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Articles about craft.

How To Get Your Book Reviewed: Online Book Reviews

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This article, from Annette Fix (with research assistance from Carrie Hulce), originally appeared on the W.O.W. Women on Writing site in 2007.

As each month goes by, there is more and more evidence that proves the internet has taken the publishing industry and pulled the dusty rug from beneath it. The Web 2.0 Quake as shaken many of the industry giants right down to their ink and paper foundations. And, bit-by-bit, the hallowed halls of the untouchables are crumbling around them.

In case I’ve instilled unnecessary fear into your heart about the impending publishing apocalypse, I’ll reassure you by explaining why and how the power is actually in your hands now.

With most major magazines and newspapers cutting their book sections, book reviews are moving back into the hands of the people—the readers, not the critics.

The power-house reviewers: Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Booklist, and ForeWord will still sit atop their jeweled thrones—at least for a little while longer. But readers are done relying on the dictators for the “good book” nod.

One of the biggest influences in this trend has been Amazon.com, the behemoth of book reviews. This is the one-stop shop where an author can find reviewers for her book. It is, by far, the greatest resource to target reviewers, in any genre.

When you are ready to seek reviewers, keep in mind that your goal is to look for the badges for “Top 10 Reviewer, Top 50, Top 100, Top 500,” etc. These are the most prolific reviewers who are serious about their craft. You will find that their reviews are carefully and thoroughly written, much more comprehensive than what you will find posted by the casual reader. The Top Reviewers love books, are avid readers, and are committed to reviewing. Many of them also work with other sites to submit their review content, so being reviewed by these reviewers will give your book visibility on other sites as well.

There are two ways to seek out the best reviewers for your book. It is research, so yes, it will be time intensive. First, you can do a search for books that you know are similar to the book you have written. Cookbook? Historical romance? Dog-Training Guide?

Scroll through the reviews and look for the Top Reviewer badges. The names are clickable links to the reviewers’ Amazon pages. Once you go to their page, click on “Browse profile” and you will be able to see their lists of interests.

There is also another feature, once you are on their profile page, scroll down and see every review they have ever posted on Amazon. Read their reviews. See if you like their voice and their style. Are they overly generous with their stars or stingy? Do they give useful and fair commentary?

After you’ve analyzed their reviews, if you believe they would be a good fit, look for the contact information in the “Your Actions” box in the upper right corner of their profile page. There are several options, but look for the “Send this person email” link. When you click on it, it will open in your mail program or if you hover over the link, the email address will appear in the lower left corner of your browser frame.

Read the rest of the article, which includes numerous links to online reviewers, on the W.O.W. Women on Writing site.

Thinking Theme for Fun and Profit

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Today we continue Mark Barrett’s series on theme, which originally appeared on his Ditchwalk site and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. You can read the first entry in the series, ‘Axing Theme’, here.

Yesterday I posted an important excerpt from Thomas McCormack’s book, The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist. In the excerpt, Mr. McCormack dismantled the way theme is commonly taught in schools and colleges, and I urged readers to forward his essay to others so that we might collectively stop this abuse.

Today I’m going to explain why this is not simply a goofy idea but actually important. By which I of course mean that it involves making money.

If you remember my post referencing the 90-9-1 Principle, you’ll recall that 90% of the people interested in anything are passive about their interest. They want to watch movies, not make them. They want to watch cooking shows, not cook anything. They want to read books, not write them.

In the publishing business, this 90% is variously known as The Audience or Our Customers. Yes, writers read other writers’ books, and editors read books other than the one’s they’re editing. But when it comes to the people who buy and read books and generally provide the medium with a return on investment, that’s the 90% who are not interested in writing books or even in analyzing books. They just want to read.

So it stands to reason that booksellers and book writers would want as many such readers as they can get, and they would want those readers predisposed to enjoy the process of reading, as opposed to, say, hating it. Which is why the way theme is often taught to students is a serious question, and one that deserves addressing.  

In fact, it seems to me there is no better time to look at every aspect of the publishing industry than right now, while it’s collapsing under its own weight. (As an aside, when was the last time that an established entertainment medium went through a rebirth akin to what’s happening in publishing? The music business is certainly being transformed by the internet in similar ways — and faster — but revolutions in the music biz are common: wire recordings to vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD to MP3 to whatever. In publishing you have the printing press…27 million years of human history in which nothing changes [give or take]…then the internet.)

