New friends and a bit of humility

If you read my last post, you saw that I’m learning Photoshop to create covers for the Regency romances, mysteries and other
out-of-print novels I’m reissuing in digital format for e-book readers like Kindle and Nook.

I also announced that I’m running around taking pictures of flowers and beach scenes, seeing the world in a new light. My plan was and is
to use them for my covers.

Well, I’m learning a lot. Some of that includes how difficult it is to create exactly the right cover images. And how much work is
involved in fixing photos, moving images around, and so on.

Then a fellow author, Lex Valentine, turned me on to a
wonderful site called stock xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/).
Here, photographers and graphic artists from all over the world post images that you can download and use for free, with only a few reasonable restrictions (like no pornography).

I found some exquisite images that are perfect for my covers and better than anything I can create at this point. All I had to do was add the text with Photoshop and I was set to go.

In the process, I’ve “met” generous and talented photographers from Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, New Zealand and several states in the U.S. What a small world this has truly
become. I feel privileged to be able to make these connections.

The cover I hope to post here (if I can figure out this Blogger software), for my Regency romance A Lady of Letters, uses a photographic image created by Michael Faes of Switzerland. He doesn’t list a
website, or I’d provide that so you could see more of his work.

Next month, I’m going to do my best to show you a cover I really did create from scratch (with a little help from my husband). But in the meantime, I hope you’ll go over to the Kindle store at Amazon.com and take a look some of my new Jacqueline Diamond covers such as Danger Music, The Eyes of a Stranger, Lady in Disguise, Song for a Lady, Shadowlight and The Forgetful Lady. Please let me know what you think!