Free & Easy: How to create book cover from program PAINT.NET

PAINT.NET is a open source program for the making and editing images. 

 PAINT.NET is a program that is very easy to use. It is suitable for people who do not know much about technique, however, certain features may not be paying any other equivalent program such as Photoshop. You can download the program for free without copyright issues. Downloaded by visiting the web PAINT.NET.

After downloading the program and open the program. You will see as below.

1. The work area is the area of image that we are working with. You can resized it by the command. Image-> Resize 

2. Colors is the tab that you can choose or change color of working area. 

3. Layers of the image

 4. Tools are set for customization. We can use a mouse click Tool, and then move the mouse into one zone to compose the image.

Then, set the size of the cover. Go to the command Image-> Resize if the book cover is A5 size. You should set image size to 52.92 cm to 75.45 cm. This size will be large enough to be a book cover.

Then we have a work space as a proportion of the A5.

Now you are ready to creating a book cover image. The first thing, you should have a background pictures. After that, open the image that you want to put on the book cover by choosing File-> Open  and select your image and then click OK.

 

 

Then cut a specific area using the Rectangle Select tool, as shown below. [For this example, I want to use only the picture of the girl on the left.]

Then copy and paste the image into the working area, which is the cover that was created earlier, after that Paste in new layer.

Girl image will be placed in the working space as show below. 

 Add the name of book by adding New Layer.

 

Then click Tools, and choose T [Tools for creating characters]. Choose font type from the menu. Then type in the title of your book.

 

 

Above,  You can be seen that, we have 2 Layers of characters [or words] in order to have a different color for each line of text. You can select individual Layers and move it to make a book cover more beautifully by clicking Move Selected Pixels photo tool as shown below. 

 

Then insert more pictures or other texts, wording for making it more beautiful. 

 

 

Then save the image file by clicking File -> "Save As" and type the picture name, choose .png image. Finally, Your book cover is done.

Note: Images source - freepik.com

Japan: Cafe every where, land for coffee lover.

Japan is the one of most coffee shops country. Normally base of drinking in Japan is green tea but coffee is always famous for many people also.

Coffee was introduced to Japan around 17th century by Dutch people. The fist coffee shop was located in Tokyo in 1888. There are some difference from coffee shops in many countries such as you can order food in coffee shops (breakfast set, lunch set etc.).

In Fukuoka, you will see coffee shops everywhere. at Hakata station there are many coffee shops there also. I had tasted Tully's Coffee at OIOI department store. Hot latte coffee is very nice.

At Hakata station there are many coffee shops some of them are international brands but many are local brands for example; Seattle Best Coffee, Mister Donut, Kitchen, etc.

In Tenjin,

I found a lot of coffee shops also. I choose one (Sun Fukaya) that present that this shop was born in 1953. Coffee and sandwich are very nice.

In Yufuin, 

Coffee shops in Yufuin always have sweet for example ; Roll Coffee, coffee shop which has 3 kinds of roll cake (green tea, coffee and villain). Coffee is general but cake are good.

For me, Japanese's coffee are lighter than other coffee that I had ever tasted but  I love the way of waitress/ waiters are take care their customers and also the quality of food. 

My experience as a freelance writer, just...follow your dreams

When you were young, Did your parents and people around you asked you about your dreams job? Do you remember about your answers? For me, if I tell someone that I wanted to be a writer, everyone would surely laugh at me.

Why? Because I failed in Thai grammar test. My worst subject's score was Thai writing. I was very good at Mathematics and Sciences.

And in Thailand, people think that someone who is a writer does not have secure income. These kinds of market is so limited that people do not want to take risks. Writers have to invest a lot of their time and energy, and if the publishers do not like their stories, it is unlikely that writers will get much return from their books.

So I gave up on becoming a writer. I studied economics instead. I like to study Economics but I love to write novels. I secretly keep writing and did not tell about it to anyone.

I had a job in banking company. And wrote novels at the night. One day, my co-worker found one of them in my computer. She laughed.

“Sirin, Do you write that story?” She asked me. And look surprisingly .

And I was embarrassed and said. “Yes, I write that story.”

My co-worker laughed again “Don't you think, that stories was so… sweet and grilly? I think, Just only dream girls or teenagers who will read that story. Do you sell this novel?”

At that time, I felt so shy and replied. “No, I write for my free time.”

And she said “I think, It will be better for your life if you spend your time on stock market because you can earn money from that.”

I felt bad from this conversation. But it didn’t stop me from living my dreams.

Internet technology was opened my world. I uploaded my novels on websites. I just wanted share them to the world. And again., The same co-worker, she found that. She laughed at me and told everybody about that. She thought I used my time for unproductive activity. Because, in her world, we should have money or some benefits in term of tangible things from every work.

For almost 3 years, I kept on writing on the website without any income. But it did not bother me, because writing was my passion and I was happy and satisfied.

And that day came, when I got a call from a stranger. She was the editor of the publishing company. She said she really liked my stories and wanted to publish it. Her publishing company wanted to publish all of my novels.


And I ask her “Are you sure?”

“Why?” She asked my back.

“Because I think my novels are so sweet. Only day dream girls who want to read it and they want to read it from free website only?”

The editor kept quiet for 2-3 secs. And she asked me again. “Do you love your novels? Do you happy reading your novels?”

I said “Yes.”

She laughed and said sincerely. “I already read all of your novels and I love them too. So don't think about how to sell them. It is my problem not yours” ...Surprisingly, the readers received my novels very well. It seems that the novels have also created a fan base, most of them are teenagers.

Until now, I have thirteen novels sold in Thailand [www.facebook.com/sirindabookstore] . My fans are usually teenagers. Many of them always think that I am only twenty five years old because my novels are so sweet novels.

Now, I can tell everybody that I am a novel writer. Lastly I want to tell all of you that. Don't be shy of all things that you love to do. You will never win if you do not begin.

Just FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS!!!