Published: November 17, 2023

Synopsis: “I’ll be dead before the end of May.”
Nathan’s visions of the future are just coincidence, a desperate cry for attention. At least, that’s what everyone thinks. But his vision of death is real and overwhelming, and Cait is determined to help the struggling boy. It’s what her own vision predicted, after all. Risking her dream job, Cait won’t accept the easy way out. Whose death does Nathan see? His own, or someone else’s?
When all seems to be resolved, a crow reminds Cait that Nathan may still be in trouble. Is it just a bird? Or something far more ominous?

Genre: Literary Fiction
Audience: Young Adult

Available in: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 152

Purchase a copy from Amazon.ca
Visit Rosemary Rigsby’s author website

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This is my third project with Author Rosemary Rigsby, and this time, it was an unpublished work. She first came to be for an Editorial Assessment. After that, Proofreading. We discussed blurbs and cover designs, and I came up with a mock-up she liked, so I’m proud to say I was also responsible for the Cover Design. Lastly, I completed the eBook conversion.

The Process

The first task, as I said above, was the Editorial Assessment. This is part of Content Editing and is partway between paid Beta Reading and full Developmental Editing. The rundown is this: after reading the text, I wrote a comprehensive report about the plot, structure, characters, relationships, flow, pacing, and writing quality of the story.

After that, Rosemary worked with a different editor for the technical editing portion, then designed the interior of the book herself. She once again requested my services for the proofreading portion. I made comments about the design, pointing out inconsistencies in spacing, headers, and footers; I fixed missed punctuation and spelling mistakes, and I gave general advice and feedback for improvement in the design. She ordered Standard Proofreading, so once the first round of changes she made were done, I went over it once more. Finally, it was ready for a cover.

I enjoyed reading the story so much that I was inspired to try my hand at a cover, as Rosemary has sent me her own mock-up to ask my opinion. I sent something back to her, and she liked it so much that she commissioned me to make the cover for real. What I ended up with was the boy on the train trestle with a large crow swooping in above him like an ominous wraith. I kept the overall colour scheme quite muted and dark to match the tone of the story, and I helped Rosemary with the blurb for the back. We made sure to incorporate a dramatic line as our hook at the top, a line I pulled directly from the text, though slightly modified so it works out of context.

Last but not least, I converted the paperback in an eBook format, like I did with Rosemary’s other two books that I’ve worked on. Death by Crow was the first of Rosemary’s books that I helped with from start to finish, and I’m looking forward to working with her more in the future.

Related Works:

Lewa’s Birds by Rosemary Rigsby
A Legacy of Ghosts by Rosemary Rigsby
Death by Crow by Rosemary Rigsby

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