Reflection 2

Last week I got to do something new for me. Instead of continuing with the book I've been working on, my boss asked me to look for cover pictures for a novel the Press is working with. I wasn't sure where to look for pictures online and how getting the rights to them would work. I decided to avoid problems like last time and just ask and found two sites (flickr and istockphoto) that are usually easy to get pictures from. This job was a little intimidating to me because I've never really considered myself very creative. I worried that all the possible pictures I found would be completely wrong for the book. However, once I got started I realized I really liked doing it. I started to get a feel for what would look good on a book cover and what wouldn't. For example, a picture might be great, but if it is too busy it could be hard to add a title and author and still make it look appealing. I ended up being very excited about the options I came up with. I don't know if they'll be used, but I have a great collection to keep for my portfolio/poster.

I also learned how to write inquiry emails to people who had photos we were interested in using. The Press doesn't have a standard way to do this, so I learned by writing what I thought would be good, sending it to my boss, and then using his comments to correct my original. By the second email I was able to use my version with just minimal corrections.

It was nice to have a break from editing. I love to edit, but doing this work let me learn some of the other steps that go into getting a book made. I had a lot of fun last week.