How I Created A Custom Kindle Cover

For My Suspense Novel, FUEL FOR THE FIRE

One requirement for attracting readers is an eye-catching book cover. I originally decided to create my cover for Kindle in Photoshop. Although I have removed it from Kindle while it is processing for print, I plan to again make it available as an e-book after it is published.

I am a graphic artist, but I am not a sketch book artist! So I chose to create the cover by making a collage from a few of the thousands of photos in our files.

CLICK HERE to learn the Photoshop layers I originally used to create my cover for Kindle, although the priority now is an actual book cover!

Use Word Images To Create Intriguing Visual Images!

An Exciting Synopsis Is A Critical Component For Attracting Readers

Reading like the headlines of a 21st century newspaper, Fuel For The Fire, is hold onto the back of your seat, non-stop suspense featuring mystery, murder, mayhem and unexpected glimpses of the supernatural.

Janisa Clark awakens in the hospital after crashing her car to discover that her three year old daughter, Lora, is missing. Her husband, Dr. Jeremy Clark, shows her a newspaper article reporting that Lora was abducted because minority rioters thought she was white. But she’s not.

In an economy reminiscent of the Great Depression, the fury of the have-nots has been vented in firebombs, riots and attacks on anyone and anything considered affluent. The city has been torched.

Against this backdrop Dr. Clark enlists the assistance of his gang banger brother-in-law, Cat, in his search for Lora. However, his HIV research is a valuable commodity, and his impetuous actions have placed it and him in great jeopardy.

As her husband disappears into the underbelly of society, Janisa’s desperate efforts to find Lora provoke a backlash that have her and their son, Sandy, running for their lives.

With fast paced precision the story catapults from homeboys in the hood to incendiary skin heads in the suburbs; a clandestine government installation; the conspiracies and secrets of two corrupt senators, and their wives; the schemes of a billionaire plotting world domination; bizarre murders; a child adoption agency with its own agenda; and a pristine commune specializing in occult phenomena.

FBI detective, Sean McArthur, stumbles on the Clark tragedy when Jan turns to his sister, Molly, for help. Can he unravel the tangles linking the Clarks to powerful minority Senator Raindolph, and the Senator to a commune he doesn’t know exists?

Will Janisa ever be able to place her trust in a God who allowed this travesty to happen but who Molly and Sean say loves her? Will Sean, the Senator and the Clarks survive the equally determined attempts of a unknown enemy to prevent them from knowing Lora’s fate?

Fasten your seat belt for a riveting ride to a screeching conclusion.

My Background

Embedded Inspirational Messages

My goal for my fiction writing is to create exciting contemporary or historical novels loaded with absorbing, page turning content in a moral and/or Christian context.

Fuel For The Fire is true cross-over Secular and Christian fiction. The basic story can stand alone as a suspenseful intrigue with lots of action, murders, chases, shocks and surprises. Within that plot, however, Janisa and Jeremy are clearly presented with salvation through Jesus Christ. You may, however, be surprised with their responses!

Explaining the Symbolism of the Cover Images

I used a photograph of Cymone, my granddaughter, as the center of the photo collage.

CLICK HERE FOR directions for re-creating Cymone with Photoshop Filter into a Colored Pencil Drawing.

The brick building in the upper right was taken in Middletown, Connecticut and represents the Clarks' home.

The story begins in what I call The City. I actually lived just outside Hartford, Connecticut and worked in the city when I began writing FUEL FOR THE FIRE. At that time much of the city was in the process of urban renewal, and Janisa and her husband, Dr. Jeremy Clark, live in a graciously restored brick apartment complex.

The barn in the bottom left corner represents the occult commune.

The photograph was taken on Cape Cod, Massachusetts where I lived for 19 years.

The child represents the Clarks' kidnapped daughter, Lora.

Because she is a child, I have intentionally masked her identity, but I liked the photo because her arms were raised beseechingly. I tilted her slightly to emphasize her distress.

The young black man in the bottom right corner can represent either Janisa's gang-banger, brother, Cat; or her husband. I used that photo because the subject looked as though he was going somewhere, and both Cat and Jeremy were looking for Lora.

The photo was taken of a guest musician at a concert. Again I have made his visage intentionally vague.

The spider is symbolic of the international intrigue as well as the twists and turns in both the search for Lora and the search for why she was kidnapped. I reduced the opacity on the spider until it is almost invisible - also representative of the hidden plot.

The silk spider photo was taken on Atsena Otie Island offshore from Cedar Key, Florida. The spider was in a huge web along the path that allows you to explore that uninhabited island.

The flames represent the escalating events leading to world catastrophe juxtapositioned with the Clark's tragedy. A huge painting is central to an international conspiracy.

I think I took the flames from a stock photo, but then overlaid at least one more layer, and erased, cut and dodged until I had the effect I was seeking.

After uploading the cover to Kindle, I wasn't satisfied that the various elements were visible enough, so I selectively erased, changed opacity, burned and dodged the flames, the people and buildings and then uploaded again.

FUEL FOR THE FIRE is expected to be ready for release by Crossbooks in late spring. Stay tuned to this website, and you'll be one of the first to learn the date! (Ebooks including Kindle should also be available at that time.)

CLICK HERE for step by step directions for re-creating my Kindle cover for FUEL FOR THE FIRE.

Inspirational Poems

Do You Have An Original Poem You Would Like Published Here?

Do you have an original inspirational poem? If you have written a poem expressing your love or faith or pain or joy, we would like to read it. Others would too! Share it!

And, if you have an original photo (or up to 4 photos) that coordinates with it, you can easily upload it here.

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