Dyson Porter's Covers
Sooooo… My Photoshop skills were a little lacking at the beginning of all this. I mean, they were good enough to push porn onto Amazon, but I have this thing about being really good at what I do–though I’m not anywhere near perfect, or even ‘good’ sometimes, I try like a motherfucker. So when I wanted to (re)put our books into the Patreon after The Crash (capitalized now and forever), I wanted to use the extra years of experience and the new technology to update the covers.
I know that a lot of you have issues with AI (and I’ll be happy to discuss that at some point), but I wanted to run with it. I didn’t make all of the covers Amazon-friendly–mostly because, if you haven’t noticed, my taste in fiction is not exactly Amazon-friendly. These books had to be–no incest, no non consensual sex (Anniversary Invaders was borderline and almost got banned), and a few other things. A few of them are going to get rewrites to ramp up those things since I actually have a place to sell them now (here, in case you were wondering).
At the moment, they are only available on Amazon, because when you make a book available to Kindle Unlimited readers, you aren’t allowed to sell it anywhere else. So anything I sell here will have to be really different. And I wouldn’t put AI bookcovers on Amazon right now anyway–I’ll wait until the furor dies down.
(And to all the authors who are complaining about the new changes in KU–yeah, shit changes. There’s not one established author out there who didn’t warn EVERYONE about the whole ‘eggs in one basket’ thing. I’ve been in the book business for yeeeaaaars–more than I’ll admit–roll with it, bitchin’s a waste of time.)
Abuse of Power
The first incarnation for this cover wasn’t ‘bad’ exactly. If I ran across it on a site, I’d want to read it. But the new one… I’d definitely check out.
Any anyone who says that AI is too easy and cheating–oy. Not true. This is four different images, and I’ve never had a cock be more of a pain in the ass than the one hanging off this guy. (And I don’t bottom often, so that’s saying something) Getting the color right almost drove me crazy.
This is obviously one of the non-Amazon covers. But I wanted to take the sequels in a non-Amazon allowed way anyway. I want the cop to get in trouble and have to be a guard at a ranch set up for sex offenders. Lots of rape–lots.
Anniversary Invaders
I never really cared for this first cover. This guy–hot as he his–is on so many other people’s covers that it fucking annoyed me.
The new cover’s actually a scene from the story. I need to work on that pillow some more.
This is one of the books we really had to tone down–it’s still pretty rapy, but just up to the line. Even as it is, when I tried to put it on Barnes and Noble, it got booted. I want to re-add the really good stuff and sell it here.
Stepdad's Poker Night
The first cover of this (first image) was so shitty that I dove in (hard) and redid it a few years ago. I worked like crazy on the second one and was proud as fuck of it. The cigar smoke alone was a masterpiece (imho). And I think I’m going to keep it (second image).
I worked up another one (third image), and I like it, but there’s an issue with one dude’s hand that I’m going to have to spend time fixing. And I do have a story in the works where a guy loses everything in Vegas and ends up contracted to a REALLY perverted crime boss for a year… I’ll probably save it for that.
Down on the Farm
This story itself still needs a little work. There’s a scene with the coach that I cut, because I had planned to use almost the exact same scenario in another story–but I think it needs to be added back in.
The first cover is an example of a cover that I think is absolute shit–until I actually look at it. I did a pretty good job. I was terrible with shadows back then, so it looks like his ass is hovering, but other than that, I don’t hate it.
But, the new cover… damn, I think I did a pretty good job of making dad hot.
Isle of the Dead
I loved this story, but it didn’t get as good a reception as I expected. So, now that there’s almost five years separating me from the writing, I’m going to revisit it and see what went wrong. Because it’s definitely worth salvaging.
It could be that the cover gave the wrong idea of what to expect? Eh, I’ll figure it out. I worked like a bitch on that first cover… and now I think it’s just goofy. So…
I worked like a bitch on a second, darker cover. There are five images in the new cover (again, ‘AI’s easy’–my ass) and it better represents the story–which I will go back and take a look at soon.