I understand that everyone is in a hurry to discover the next big bandwagon, but there are some serious structural problems with the book business. One of them is the fact that of all the entertainment mediums in existence, no audience gets hassled more than people who read books. And all that hassling — at all levels — drives people who might otherwise enjoy books to look for alternatives like fast food, heroin, overthrowing the government and watching television.

The whole thing starts in grade school. Not in individual homes (unless your parents are snobs), but in the educational system that kids encounter across the entire country. Some teachers, administrators and librarians believe that children should read specific material so they will be properly educated. Others believe that children should be encouraged to follow their passions, because promoting and preserving a life-long interest in learning and knowledge is critical to the long-term health and welfare of that student.

These battles rage up to and through high school, and there are valid points on both sides. You can’t have everyone reading comic books and nobody reading about global events and history: that leads to stupidity. But you also can’t force everyone to read Shakespeare and Chaucer and allow no one to read popular fiction because that leads to hating school and hating reading. (My own personal belief is that anyone who does anything to discourage a student from reading anything should be shot.)

Somewhere in late junior high or high school, a new wrinkle is added to this tug of war between being educated and being interested. At some point a teacher assigns a book report which is not only about what happens in a book, or about who wrote the book and when, or even about how that book fits into the history of books. At some point someone asks what a given book means.

And this is where the real trouble begins. Because moments earlier each student was thinking, “Well, I enjoyed this book,” or, “Gosh, this book is super stupid,” and all of those reactions were honest if perhaps also youthful and maybe even uninformed. But now something different is in play. First, there’s the possibility that there is a right answer, meaning the student can be wrong. Second, this new meaning may have nothing to do with emotion and existence, “It made me feel cold,” and everything with thinking and abstraction: “It made me wonder about global warming.” Third, the reader’s subjective experience and all that went with it is now being superseded by objective meaning as a point of educational focus.

As Thomas McCormack notes: the student is now being asked to perform an autopsy, rather than being asked to understand a living being:

The remaining counts in the indictment—that the professors’ “theme” hunt misleads the student about, indeed positively shields him from, a good book’s best reward—is something that would be corroborated by many adults looking back on their school days. Picture the student, told that he must derive an abstract generality that “accounts for” and “explains” all the major details of a story. He figuratively dons his white clinician’s smock and knuckles down to his grim task. He lays the tale out on a slab and begins his joyless dissections—not in search of its beauty of feature, grace of movement, charm of voice, vitality of nature, but in search of its ‘idea’; in search not of its feeling but of its ‘statement’; not of what it does, but of what it ‘says’.

When he has finished his examination, he then must write up his report, a tricky business requiring that all the x’s, y’s, and z’s be encompassed in the algebraic formula. In the end it no more conveys the meaning of what’s on the slab than the coroner’s report that starts, “A well-nourished Caucasian female of one hundred eighteen pounds, aged between twenty-five and thirty . . . ”

Again, if the 90-9-1 Principle is even remotely accurate, then 90% of the people who are being subjected to this kind of teaching have no interest in going on to become English majors or professors or authors. If they enjoy reading at all, they enjoy it as a reader. Yet during much of their ride on the educational conveyor belt these readers are being bombarded with the idea that there’s more to writing that what you get out of it — particularly if what you get out of it is enjoyment. Writing is IMPORTANT and MEANINGFUL and other big words that don’t get hung on movies and music and TV and video games until you’re in college and decide you want to do that to yourself.

Worse, writing has the fewest (meaning none) bells-and-whistles of any medium. It’s got nothing going for it other than content, while at the same time the one thing the educational system seems determined to do is make sure that content is not fun. Imagine how much less enjoyment kids would have playing video games if they had to anatomize the theme of a game in an MLA-certified five-page paper. This is the minefield the publishing audience must navigate until they grow into adults with free time and disposable income, at which point a certain percentage of them decide to blow that time and money on anything and everything other than books.

And yet….even as we admit that books are inherently boring as objects, we also know that you get things from books that you can’t get anywhere else. Catch-22 comes to mind — and particularly so given how impossible it would be to turn it into anything else even if you set your mind to it. The depth, complexity, breadth, richness and power of a good novel or biography destroys everything in its path.

