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telophase

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Welcome to anyone showing up from the Productivity Alchemy podcast or any other place you've seen me online. Feel free to follow me here if you want, or unfollow me at any time.

You can find me at:

Augusta Scarlett--Scarlett Ebooks book cover website (I do print covers also, despite the name!) -- book covers for indie authors. I am open for bookings, but I do have to book several months in advance. I get cancellations from time to time, so it's worth asking if you need something sooner. Use the email address on that website, rather than DMs here, thanks.

My Officiamal Book Cover Art Portfolio for (hopefully soon) trad published books.

My Artstation

AO3:

telophase (art and writing) and

irusu (art only)

Twitter:

telophase and

scarlettcovers

Magatsu Random Generator site for art and story prompts, titles, sandwiches, etc.

The archive for the

maythe4thbewithyou fanworks exchange has opened with over a hundred works of prose and art featuring your favorite characters from the full breadth of the Star Wars pantheon! Go forth and enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Maythe4thBeWithYou2025

We’re still in the anonymous phase and creators will be revealed in a week. Start speculating what I’m responsible for. :D

I have succumbed to the Tumblr (and Discord) trend of making a list of books that were foundational to me, so you can see how many you've read. Or not. I'm not your boss.

https://www.listchallenges.com/telophases-foundational-books

It's got a lot of kids and YA books, as that's when I encountered them. I could have put a lot more on there, and for me if there's a book 1, it's probably representative of the full series. You can decide how you want to check it off--have you read the whole book, did you DNF it, whatever.

Thursday: drive to in-laws, visit, eat dinner, drive to Mom’s place. Friday: brunch with Mom, drive home, grocery and food prep. Today: finish prep and cleanup, have friends over for third Thanksgiving meal. Tomorrow: collapse in exhaustion. Friday: start digging out from under a mountain of email.

After that, start planning Christmas, which we’re hosting because of new house.

So much socializing. So, so much (we’re both introverts, as you might have guessed by now!)

Sent from my Apple ][e

Another romantasy premade book cover up on Etsy! And it's not muddy-dark like so many of the ones I see online are! Which might be a mistake if that's what sells! Wheeeeee!

And I screwed up my wrist--left, thankfully, as I'm right-handed--yesterday making over half a gallon of béchamel sauce for lasagna for our friend gathering next Saturday. I dislike the texture of ricotta and prefer the variant that uses béchamel instead, and needed to make A LOT. My right arm got tired of whisking as I was doing the slowly-pour-milk-into-the-flour-and-butter-mixture thing, so I swapped to my left. Which was apparently the wrong thing to do. Not that I knew anything about that immediately. My left---argh this wrist brace keeps hitting the control key and the windows key--my left wrist was tired, and I had to very quickly call for backup from

myrialux instead. But I woke up this morning with something on the outer edge of my wrist hurting when I do things like HOLD MY PHONE or APPLY PRESSURE WITH MY RING FINGER (as I apparently do when allcapsing).

myrialux hunted up one of our wrist braces for me, and I have been finding out what movements hurt.

Hopefully it'll get better shortly as I would love to make deviled eggs for Saturday, my favorite finger food. Lasagnas (yes, 3--two 9x13" pans and one 8x8" when it became clear there was too much Stuff to fit into 2 pans) are in the freezer to be defrosted ahead of time and baked, there are plans afoot for Caesar salad, as we've got a recipe we know to be good, and friends are bringing other things.

We used this recipe, which is meant to be a shortcut, faking a Bolognese sauce with jarred marinara, and zhuzhed it up with fresh herbs, a can of Mutti pizza sauce to round out the marinara (it wanted 4 32-oz jars and our store carries 24-oz jars) and one of those small bottles of red wine you can get in 4-packs. Yum! Add the béchamel, Parmesan, and two pounds of cubed mozzarella because we couldn't find the Cuisinart to round it out and I think it'll be good.

How do you misplace a Cuisinart? No idea. We don't remember tossing it (it's a little bit busted and we do plan to replace it), but apparently it was packed...somewhere? And maybe not unpacked yet? We're down to just a few boxes and thought we already got all the ones that were labeled "kitchen" but who knows?

In posting here about my premade covers over on Etsy (~~for SEO purposes~~).

I've been spending the past couple of months running ads on Etsy and making covers to see what people like, as calculated by visits and favorites. And using a plugin that I subscribed to for a year to analyze whatever stats it can grab from public Etsy stuff. Which is not TOTALLY accurate but at least gives me a rough idea of what might sell.

