Cover Design Mistake

Cover Design
Publishing is a new and challenging thing for me. there is a big learning curve, puctuated by not having done this before, reading zillions of "helpful" blogs, books, articles, and online hints.
I now know what to do about writers bloc (never had it)....picking a subject matter (not an issue).....connecting with the entire world wide web  (why would I want to? ) to name a few. Almost everything that is published is so basic it is meaningless, or it is written for a total novice.

I am going about this the same way I learned how to design...shop the stores...look how people finish their garments... decide what appeals to me and what doesn't....and make a few mistakes!!! Unfortunatly since this is my one book and it is important, I prefer to not have it as a mistake.

Creat Space designed several book covers for me. I gave them ideas, and they basically copied them....so that eliminated anything remotely creative. Additionally the designer was color blind. Also, a book has three parts- The Front Cover, The Back cover, and The Spine. Their designers seemed to have forgotten that the spine should be readable......so, after being depressed, I asked my friend Robin to help.

She came up with a great design....Happy, Powerful, Colorful and Engaging. The only probelm was that I forgot to tell her that the photo I wanted to use was circa 1917- so the brownie camera edge she used didn't work-

Back to the drawing board......Stay Tuned!!!

Book Covers Designed by my friend, Robin Hoffmann

Moving Ahead

February 18, 2013
I have finally done it!! I have managed to make a web site for EARTHBOUND , the book that I have edited that was written by my husband, Raymond Ballinger, and left to me in pieces when he died in 2005.
Learning how to write the book, make it look professional, self-publish it, and now market it has been an ordeal, complicated by the fact that everyone and their brother and sister has written something totally irrelevant or if relevant simplified for idiots and the uninformed, so that I have had to wallow thru mounds of articles to get to this point.
So....... I am now goiong to learn how to write a blog....with my life experiences being retired and trying to climb the learning curve to negotiate in today's new world!!!
I am going to write articles on my life...which consists of all the multitude of things a widow who is newly retired finds herself emeshed in.........
Re-inventing Yourself
Finding New Friends
Finding a New Life
Internet Dating
Meetups
Re-decorating your house
Selling your house.
Buying a new house.
Learning how to write.
Learning how to publish
Learning how to build a web site
Learning how to blog
and so much more...................
I hope that widows and others who find themselves alone as well as creative people who want to reinvent themselves and all you people out there will share your experiences as well-
THIS IS A WORK IN  PROGRESS!!! Come move forward with me...... Babette

Babette's Journal

I have just returned from a trip to Denver, Colorado where I drove with my college friend, Judy, to Abiqui, NM...around 45 minutes north of Sante Fe. Judy and I stayed in a vacation rental by owner and spent a week in a Pastel Class taught at the Ghost Ranch, the NM home of Georgia O’Keefe.

It was an extraordinary week for me. I have been plagued with allergies for years and a chance conversation at the ranch isolated and “cured” me!

I have been toying with depression over a multitude (at least it seems to me a multitude) of issues. Pat Frazier, our VRBO rental hostess, told me about EFT-ADV (emotional freedom techniques) and it was empowering.
I had dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall in El Rita with an architect from Seattle, a graphic designer from Austin, a pilot from No. Carolina and a fund-raiser from Denver. It just hit me how much we all had in common and can learn from each other…and how little time we have to share our lives and experiences.