Guest Post: K. Bartow

Jim Foster (narrator for Audible) asked, "What drew you to writing? What did you hope to accomplish?"

K. Bartow helped me out by answering this question. Thanks Karina for taking the time to give such a thoughtful and inspiring answer.

Like most children, I skipped around from one idea to another with regard to what I wanted to be when I grew up. I went through the usual choices—ballerina, teacher, and carpenter, my dad’s occupation. As I matured, though, I realized my having Cerebral Palsy would impede my success in all of those fields and many others.

When I was nine, my mom took me to meet a children’s book author at our local library. I listened to her speak and could sense her passion for it, sparking something in me. In the days that followed, I pondered it further and discovered I could do that. I was already a gifted student, especially in English class, and even with only one usable hand, I knew I’d make it happen. 

Once again, however, age made me reconsider my aspirations. As I neared adulthood, I resisted doing something “just because” it was almost the only job I could physically do. I didn’t commit to it upon graduating high school, wanting to investigate other options. In the end, my creativity plagued me and pushed me to put the pen to paper—or nowadays, the keyboard to the word processor.

I didn’t have true objectives starting out, other than having a career and being allowed to use my active imagination every day. Sure, I wanted to create works that publishers and readers alike would enjoy, but that concept eluded me for quite a while. Overall, I guess my main goal was to get to know myself and any talent I may have.

Once I began, I saw everything the craft could give me. I could create a whole world and take charge of every twist and turn and outcome, without there being rights or wrongs. I could use the experiences that had hurt me and state the way they affected me or how I wished I could’ve handled them. Regardless of whether anybody would ever read my words or not, it was a therapeutic release and gave me a freedom I had never known before.

Thus, what started as a sort of “career of convenience” has become a lifestyle I truly cherish.

To connect with Karina visit her at:

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How Do You Design a Book Cover?

My friend, John, asked me, “How do you design a book cover?”

Finally a technical question! There’s several different ways to go about it. I designed my first book on the Windows Art program. Honestly, it’s my favorite cover. Unfortunately I had to cave into business pressure and go with a photograph based cover… mainly because my second book had a photo cover.

Speaking of that, my publisher of El Tiburon was amazingly cool to have given me a great book cover. I’ll admit I asked them to stay with my design style, but no. So I had to approve their design, which meant saying no to several models because they didn’t look right.

Eventually I asked them to remove the models from the cover because it looked like a steamy romance (after about two years and multiple complaints from readers that the cover was misleading). Don’t get me wrong… El Tiburon has its romance, but steamy doesn’t quite fit the bill.

My first experience with making a professional quality cover was through a friend who used a Fiverr tech. We made Counterpart’s new cover. Again, I only had yay or nay power. I wanted to have control from the beginning.

For my recently published book, In the Crossfire of Revenge, I contracted with Fiverr all by myself. I felt so grown-up! :) I chose from their long list of book cover specialists based on reviews. I wanted one who allowed for multiple revisions. My lady was in Germany. We dialogued back and forth about how I wanted the cover to look. I was directed to an enormous photo bank to choose the photo I wanted (it took me about a week to decide). Then I sent it to her and she went to work. It took about six revisions until I was satisfied. I love the results… and it only cost me about $45 bucks! She gave me a cover in 3D, a thumbnail for eBook sites, and a square one for the audiobook, and the cover for the paperback.

Then I learned how to make it animated with glittering light using Glitterboo. I think it looks pretty cool on the cover I made for the McGee Series. That one I did using the phone app called Canva. My nephew took an artistic photo of his police gear for me to use. Canva is a great app.