Little Red
Honestly, this was never meant to be a stand-alone story. This–along with The Emperor’s New Clothes–was written to be in a big book of porned-up fairy tales.
There were two other covers before this one (first image), and as bad as this one is, I didn’t even try to search my computer for the worse ones. I just could never wrap my head around how I wanted it to look… and just like in writing, if you don’t have some sort of goal in mind, it’s going to turn out to be a big pile of shit.
Since the wolf is a raping badass (toned down for Amazon) who rides a motorcycle, I just went with that (second image). This is the cover I did the least amount of work on. It gets the idea across, and I’m happy settling for that.
My Best Friend's Secret
The first cover was absolute shit (first image). It was in the earliest days of this and I really struggled with it.
The story starts with two best friends watching porn (straight porn, but gay erotica can’t have a woman on the cover, so there’s only a dude on the tv), things go from there and they end up dp’ing the friend’s step-brother. I cut a scene where the father comes downstairs and gets involved because of Amazon’s rules and I wasn’t sure how far I could push it. I think the story suffers because that scene was cut. I want to re-add it and sell the book here–and cut all the ‘step’ bullshit.
I really liked the second cover (second image), and I may end up keeping it and using the new one I made (third image) for another book in future.
Mardi Gras Exhibitionist
This is the only personal story I’ve written. I lived in Baton Rouge for a long time, so we were in New Orleans a lot–drinking and fucking, as one does. One year at Mardi Gras I met an amazing guy from Mobile. Just like in the story, we did meet at a bathhouse, he did suck me off in a cemetery, and I did fuck him on the balcony of the Rodeo overlooking Bourbon Street. He’d ridden in with some friends who had to work the next day, so they had a set time they had to leave… but that definitely goes down as a contender for Best Day Ever. So I wanted to write about it.
The first cover, eh. Too busy–the guy looks a little weird just plastered there–and the font looks a little juvenile.
Since I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing with this story, I created two new covers–one that could go on Amazon (image two) and one that couldn’t (image three). And again, I had a hell of a time with the guy’s cock, but I think for now… fuck it. It’s fine as it is.
Owned by Contractors
This story still has a ways to go–I think three more installments? But it’s definitely off to a good start. A young guy coming into his sexuality, three butch contractors looking for an easy weekend (and an easy tight hole)–sounds like fun to me.
I don’t hate the first cover (first image), it did take some time. And since there are three contractors working on the kid’s house, I was going to put a different one on the cover for each book, and then all three of them on the last cover. Since a very large dildo is pretty much what sets the story into motion, I do wish I could have used the second cover (Amazon would boot me). But I think I am going to use the new cover (third image), and keep the future covers cohesive with that one.
Owned by My Boss
The first cover of this sucked. The story does start in a hotel on a business trip, so it made sense at the time, but my skills were lacking. The second cover was better… but not exactly what I had in mind.
And since this series is ALL about humiliation–first by his straight boss, then he’s going to be loaned out to a gay business mogul for ‘training’–I think the third cover makes that more clear. The rest of the series will be in line with that cover.
The Emperor's New Clothes
Like I said earlier, this story wasn’t meant to be a stand-alone. It’s a good story, and I’m really happy with it. In a fairy tale collection, I think it would be great–but I’m not sure it’s strong enough to be by itself.
The first cover sucked–I think a first-grader could have done better. Even though I didn’t change much, the esthetics of the second cover were better… except for the weird outline around him. Why the fuck didn’t I see that before?
Since, once everything is said and done, this story won’t have an individual cover on Amazon, I didn’t mind putting a big ol’ cock on the new one.
Anyway, I think that’s all of Dyson’s stories. I’ll go into Timon’s stories and covers in another post. If you’ve read this far… wow… thanks! I know that was a lot.
