It took me a week. A LONG week, but I finished my editing pass on Salvage Bunny 2! I sent it off to my awesome alpha readers AKA my author husbands (it's a thing, really, I swear). . .though I'm technically down to only one author husband since I upgraded Nick Steverson to author twin. We seriously have the same thought at dang near the same time too often to be anything else. It really does make writing together a blast! Anyways, they've got it, so I'm taking a step back to work on space hyenas 3. Multiple projects really do help keep me busy. . .as if kids and a day job don't keep me busy enough. How do I do it. . .
So this Midjourney AI art bot thingy is TOTALLY A CULT. Don't let them fool you. It's addicting, the first taste is free, and then you suddenly find yourself down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out the right prompt to get the AI to spit out that exact image of your book character that you've got in your brain. It's insane, and insanely good, and INSANELY addicting. It's like, one more try, just one. . .more. . .try. I got some pretty decent ones of how I imagine Kailey AKA Salvage Bunny would look though, so I can't complain about how IT'S TOTALLY A CULT too much. I'm not going to say how many tries it took to get these two images. . .
I really like the first pic, but the second is good too. Especially that blue splash that really looks like a flower. For reasons. I'm going to work on trying to get good images of the rest of the Salvage Bunny crew over the next few weeks. The Human guys shouldn't be too bad, but my Yalteen and Pikith characters might be a little trickier.
You know who is really good at this stuff? My friend, fellow author, and badass cover artist, Jamie Ibson. He recently decided to take his cover art skills to the next level, and he's offering his services (for book cover design. . .get your minds out of the gutter). You can check him out at his website (https://ibsonwrites.ca) or over on Facebook. Why do I bring him up, outside of the very valid point that we need to support each other and boost each others stuff? I'm SO GLAD you asked, friends! Because the rights reverted on my very first Salvage Bunny short story, first published in the It Takes All Kinds anthology, titled Shadows Before Sunrise. Whenever our rights revert, we have the option to put those short stories up on Amazon, use them as reader magnets, include them as freebies if you sign up for our newsletters, ect. Now, I could muddle around and come up with something halfway decent, ooooor I could go to Jamie and ask him to make me a badass cover - and holy crap did he ever deliver!!
I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!!! Isn't it GORGEOUS?! I'll be working to get that short story squared away so I can get it up on Amazon as well as offer it as a freebie whenever folks join my fledgling mailing list.
Whew. . . that was a lot. It felt like a lot anyways. Seeing as I've got some space hyenas glaring at me, wondering when it's going to be their turn, I suppose I should get to writing!!