The Story About The Cover Of Death On Highway 13

                                                             

                                 

Now, I'm the kind of person who usually doesn't dole out advice unless specifically asked. It's just my nature. However, these days with the proliferation of  E books being put out by aspiring writers I would like to offer one piece of hopefully sage council: it's about the cover of your book. The cover is the first thing prospective readers will see, so you should present the kind of artwork that immediately catches a persons eye and draws them in. If you have an anemic looking cover the reader may look elsewhere . In my opinion, the cover is the door, the book itself is the inside of the room. A writers job is to get the reader into that room and tell them your story.  

Some  E book  publishing companies offer to provide you with a cover, for a fee, and they use a company called Think Stock that has templates. These self publishing companies will simply choose the template that comes closest to matching the title of your book and Voila!, you've got a cover. Many times the poor author is stuck with a lackluster cover. The person looking at it will probably think, "Meh. Not worth it."

When I wrote Death On Highway 13, I envisioned the cover as described in the prolog as a truck driving away leaving a dead body in the street. The corpse resembles a child's doll after the kid had tired of it and has thrown the doll away; crumpled up with wide, staring eyes. You might be thinking, " That sounds like a good idea. Joe should draw it himself."

However there was one teensy-weensy problem: I can't draw to save my life. In fact, my high school art teacher once wrote on my report card: Joe has a lot of imagination, but little to no artistic ability. Ouch! So the hunt was on to find an artist to bring my vision to life. The ones I contacted were rather expensive and I simply did not have the funds to pay them for their work. 

I did make the acquaintance of a woman who claimed to be a talented artist and would draw my cover for $400.00. I made the huge, walrus sized mistake of giving her the money first. One day, the so-called artist dropped by my house to show me what she had done so far. It was awful. It was amateurish. She claimed it was just a rough painting and that she was getting ready to put the finishing touches which would look wonderful. Stupidly enough, I didn't know where this woman lived. All I had was a phone number. I blindly trusted her. When I called her to find out when my cover would be delivered, all I got was: This person's voice mail box is full and is unable to receive any calls. For about a month I called the number she gave me and always got the same answer. So I got zip, zilch, nada, zero for my money. Four hundred dollars down the drain. If I remembered the name of this woman, I'd tell everyone across the web to avoid this con artist at all costs.

So, back to square one. In the meantime, I discovered a website  called  Fiverr where you can find artists. Luckily for me I found an artist named Chiara Noemi Monaco from Italy. This time, I paid $180.00 and she asked me what I wanted. I described the cover I had in my mind. When she showed me the finished product, I damn near had a hundred heart attacks and at my age that's not a good thing. Of course, I exaggerate mightily, but that's how much I loved Chiara's illustration. She took my vision and added in her own creativity. 

Remember, the first thing that commands a potential readers attention is a killer cover. It draws and hopefully, rivets their attention to your novel. From that point on, your words and story telling ability do the rest.  When you get right down to it, it's really up to you, the self published author, to promote your novel to the world at large.

The Story Behind Death On Highway 13.

When I began writing " Death On Highway 13", most of the characters were born from my imagination. But a few of them are based on people I have known in the past. When it comes to the mind of a writer, everything becomes "grist for the mill". Weather it emanates from experiences you've had, people you've met, stories you've heard, things you've seen on on TV, in a movie, something you've read, it's all "grist for the mill" as far as a writer is concerned.

Naturally, a couple of my characters were based on some actual people I had encountered over the years. I'll never lay claim that they were the nicest people I've ever met, but they were interesting in a twisted, distorted sort of way. They were the inspiration for those characters.

"Disco Dotty" aka Myra Bolecker was inspired by two women it was my displeasure to know. Her physical appearance was based on a  women named Dotty whom I met while I worked for Delmar Photo, a film processing lab where I worked as a delivery driver.

For reasons best known to herself, Dotty thought she was a femme fatale, you know, a real looker. In reality, she was short and stumpy, with frizzy hair and buckteeth. And while Dotty did have a nice pair of breasts, her buck teeth, knobby knees and hair that looked like it had been attacked by a rampant curling iron detracted from her being a "major babe". She once told me a hot chick like her wouldn't be seen with a guy like me. Yeah, Dotty. Keep kidding yourself. Oh, and she was dumb as shit, too. Her major contribution to any conversation was an enthusiastic, " Yeah".

I have no fear that if Dotty ever reads my book, and I really doubt that dumpy illiterate can read, that she would come to the conclusion I used her as the physical model for Disco Dotty. In fact Dotty's so dense, so thick, that I would literally have to go to the page in the ebook that describes her, point to it and say," I based this character on you" before comprehension would finally set in.

Dotty always felt that working in a photo lab was lowly work and felt she was meant for better things. What kind of better things Dotty thought were in store for her is a mystery since she possessed no skill sets of any kind. Well, a couple of years later I found out she was working as a waitress in some greasy spoon in Wilmington. You know, the kind of joint that was known for being literally one step ahead of the board of health. The kind of place you would discourage anybody from going there to eat or drink anything. Yes, this was the only type of "better thing" that Dotty, with an IQ of a baked potato, could ever aspire to. Talk about dreaming small.