Amazingly, the necessary skill to access a book is taught to most children before they are taught anything else, yet somehow swaths of kids ultimately decide that reading for entertainment isn’t for them. I wonder why that happens?

The movie business faces none of this. Television, unarguably the greatest brain-destroying invention since the cudgel, gets little notice in school, even as legions of marketing weasels plot daily how to inject corporate brand loyalties into the minds of three-year-olds. Music is subjected to none of this: in fact it’s a relief to students who have to study music precisely because no one makes them think it to death. Interactive entertainment doesn’t even exist on the curriculum radar: it’s all fun.

My point here is that our audience — the 90% who are simply interested in reading books — is inevitably smaller than it should be because of this intellectual gauntlet. If this were any old time I wouldn’t dare to dream of changing the status quo. But this isn’t any old time: it’s a pivotal time because the status quo is already changing. Today we have an opportunity to go beyond transformation for its own sake to making changes we should have made a long time ago. Because of the way the internet is impacting publishing, we have an opportunity to revisit the entire evolutionary process by which itty-bitty babies become book-reading kids become book-buying adults become book-buying parents.

If readers are always important then they’re even more important when the publishing industry is hurting. Every reader is one more customer that we can satisfy or disappoint. Richard Nash gets it. It’s all about the readers, and I don’t mean the damn devices.

Yes, what I’m talking about would be a revolution. But the internet is a revolution. Teachers are inevitably going to have to adapt to new technology and writing that uses that technology, so we should be trying to help them and their students avoid fumbling live grenades like theme if they haven’t been trained in demolitions. No child should go to school and learn that reading sucks. Chemistry can suck. Or biology. Or gym class for all I care. But not reading.

That’s why I’m asking you to think about theme and the damage that it’s doing to our readers. I mean, our customers.

Mark Barrett has been a professional freelance writer and storyteller for over twenty years, and also works in the interactive entertainment industry.

Axing Theme

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Mark Barrett recently published a fascinating series of posts on the subject of theme on his Ditchwalk site, and has graciously given his permission for the series to be reprinted in its entirety here on Publetariat. This first post in the series appeared on Ditchwalk on 10/18/09.

You were right not to trust theme. You knew it in your gut, but you couldn’t prove it.

Today I am going to give you the proof. If you are liberated by it, as I was when I first came across it two decades ago, I ask you to join me in putting a stop to this fraud. I did not have the internet available to me then but I do now. And I have the generous permission of the author to spread this dismantling of theme far and wide.

Thomas McCormack is a playwright. He is also the former CEO of St. Martin’s Press — a position he rose to in little more than a decade after entering the publishing industry as an editor. While at St. Martin’s Mr. McCormack wrote a book titled The Fiction Editor, drawing on his long experience in that capacity. Composed of an essay and supporting chapters, The Fiction Editor addressed storytelling not from the point of view of criticism or marketing, but solely as craft.

Included in the book (later revised in a second edition and reissued as The Fiction Editor, The Novel and the Novelist), was a chapter called Axing Theme. Which did exactly that:

Let’s start calmly: Each appearance of the word ‘theme’ in a literature appreciation textbook should be marked with that yellow crime-scene tape. Samples of the way ‘theme’ is taught should be sent to Atlanta so the Centers for Disease Control can get on it.

Is your heart leaping? Is your mind saying, “Yes!” If so, read on:

I seriously pursue this crusade here, albeit in condensed, almost outline, form, because I believe that what’s being done in classrooms stunts, and even kills, the ability and appetite of many of the best students. This deprives our globe of much talent that would otherwise find itself in writing, teaching, reading . . . and editing.

My relief at being liberated from theme by Mr. McCormack has never left me. As a writer and storyteller it is one of the most important events in the development of my craft. After searching in vain recently for the text of Axing Theme, I changed keywords and sought out Mr. McCormack himself. Finding him on his playwriting website I wrote to ask if I might post the contents of Axing Theme in order to further his crusade.

His response was immediate and unequivocal:

I have no objection to your posting the piece wherever you will — the primary motivation behind my writing that book was not to get rich but to promulgate some helpful things I’d learned in many years of association with storytelling.

The version Mr. McCormack sent me is from the Second Edition. It was retitled as ‘Theme’ and Its Dire Effects, but it is still the weighty axe I remember, honed to a razor’s edge and swung with might.

