Major ebook retailers recently increased their size requirements for book covers. I have complied. (Done right, it’s a bit of work—the results of just clicking on Photoshop’s “Make Me Bigger!” icon are hilarious.)

While doing this, I took a hard look at my stable of covers and replaced two: The Biofab War and Final Assault. Arguably the new covers are more dramatic:

    Before                     After     

     Before                     After

Amazon’s published the fresh covers, though they’re still awaiting approval at Smashwords, the ebook aggregator for most other major ebook retailers. Given the multiple interfaces and approval processes, they should appear by the Winter Solstice. (Did you know that Apple vigilantly reads every book before releasing it? Though steady income for hired readers, it takes a while. I’m betting without checking that Apple long ago approved Fifty Shades of Grey.)

The ebook universe is always in flux, a processes of continual reinvention; enhanced content, new cover requirements. Perhaps we’ll soon be into the dizzying world of moving ebook covers? Whatever happens, I’m in for the long march—beats the heck of my days as a midlist serf of legacy publishers.

Back to writing the sequel to The Eldridge Conspiracy. If you’ve read Eldridge, Jim and Angie’s twin boys are now sixteen and . . . challenging. (When not writing, I teach and mentor at-risk teens. The hard-won insights gained are proving a boon to fleshing out the two lads.) As for the remorseless Dr. Schmidla, he’s not done with us.