Pen
Colorado Publishing

Reviews

Nobody writes motorcycle fiction anymore. Good book!
-Ray’s Motorcycles

I enjoyed the caricatures and storyline. You did a great job and should be pleased with the outcome.
-Aubrey O.

What an adventure. This is a book you pick up and don't put down till the last page, and when you close it, the only word is "WOW!"
-Roberta B.

I found this story to hold some of the truths of the biker culture and I think most people would enjoy the read.
-Victor S.

This is a must buy for anyone looking for a good biker/veteran book or anyone looking for a good adventure story. Pick this one up and you will not be disappointed.
-Jack S.

 

The Cover Story:

The cover of our book represents the work of several artists from Colorado. The overall layout with the interesting road design that runs through the front and back covers was the brainchild of our desktop publisher and graphic artist Becky Asmussen of Image Graphics Inc. in Loveland, CO. I asked her to develop a cover in brown that would be reminiscent of the old style “dime store novels”. We’d then use hand drawn artwork to further enhance this retro look along with the parchment paper stock.

The charcoal illustration of the motorcycle was done by a local tattoo artist, Kris Charles, and it was taken from an old photo of my friend JC’s ‘75 Super Glide in its early days. Kris is the owner of Souls Image Tattoos in Sterling, Colorado. He is a Vietnam veteran with knowledge of both outlaw bikers and weaponry. He knew exactly how the 12 gauge shotgun would be mounted on the bike and we hung the Vietnam Era Colt .45 in the story on the handlebars for further effect. Kris is one of the founders of the Sober Souls Motorcycle Club.

The original coast background on the 1st edition of the book was not a strong representation of the actual Route 1 coast so we were looking for a way to improve this image for the 2nd edition. A friend of mine, and fellow rider, is the well known western artist Julie Kramer Cole. She’s recognized for her development of the “emerging image” style of pastel painting where she’ll cleverly hide images of animals in the backgrounds of her outdoor paintings. She took the original cover art and drew an excellent representation of the northern California coast to scale behind the motorcycle image. She’d worked from photos of the coast but you can imagine her amazement when we visited the coast in ’08 and she saw the actual spot she’d used for the illustration. It is the view north from the overlook at Muir Beach which is just a short ways north of the City on Route 1. Right along JCs route in the story.

My daughter, and co-author, Denise came up with the idea of using a map of the northern California coast where the story takes place at the beginning of Chapter One to help readers who’ve never been to this beautiful road out of San Francisco. Becky decided to also use this map as the background for the rear cover which worked out very well.

The name of our company, Colorado Winds Publishing, comes from a name I had envisioned many years ago for a motorcycle magazine that was to feature motorcycle touring in Colorado. The original name was just Colorado Winds to reflect the most significant challenge to riding in Colorado - the winds. At that time I had a Ft. Collins based tattoo artist, Greg Skibo, do the colorful drawing of the Triumph rider with long hair in the wind that is now part of the company logo on our website.

The “electric pen” is an image I designed many years ago for my desktop publishing company, LaserTalk Communications (now closed), that was meant to incorporate both old world and new world images together. It’s a fun graphic I still like to use.

The copy on the back cover - known by some in the business as the “sell statement” - is intended to be a short overview of the books story. It was probably harder to write than the book itself but the finished product - after many rewrites - seems to do the job well

We also strived to keep our book printing in the United States. United Graphics Inc. from Mattoon, Ill has worked with us on all three editions and done an excellent job.

My thanks to all of these artists and their special contributions to our project.

 

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