When you have finished reading it, if you agree it is the proof you always sought, I would like to enlist you. Please take a moment, today — right now — to forward a link to this post, a link to Mr. McCormack’s doc, or both, to anyone who is:

    * In college or high school
    * Teaching writing or criticism in any discipline at any level

I mean this assault to be viral. I want every student and teacher on planet Earth to get this document. Enough is enough.

Swing the axe.

 

Mark Barrett has been a professional freelance writer and storyteller for over twenty years, and also works in the interactive entertainment industry. 

Stop Apologising (for the things you’ve never done)

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This post, from Joanna Young, originally appeared on her Confident Writing site on 10/22/09.

One of the defining features of confident writing is that it’s not apologetic.

Yes, I know it’s good to signal that you’re human, that you’re not perfect, that you have doubts and concerns and things you’re insecure about just like the next person. That’s part of being engaging, warm, human. It’s part of making connections, and writing with rapport.

But we can take that too far, to a point where the writing starts to become apologetic. I seem to have been doing battle with this over the last few weeks, and I’ve been jotting down some thoughts on its various guises:

 

8 Tell-Tale Signs that You’re Being Over Apologetic:

1. Your writing is littered with verbs in the passive voice (and I don’t just mean a few, I mean littered)

2. There’s an explicit apology in the text (when there isn’t anything to apologise for)

3. You spend as many words justifying what you’re saying as saying it

4. There are too many words: too much wrapping, too many abstract words, too much clutter, all getting in the way of the bit that really matters (the point)

Read the rest of the post, which includes 4 more signs that your writing is apologetic and explains how being apologetic weakens your work, on Confident Writing.

Was Blind But Now I See– Text-to-Voice: An Underappreciated Editing Tool

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This post, from H.L. Dyer, originally appeared on the QueryTracker.net blog on 10/21/09.

So, we’ve already discussed the value of reading your work aloud during the editing process. This works amazingly well, especially for a specific scene or passage at a time. But, if you’re planning a full head-to-toenails edit, you’re gonna need an awful lot of tea and honey to read a full manuscript out loud.

Now, maybe some of you have spouses and/or BFF’s lining up for the chance to read your novel to you, but for most of us editing is a pretty solitary endeavor. 

If only there was someone else… someone who could read forever without getting hoarse or grumpy when you make them repeat the same sentence thirty-eight times in a row…

Well, if you have a fairly recent computer, chances are you do have access to such a person. Okay, fine, you have access to a robotic equivalent of a person, but still an amazing resource.

I’m talking about Text-to-Voice software.

I had heard that text-to-voice software was included on most recent PC’s (They are intended to assist users with visual impairments), but I’d never bothered looking up how to use it until a few months ago.

I find reading aloud to be a great editing tool, but impractical for completing a full edit at my (relatively high speed) pace. I have also noticed that when I read aloud from my manuscript, I sometimes still miss problems like missing or repeated words because I know what the text is supposed to say and my brain corrects the errors without my noticing.
 

Read the rest of the post on the QueryTracker.net blog.

5 Editor’s Secrets to Help You Write Like a Pro

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This post, from Sonia Simone, originally appeared on her Remarkable Communication site on 9/10/07.

I do a lot of copyediting, both of books and advertising collateral. I’ll let you in on a secret that still surprises me, although I’ve seen it hundreds of times now. If you looked at the raw work of most professional writers, you’d be pretty underwhelmed.

Professional writers get work because they hit their deadlines, they stay on message, and they don’t throw too many tantrums. Some pros have a great writing voice or a superb style, but as often as not, that gets in the way. When you know that the best word is “prescient,” it’s hard to swallow when an account manager tells you the client won’t know what it means.

Professional writers rely on editors to fix their clunks. Like good gardeners, sensitive editors don’t hack away—we prune and gently shape. When we’ve done a great job, the page looks just like it did before, only better. It’s the page the writer intended to write.

Editing, like writing, takes time to learn. But here are five fixes I make with nearly every project. Learn to make them yourself and you’ll take your writing to a more professional, marketable, and persuasive level.

1. Sentences can only do one thing at a time.

Have you ever heard a four-year-old run out of breath before she can finish her thought? I edit a lot of sentences that work the same way. You need a noun, you need a verb, you might need an object. Give some serious thought to stopping right there.