Also, I've joined the Etsy Black Friday sale, in which you'll get 30% off if you spend over $100. I have CUNNINGLY PRICED most of my ebook covers at $99 to tempt buyers into adding on a paperback or hardcover that way. Woo. (If it's over $99, it should be a full wrap cover already created. I also have a variety of prices in order to see what price points appeal and are workable for me, although I haven't sold enough to have any real data. :D

Anyway, here's a list of new premade covers. Apologies in advance for the terribly SEO-centric titles, but these days it's all about the ~Algorithm~ and Etsy has some specific things it responds to when grabbing listings and presenting them as search results. And honestly not that many people are judging by the few characters of the title visible in the search listings; they're looking at the picture. (Some of them have "No AI" in the title, just to see if that attracts people or not. None of them are made with AI.) You're getting the full glory of the titles because I'm hoping search engine spiders will pick them up.

In chronological order, from the oldest to the most recent.

Full wrap Regency Christmas cover, in an illustrated style:
Premade Book Cover: Christmas Regency Romance with an illustrated couple embracing under mistletoe. Customizable. No AI.

Regency Christmas ebook cover with the usual photomontage.
Premade Ebook Cover: Christmas Regency Romance with a lord and lady in front of a Christmas tree. Customizable. No AI.

Mystery or thriller full wrap cover:
Premade Thriller or Mystery Book Cover. Suspense, mystery or action. Ebook and paperback. Customizable.

Mystery/thriller/spy ebook cover:
Premade Book Cover: Thriller, Mystery or Spy Ebook Cover | Suspense | Action | Customizable

Historical Christmas romance (yes, you can tell what my biggest sellers have been to date)
Premade Book Cover: Christmas Historical Romance with a lord and lady in front of a Christmas tree. Customizable. No AI.

For a bit of a change, some rendered crowns as transparent PNGs to plop onto your characters' or photo clients' heads.
Royal crowns for queen or princess. Digital overlay PNG. Fantasy, Medieval, Historical, Romance, Magical. Instant download.

What is this? A Regency romance cover that isn't Christmas??? I disbelieve.
Premade Book Cover: Romance Regency / Historical / Victorian / Romantasy A woman standing in front of an atmospheric morning landscape

Then I branched out into romantasy and dark romance. Here we have my currently Most Popular (as judged by favorites) cover. It has never had a different title, so I'm judging this a Success for Etsy searches and am pretty much using the formula for the others. Sorry!
Premade Book Cover | Romantasy & Dark Romance | Fairy Tale | Fantasy YA Aesthetic | Ethereal Atmospheric Design for Young Adults

These next two were an experiment to see if I could replicate the uncanny valley feel of AI images using 3D renders and the type of post-processing in Photoshop that turns people's skin plastic. Visually, I succeeded, I think. Are the covers popular? Not that much, mostly because if you've got a person's face on the cover it's got to match the author's mental image of their character so it's a harder sell. But I proved the concept, so they fulfilled their purpose.
Premade Book Cover | Romantasy & Dark Romance | Fairy Tale | Elf | Fantasy | Ethereal Atmospheric Design
and
Premade Book Cover | Romantasy & New Adult | Fairy Tale + Dark Romance | Fantasy YA Aesthetic | Atmospheric Ethereal Design for Young Adults

Back to the formula of the popular one above, with flowers and a sword this time.
Premade Book Cover: Romantasy | Fantasy | Flowers & Sword | Dark Romance | Aesthetic | Atmospheric | Ethereal

I wanted to try to picture a rose frozen in ice. I did it, stood back and went "Um...yeah that's absolutely the cover of a spicy romance, not a sweet one." (If you ever wonder if the entendre on the cover of a romance is accidental...no, they know damn well that it's there.)
Premade Book Cover: Romantasy | Dark Romance & Fantasy | YA | Young Adult | Aesthetic | Atmospheric | Frost and Ice

Replicating the popular one without copying it exactly.
Premade Book Cover | Dark Romance | Romantasy & Fairy Tale | Fantasy YA Aesthetic | Ethereal Atmospheric Design for Young Adults

And the one I finished today, a more flat illustrated look. I learned how to make seamless patterns in Photoshop with this one!
Premade Book Cover | Romantasy | Fairy Tale & Dark Romance | Fantasy YA Aesthetic | Atmospheric Custom Design for Young Adults

If you ever wanted to know what my most popular items are, they're these, digital backdrops of Santa's toy workshop. I got the most sales during the height of the pandemic as professional Santas and grandparents wanted appropriate Zoom backgrounds for calls with kids, and then a few sales at the end of each year since as photographers professional and amateur wanted backdrops to composite their subjects into for holiday photos.

Digital Background - Santa's Toy Workshop Christmas Scene, Festive Holiday Backdrop for Photography, Instant Download

Digital Backdrop - Santa's Workshop Christmas Scene, Festive Photography Background, Winter Wonderland Backdrop

Both

myrialux and I dislike zucchini and eggplant (among other things, thanks supertasting), but have found that if offending ingredients are cooked long enough with other ingredients so that they all meld together, often the results are perfectly acceptable. And we both want to expand our culinary horizons.