For the spirit and personality of Myra, I based her on a a real piece of work named Mara. In 1974, my mother, whose boyfriend was in jail at the time, met her because Mara's husband Robert was doing time for robbery and my mother invited Mara to stay at our place until she got back on her feet. From the jump, Myra was sleazy and dishonest. Oh and here's the kicker, she was proud of who she was. Mara once laughingly stated that if she and Robert f***ed over someone, they deserved it for trusting them. She even started having an affair with my brother Mike. Her warped rationale was since Robert was in jail, she shouldn't have to go without sex. They couldn't keep their hands off each other.  But Mara vigorously assured me that she was totally honest with her husband and that he understood. Somehow I doubted it.

Anyhoo, Mike ended up getting her pregnant. Did Mara tell Robert about it and keep the baby? No, I drove her to the hospital, on two occasions, where she conveniently got an abortion. In a rare display of generosity and gratitude, Myra paid me for gas money with two checks in the amount of five dollars each. I remember thinking to myself that maybe Mara wasn't such a bad person after all. 

Through it all, Mara kept insisting that she told Robert everything. Yeah. Right. I started to look for the turnip truck she thought I fell off the back of. Mara's life was a load of self serving lies. I'll bet the last dollar in my pocket he was never told anything. To add insult to injury, the two checks Mara wrote me bounced and not only did the bank charge me for each check, but I had to pay a five dollar apiece bounced check fee. I told the people at the bank it was Mara who wrote those bad checks and not me. They said since I cashed them that was the reason I was being charged. Mara promised to pay me back but never did.

At one point, Mara decided to join the Air Force. One day, she walked by me carrying birth control pills. Mara saw me looking at it and said with a smile, " This is in case I get raped while I'm in the Air Force." No wonder I considered her to be a tart, a tramp, a skank and a slut. In any event, Mara didn't last there very long because about a year later I bumped into her at a shopping center.  I never asked what happened because I've always held the philosophy the less I know, the better off I am.

Anyway, in the prison where Robert was doing time, the powers that be decided to rehabilitate him by sending him to a place called Narconon in New Jersey. Before going to his destination, he was allowed to spend the weekend Mara. Mike was highly pissed. He'd gotten used to having a nightly bang-a-rama with her and felt he'd been unfairly shoved out of the picture. It never crossed his mind that Mara used him for temporary sexual gratification while her husband was stuck behind bars. Now that he was out, Mike was being kicked to the curb. He treated Robert rather shabbily that weekend and the poor, ignorant sap never knew the reason why.

After about a month, Robert walked away from the place and came back to Delaware to get Mara and run away with her. It seems Robert was pissed off that he was spoken to harshly and forced to work at what he felt were menial jobs. I don't think druggie boy ever grasped the concept that Narconon was more of a boot camp than a summer camp. He and Mara spent a few weeks running and hiding from the authorities until one day, Robert turned himself in. You see, he had a bargaining chip: Robert partied with a drug ring while in prison. In exchange for parole, he would eagerly rat out all the people in the drug ring.

Somehow, Robert managed to stay out of trouble, settled down and he and Mara had two kids, a boy and a girl. Unfortunately, old drug habits die hard and he went back to robbing houses for extra drug money. Since this was his third offence the judge threw the book at him: thirty years without parole. As the saying goes: the third time's the charm. Mara, his loyal, ever loving wife promptly divorced him. Since Robert had earned a well deserved reputation as "a rat" he had to placed in a section of the prison where his former drug buddies couldn't get to him.

The last thing I heard about Myra was in the eighties. I was told she lived in lower Delaware and was affiliated with a religious group. I only knew her for a few months, but I got a pretty good whiff of her personality. She was a user and a taker with a minimal conscience when it came to her actions. Mara went into this group not to bring anything to the table or give of herself. It was to see how she could use them, what she could take from it. As far as I'm concerned, she is a fraud and an opportunist, not a real Christian.  

My Ebook: Death On Highway 13

        Announcing my ebook DEATH ON HIGHWAY 13. It's an erotic detective thriller about private investigator Gary Bennet, who ekes out a marginal living spying on cheating husbands. One day, he finds out a former classmate, Dave Lomas has died under suspicious circumstances. The two of them were mortal enemies in highschool and Bennet, in reality, could give two shits about the guy. But he soon realizes that solving this murder case would do wonders for his career as a private investigator.
It would also be a boon to his shaky self esteem.

      He was discharged from The Army under honorable conditions and cut from the Police Academy shortly before graduation;which in the eyes of his stern, disapproving father makes him the family loser. Bennet takes on the case to prove to himself, his father and others that he is not a loser and that he can start something and see it through to the end.

    But unbeknownst to Bennet, the murders of Dave Lomas, Skunk and Boneman, the leaders of amotorcycle gang The Skulls of Highway 13, find out Bennet is investigating the case and warn him with a brutal beating to intimidate him into backing off of  his investigation. Bennet stubbornly stays on the case, determined to solve the murder of Dave Lomas no matter what the cost. The more dangerous the case becomes the harder he pursues it. Even if it results in his death..

  DEATH ON HIGHWAY 13 is a novel containing  action, romance, violence, drama and humor. Because my book contains sexual situations, nudity and language, DEATH ON HIGHWAY 13 is for adults. It is now available at Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Tolino, Playster, Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols,Overdrive, and Bibliotheca.

Check it out!