Sentences are building blocks, not bungee cords; they’re not meant to be stretched to the limit. I’m not saying you necessarily want a Hemingway-esque series of clipped short sentences, but most writers benefit from dividing their longest sentences into shorter, more muscular ones.

2. Paragraphs can only do one thing at a time.

A paragraph supports a single idea. Construct complex arguments by combining simple ideas that follow logically. Every time you address a new idea, add a line break. Short paragraphs are the most readable; few should be more than three or four sentences long. This is more important if you’re writing for the Web.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes secrets #3-5, on Remarkable Communication.

Ransom Stephens on The God Patent and the Future of Publishing

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This post, from Henry Baum, originally appeared on Self-Publishing Review on 7/28/09.

Ransom Stephens has written one of the best assessments of the future of publishing that you’re likely to read (found via Pod People).  Called Booking the Future, it needs to be read – more than once.  Here we talk about the ideas put forth in the article and the success of his digitally-published novel, The God Patent, which basically proves the thesis of his essay: the future of publishing is going to look very different than it does today. 

It will have many elements of self-publishing writ large.  As he says, “Though the role of publishing has not changed – connect readers to writers – the revolution will not be led by an established publisher.” The writers who are shunned by some in the lit business are actually the innovators.  Publishing is about to go very digital.

Self-Publishing Review: Your book, The God Patent, has 7200 reads and growing. How did that happen? What’s it take to become a Scribd phenomenon? Did you promote the book a lot or did it just sort of happen?

Ransom Stephens: It kinda blows me away, I’m not sure how it happened.

The whole problem is signal to noise – having your signal emerge from the noise. When I got word that “The iTunes for books” was about to open, it seemed like an opportunity to get above the noise. I didn’t know when it would happen and I didn’t know who would do it. I got everything ready and waited. Then that first day came, May 18, and I jumped on.

I’ve promoted the book pretty much the same way I would a book in print. I’ve handed out 1000 bookmarks at bookstores and literary events and set them in obvious spots where people use computers. I didn’t catch the irony of handing out bookmarks for an ebook until I was introduced at a reading and the MC said that my bookmarks must require understanding of quantum physics to make them work with the scribd e-ink.

I think the bookmarks were a waste of money. The trick with an e-book is to get links in front of people. I used email. By the end of the month, I’ll have sent email to everyone who I’ve ever sent email to or received email from (sans spammers), about 2000 people. A lot of my friends have forwarded my emails to their friends and, I think this is really the key: there are a few people who flat out LOVE my book and they are the best salespeople. They quote it on Facebook, put links all over and stuff. That’s gratifying. And it was weird when my neighbor asked me detailed questions about The God Patent. It’s set in the town where I live, and she had a lot of questions about what was modeled after what and that sort of thing.

As a public speaker, I’ve been able to “capitalize on the bad economy” by giving speeches to mainstream audiences, sometimes even for free (since there is so little work out there right now), based on topics and themes in The God Patent. For example, the woman physicist in the book, Emmy Nutter, is based on the Emmy Noether, the Einstein contemporary who I think made the greatest contribution to mathematical physics of anyone. Ever. I have a speech titled “The Fabric of Reality” that focuses on her work that I’ve given to Rotary Clubs, some new-age groups, a science café, and have pumped up The God Patent at each one.

Ultimately though, I don’t see how anything I’ve done can account for the success The God Patent has experienced at Scribd.

SPR: Do you think posting work online changes how writers approach the work. Did you write your book thinking about how the book would work on screen with the glare of a monitor, and not on paper? If not, would you approach your next book differently keeping the Scribd audience in mind?

 

Read the rest of the post on Self-Publishing Review.

Book Trends: Hello, World!

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Today, Publetariat introduces a new, recurring feature: Bob Spear’s Book Trends, which originated on his Book Trends blog.

Why a blog on book industry trends? Who cares? If you are a writer, a reader, a publisher, or a book seller, you better care.

The technology, marketing, and public taste changes are having an enormous impact on what we read and publish, and how we do so. I have been a part of this industry as a bookseller (1979), writer (1974), self publisher (1989), reviewer (2002), and book packager (2002). Along the way I have watched the changes and considered their impact. As a retired professional military intelligence analyst (25 years) and futurist, I have decided to apply the analytical experiences to what I know and how I know it.

