More books are being published than ever with about one million per year in the United States alone. More than half of those are published by self-publishers and small presses. As a self-publishing author, you are walking boldly into that competitive environment, but you need your book to stand out from the rest. The last thing you need is a generic book cover that looks like all the other self-published and small press books out there. But book covers are costly, some running into hundreds or thousands of dollars. You have a choice between accepting the generic cover design your self-publishing company offers or spend hundreds of dollars for something better. This book provides another option. Using graphic design software that is both high quality and free to you, this book will teach you techniques that you can use to design your own book cover. These techniques are demonstrated using more than 200 full color images to help you get past the learning curve so that you can design your own book covers and avoid the curse of the generic book cover. This book discusses both fiction and non-fiction covers. It explains how to create and use a template for placing text and graphics on the cover. You will learn about image placement, interesting things you can do with text and how to incorporate hand drawn graphics into the cover. You will learn how to generate a barcode for the back cover. As an added feature, this book includes a section on using three dimensional rendering software for book cover design.

Gives the twenty-two secrets for becoming a Wizard, including how to make a wand, read an oracle, and achieve member status in the Wizards' Guild.

Over 25 official crafting activities inspired by the Harry Potter films. Filled with imaginative projects, this official book of craft activities channels the magic of the Wizarding World into your home. Featuring over 25 crafts covering a range of skill levels, Crafting Wizardry includes clear, step-by-step, illustrated instructions so that the whole family can share in the magic. Inside you’ll learn how to craft your very own wand, decorate your home to showcase your Hogwarts house pride, create your own pop-ups, and so much more. Sprinkled with fun facts and behind-the-scenes insights, this book also features film stills, original concept art, and blueprints from the making of the Harry Potter films to take you deeper into the Wizarding World and further inspire your creativity. So get ready, it’s time for some crafting wizardry!

A detailed thesis on the Modern Wizard Movement

We all know we're not supposed to judge books by their covers, but the truth is that we do just that nearly every time we walk into a bookstore or pull a book off a tightly packed shelf. It's really not something we should be ashamed about, for it reinforces something we sincerely believe: design matters. At its best, book cover design is an art that transcends the publisher's commercial imperativesto reflect both an author's ideas and contemporary cultural values in a vital, intelligent, and beautiful way. In this groundbreaking and lavishly illustrated history, authors Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger establish American book cover design as a tradition of sophisticated, visual excellence that has put shape to our literary landscape. By Its Cover traces the story of the American book cover from its inception as a means of utilitarian protection for the book to its current status as an elaborately produced form of communication art. It is, at once, the intertwined story of American graphic design and American literature, and features the work of such legendary figures as Rockwell Kent, E. McKnight Kauffer, Paul Rand, Alvin Lustig, Rudy deHarak, and Roy Kuhlman along with more recent and contemporary innovators including Push Pin Studios, Chermayeff & Geismar, Karen Goldberg, Chip Kidd, and John Gall.

The first three novels in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series are now available in digest size that are ideal for middle grade fans of all things magical.

Preparing to protect a twenty-foot dragon from the wrath of his own wife, Wiz joins forces with his eccentric companions in an adventure filled with Soviet ex-spies, a band of dwarves, zombie dragon riders, and a fluffy pink mechanical rabbit.