Following on from yesterday’s “armful of books” here’s what I’ve published so far this year. A real mix of short stories, novellas, novels, and omnibus editions. I even missed a couple!
More on the way. 😉
Chris
Christoffer Petersen blog
There was a time…
… when I literally had only a handful (okay, armful) of books. 😉
Seven Graves on Sundays! Behind the Scenes 1
As I’m posting a chapter of Seven Graves, One Winter on my Patreon page every Sunday until the end of the year, I thought I would add a few related “behind the scenes” anecdotes and photos here on the blog. These posts will include things like the thoughts I had when writing the book, what happened during the publishing phase, and the events and places that inspired elements of the story.
No spoilers, just background.
We’ll start with the graves!
In 2010 Jane and I left Uummannaq. We were moving to Qaanaaq. Jane and her twin sister spent the summer touring southern Greenland. I went on a month-long solo kayak trip. My trip was a sponsored expedition, and the idea was to visit each of the seven settlements in Uummannaq Fjord. I visited five of them and one of them was Niaqornat. This settlement has a population of around 40 people, and even though I didn’t know it at the time, it was the perfect place for Maratse to “retire”. I renamed the settlement Inussuk for my book, and of all the seven settlements Maratse and Petra visit in my stories, Niaqornat remains the only one to have a fictive name. I’ve got lots of other fictive settlements and places in my stories, but they are simply made up. Inussuk is real, although the events that occur there are not, fortunately. 😉
The settlement itself has a beach on both sides with a small lake of brackish water between the beaches. The beaches are volcanic black, with a lot of pebbles on the southern side (above) and mostly sand to the north (below). Niaqornat is often the first place cruise ships visit when they enter Uummannaq Fjord.
The photos above are taken from the graveyard (below) which looks out onto Uummannaq Fjord. It’s important to note that Seven Graves, One Winter is complete fiction, I just happened to be inspired by this fabulous settlement.
You can get a better idea of where it is by looking at this map I drew of the area. Niaqornat is above the airplane in the middle of the map.
There are 22 Sundays before the end of the year, so I’ll leave it there for now. If you’d like to read along and support my work at the same time on Patreon, you can subscribe for as little as 25 DKK (roughly $4 USD + tax) per month. I’ve got a lot of stories on Patreon now, with a lot more on the way. Here’s that link again.
Alternatively, you can buy the Seven Graves, One Winter (digital and physical formats) starting from $0.99 USD.
Chris
A bit more art!
I was recently inspired to write something a little different, and, as often happens now, I did some cover art to find the right mood and tone for the story. I think of it as storyboarding the book. Sometimes I even create more than one image to find the story. It’s just part of my process now, and I have to admit it’s a lot of fun. And, as I continue to learn the craft of storytelling in words, I’m also learning new art skills and, in my opinion, achieving increasingly better results. That the image matches a scene from the story (in my head, anyway) is pure gravy!
And, for the curious among you, here’s the story!
It’s a little Indiana Jonesesque, and it was a lot of fun to write.
A shameless plug wouldn’t be shameless without the accompanying Amazon link. 😉
Chris
10 year overnight success!
I’ve heard this said about actors and writers, and all kinds of people. Often they are household names you just assume were famous from day one. I think it took author Ann Cleeves 25 years before she got her break. A friend said she heard as much on an interview. Pedro Pascal, a favourite actor of mine, spent about two decades with bit parts until today where it feels like he’s everywhere! I think he should be everywhere. Fabulous actor!
Anyway, case in point, without being famous or fabulous, I have been at this game for a while now. I recently refreshed my cover for The Ice Star, my first book to gain some traction. It was published on January 26, 2017, but I was working on it four years before that. So, the first cover (bottom right-hand corner) is from 2013 when the project was called The Brightest Star. Pretty sure I found the original photo on the Internet and fiddled with it. Never published. Just used for reference and motivation. The character of Fenna was also a man called Ravn for quite a few years, as can be read in the text on the covers. Fenna was Ravn’s girlfriend, waiting for his return. Cue eye roll!
From the right, the next two covers are personal photos from a Sirius patrolman who I interviewed for research. He said I could use the photos for covers. I did use one for a book club edition of The Ice Star.
The next cover with the date “2014 December” at the bottom is the first cover with one of my photos on it. followed by the one to the left with the bullet letter “I”. I was so proud of myself for making that bullet, from scratch, with shapes in Photoshop. 🙂
I used that same photo – taken from outside our house in Qaanaaq, for the first cover of The Ice Star when I… finally… published it.
Regardless of the classic “photo with text on top” style of my covers, the other thing that is classic newbie stuff is the tiny author name. Can’t build a brand with a tiny name, especially not when most people see only thumbnails as they scroll past the covers online. So, a couple of years later, and with a photo from Unsplash (a royalty free image resource, also used by traditional publishers – even for some of my books), I went big with my author name.
Fonts have been tricky, too. Before I published, I didn’t realise there was copyright attached to fonts. When I did discover, I then searched for creative commons fonts, until I started to buy fonts for use, embedded on covers.
Then, in 2022, I discovered 3D art.
This is where some readers sigh and perhaps wish I hadn’t, but damn it’s fun! 🙂
I really thought I had created “the” cover for The Ice Star with this one, top line, second from left, yellow author name. But no matter how much I liked this cover, the covers for books two and three just never seemed to work. So… you guessed it, I had another go.
Hopeless.
Yes, absolutely, but so much fun!
Believe it or not, I am content with the current cover for The Ice Star.
It’s only taken me 10 years!
Chris
Random Sledge of the Month!
No Dogs. Just this cute little sledge!