I bought the cookbook Bohème Cooking: French Vegetarian Recipes by Carrie Solomon, and found this rustic ratatouille recipe, which we tried tonight. It was good! It all blended together so we couldn’t taste the individual offensive vegetables, becoming more than the sum of its parts.

Recipe under the cut.

( Read more... )

Allergies, sleeping wrong on my neck, and waking up a bit too early due to same all equal headaches...tension in the back of my head and sinus in the front. Bah.

Sorry random dude in the US state of Georgia who wants a $700 drone. You accidentally used my credit card number instead of your own. Luckily you also accidentally used my email address and phone number AND the drone company in question has an unusual procedure of emailing the person ordering to confirm the purchase, so I just as accidentally changed your password, cancelled your order and closed your account.

Arrrrggghhhh

I had my copy of our joint credit card compromised yesterday so that one's cancelled, and then there's hinky stuff on my personal credit card today so THAT'S blocked. Not cancelled because the bank's undergoing weekly systems maintenance at the moment and the rep couldn't see the hinky charges in question, although he could see the two adjustments that cancelled them out. If the card is closed right now, since he couldn't see those charges to dispute them, there's a chance the charges would be moved to the new card and not cancelled out, so it's blocked instead and I get to call back in tomorrow to get the card cancelled and a new one issued.

The drone charge was NOT the hinky one on the card (someone ordered $195 worth of merch from The North Face), but I woke up to the drone company's email about the purchase attempt which is what got me to look at my card in the first place. So thank you drone guy, I guess?

So this city we’ve moved to (a suburb of a larger city) is weirdly nice. There’s something in the water. Every interaction with a retail worker is…pleasant. Nobody’s been beaten down by customer service. The people at the post office are not surly.

Anyway, this is our first Halloween here. We assumed it would be like our previous neighborhood, Ground Zero for Trick or Treaters. We’re in much the same position: a walkable neighborhood near an elementary school. So we loaded up on candy, stickers and mini bottles of bubbles.

We set up at 6pm, after I thought I heard voices outside. Both our porch light and doorbell ringer are busted and we hate getting up and down to answer the door so we did the usual: table on the porch with bowl of candy and stickers and ys on a couple of chairs. The light outside the garage works to illuminate us so we’re good.

An hour later, we’ve had like five groups come by. At 7:30, after five more have come and gone, we just write CANDY BUBBLES STICKERS TAKE 2 OF EACH on a box and go in because Dragon Age: The Veilguard has dropped and we are jonesing to play it.

I didn’t turn off alerts on my phone so I know kids are coming by every so often and taking stuff, and at 9:15, when we get to a good pausing point in the game, I go outside to bring the table back in.

You know how I know we’re not in Kansas anymore? THERE IS STILL CANDY IN THE BOX. Even the kids who grabbed handfuls—I watched a few via the doorbell cam—grabbed modest handfuls. The bubbles were gone except for one, there were plenty of stickers left as I expected, but CANDY. IN THE BOX.

So all I can say is that the kids here are also super nice, Trick or Treating is 7-9–at our previous house it was 5:30-9 and we were usually tapped out by 7:30-and that they really don’t like Tootsie Rolls as that’s the majority that was left.

Huh. I checked for any civic fests happening, and there were none in our city. Maybe the churches or schools do things, or everyone goes into the larger city. Guess we buy less candy next year!

I (in the guise of

irusu) got two fabulous stories for Trick or Treat that I need to get back to and leave more substantial comments on.

Both Original Works, so don't need much prior knowledge. The first is set in ancient Rome, with gladiators fighting to win their freedom, symbolized by the rudis, a wooden sword given to a freed gladiator.

Rudis (2295 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Male Ancient Roman Gladiator/His Closest Male Rival
Additional Tags: Combat, Bloodshed, Gladiators, Ancient Rome
Summary:

Too much is at stake to play silly games. The rudis has been promised as the prize, the wooden sword of freedom. There can only be one victor, and Phoebus is determined that it will be him.

This one concerns the folk tale The King of the Cats (Wikipedia link), the basics of which are a traveler has heard a voice on his journey saying that [an odd name] is dead. When he gets to an inn and tells the tale, the innkeeper's cat starts and says "[odd name] is dead? Then I'm the King o'the Cats!" and vanishes up the chimney, never to be seen again. This story continues from there (albeit from a variant seen a bit down the page here where the cat lives with a sexton and his wife, rather than an innkeeper).

The Coronation of the King of the Cats (567 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: British Mythology & Folklore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Old Tom & Sexton & Sexton's Wife
Characters: Old Tom, Sexton - Character, Sexton's Wife, The King of the Cats (British Mythology & Folklore)
Additional Tags: Water, Candy, Coronation, Rituals, Cats, Trick or Treat: Trick
Summary:

The three Miaous had been given. The Notification had been said. Now, it was up to him to get There and claim his crown.

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