself with museums like Prado a quick subway ride away. Unfortunately it was a high school field trip for art class so I was trapped. However on another field trip we went to see a live production of Cats on Madrid’s equivalent of Broadway. Most of us were less than enthusiastic until we got there and found we could order glasses of beer to drink during the show which unbeknownst to us turned out to be naked chicks in body paint. I can’t say I noticed much art with all those titties in the way but I liked that show quite a bit better than the modern art exhibit! I think the show was half over before I noticed it was all in Spanish. Titties cross all language barriers apparently.
Come on guys, don’t be so brutal. The chick is doing something. Creating something out of nothing. You think josh millgate should have gone and taken some original civil war photos? Cover art is what it’s called. They’ll both get better, if they stick with it. I think it looks quite professional, particularly for a first go. Way to go guys, ignore the critics. All good big things started as good little things
I/S , I could have C&Ped that photo into paint ,added the text and been done in maybe three minutes.
star, I’m all for exercising one’s creativity and and am proud of SS for taking the initiative to be unique, but the dude claiming another…t6ht work as his own chaffs my hide a little. that’s all.
Shhhhh, flash, I’m trying to encourage them. Not a lot of big words there, but some of those letters are pretty big
Keep in mind, these are millennials. Didn’t you see the little training video jim posted a couple days ago. Come on man, start GUSHING
BTW, SS , I’m familiar with the story about Lee’s chicken and have also read that Lee wrote letters to chickens and horses back home…strange ,yet amusing..so in that respect where can an inquiring mind pick up a copy of your book? I’d be most interested in reading it.
IS and Flash- You are missing the point. “Form follows function”, the purpose of cover art is to get people to read its contents. People judge a book by its cover, duh. My graphic designer is not a nobody, he did me a huge favor.
Well the background of the original image was extended vertically and doctored up to match the color, texture and mottled appearance of the original. I’m sure numerous iterations of text size, style and placement were done etc so a few hours or less seems about right to me based on seeing my wife do similar work.
I think the cover looks great but like I said, I’m not sure how adding a few words equals art. The other thing that I wonder about is why Clammy, a graphic artist/designer herself, did not bang out the cover herself. Seems like it is a simple enough job and would further showcase her own talents and skill.
IS: Good question. First, I focused my attention on the single itself, writing and publishing it. Second, my cover artist is not a nobody. I asked him to use the picture and it make it simple. I never said this was art or in wasn’t easy. Its pu I asked him not to spend too much time on it. He is going to be my cover artist for all my kindles and he will have 100% control over it and credit on the cover. Third, he is not a nobody. He already has good exposure, he works already doing music cover art.
The entire purpose of cover art is to sell a product. He did a great job on the cover art.
Flash- Yanks and Rebels will be released within a month. It has a round to go with my copy editor. I will be posting when it is available on TBP and for its launch it will be made available for free download for the first 24 hours. SO if you have a kindle you will be able to download it for free at launch time.
SS, thanks…looking forward to your first publish and hope you have many more to your credit.
May I suggest a follow up book about Hilarious Holocaust Screw Ups?