Things I've learned On Wattpad

Lesson 7: Judge a book by its cover

Seriously when one browses through Wattpad he/she comes across some pretty amazing covers. The books maybe shit to the core but the covers...man they are fucking incredible! Picture within picture, dramatic fonts and blurry backgrounds, vibrant colours or black and white images, eerie atmosphere or creating a mysterious ambience. Some of the people here are like photoshop experts, canvas pro experts, super tech- visual-effects pros.

Why am I mentioning this? Good question. Because I am not one of those people! I can barely type and yes I type using a few fingers of each hand. I don't type like they teach you at school. It wasn't obligatory when I was young. I just do whatever feels convenient but I type fast man. Like really fast. Am I getting golden stars, yet?

Anyway back to covers. Looking at the amazing covers displayed all over Wattpad which act like the best invitation for someone to read, I tried to play around with the idea, too, but alas! I am so not good at it. Like at all J. Some of my friends here have witnessed numerous of my meltdowns when trying to do justice to the book I am writing at that specific moment. Especially friends like @Bea_Nice, @StoryTellerHaven and @PoisedPen. I am what you might call techno-phobic. I'll give you an idea of what I'm talking about. When I'd ordered the first smart board for my language school a long time ago, I didn't sleep for a week until the tech guy brought it in. He started explaining how it works and I was depending on my much younger staff to listen carefully and fill me in when the guy would leave because I temporarily went deaf because of stress. My palms were sweating; my heart was beating fast when I moved in front of it and was expected to write on the screen using my finger instead of a marker like we did on the usual whiteboard. I mean there was a time when I first started teaching that I'd used chalk on a bloody blackboard. Fucking chalk! I still remember breathing the white powder in the atmosphere, my clothes getting dirty by it. And now I was in front of this white monster and I thought it would swallow me up and spit me out disappointed by my lack of tech-knowledge.

So when I attempted my first covers, let's just say that they were simply horrible. (And I'm putting it mildly, people!)

Don't get me started on how long it took me to actually fit the cover image in the Wattpad cover thing. I mean Jesus! Sometimes the title would be cut or half of someone's head or my username. Oh how I suffered! Some of my friends like @Walkstar or @StoryTellerHaven or @Monet and @jane_lausten took pity on me or got sick of my covers lmao and volunteered to help me out. They were extremely patient and helpful and it amazes me that someone you don't know in your real life would actually give a damn and help you with your book cover. I am astounded by the kindness I have witnessed here. I mean why would a person who has to go to work, do housechores, go grocery- shopping, and so much more would take the time to help out a fellow amateur-author they don't know. Why would they spend their special, precious time for someone else? Someone they don't know but apparently care about.

And to think there are readers or fellow authors who help others make trailers! Wow! Simply wow! So I take this opportunity to thank all the people who have helped me with this or tolerated me through the process and to all those out there who do this because they like creating and making people happy: THANK YOU! YOU ROCK!

*Yeah I did the cover to this book and you can tell. Shush you!