I am very open to questions and comments. It is my hope this blog can serve as a forum for book industry discussions. I receive a number of daily email newsletters from the industry. We are seeing customer activities and tastes change in the Book Barn, an independent bookstore [I run] where we sell both new and used books. I will pull all these trend sources together as a basis for not only what is happening but what it means for the future. You readers will certainly have your own observations to contribute and the nature of your questions will also provide meaningful data from which we all can benefit. I look forward to your participation.

In the near future, I intend to address and explain a number of topical themes. Some of them are topics du jour and some are important in the scheme of things but hover below the horizon. My purpose in addressing these is to benefit readers, writers, indie booksellers (non-chain stores instead of Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Amazon), and indie publishers (small to medium presses which are not owned and operated by huge conglomerates) to include self-publishers. The book playing field is certainly not level, but it helps to know where the pot holes are and what they mean. Some of my blogs will delve into history because mankind tends to repeat mistakes without learning what has gone on before. Here is a partial list of proposed themes. I welcome others of interest to you:

  • Death of the mid list and what resulted, good and bad
     
  • How agents came to be an overarching force
     
  • Self-publishing vs. vanity publishing vs. traditional publishing
     
  • Readership trends (this actually encompasses many sub topics)
     
  • The ever expanding technology
     
  • 275,000+ books published last year. How do you get noticed among all those?
     
  • Using the web
     
  • Author PR and marketing
     
  • Why booksellers must become destination marketing oriented
     
  • The dumbing down of America (and maybe the rest of the world?)
     
  • The censorship argument (grist for Scopes Trials?)
     
  • And whatever else you suggest
     

I look forward to lively discussions and learning experiences for all of us.

 

Excerpt from Open A Window – Alzheimer's Caregiver Handbook

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This is my description of what happens to a person’s brain when they have Alzheimer’s disease.

 

 

When we are born, our brain is full of well lit, airy, vacant rooms with an open window in each one. Knowledge and experiences flow through the open windows to fill the rooms as we grow, and flow back out as we mentally call on them to create the type of human being we become. Imagine if by the time you are in your sixties, you was to find yourself searching for a thought in the memory room. You find that the room had become dark, the drapes are drawn. You strain to see the familiar object you are searching for in your mind, trying to remember what it looked like the last time you saw it, but you can’t find that object in the dark.

That’s what happens to a person who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. One such person was a large framed, boisterous farmer who spoke with a loud voiced, salty vocabulary. First, the memory room in his brain became dark, then other rooms darkened as they were covered with a black shroud called plaque that continued slowly to spread from room to room.

As it entered the open windows, the plaque closed them, and the drapes drew shut to put out the light. As this happened to the farmer, he became a shell of the man his family and friends once knew and was admitted to a care center. In time, he forgot how to feed himself, had trouble swallowing, couldn’t do his activities of daily living skills, and could barely stand long enough to transfer from the bed to the wheelchair. The only vocabulary he had left was loud, frustrated profanity unless he chose to parrot short sentences he heard from the aides such as "It’s time to eat.", or "It’s bedtime.".

There came a time when the farmer quit repeating what he heard. His face became expressionless, and his eyes stared vacantly. I was sure that most of the windows in his brain had shut, became locked, and would never reopen again. I was wrong!

Since the farmer was in his room most of the day, I had taken to sitting him in the living room with the other residents after the evening meal. I hoped people talking, and Vanna White flashing across the television screen would stimulate his mind. As time went by, I gave up hope that what I was doing would trigger anything in the farmer that I would see outwardly, but I consoled myself with the idea that I didn’t know what was happening inside those dark rooms in his brain. You know how the window frames in an old house doesn’t fit quite tight, and a small amount of air seeps between the sills and the frames? I thought maybe that might be how the windows in the farmer’s mind were working so I felt I shouldn’t give up trying to stimulate him even if I couldn’t see I was helping him.

One evening at bedtime, I pushed the farmer’s wheelchair across the living room. As we neared a visitor, sitting by his wife, the visitor reached out his hand and patted the farmer’s knee.

"Hello," the visitor greeted.

"Hello," the farmer returned in his booming voice, and he called the man by name. The blank expression on the farmer’s face changed to one of joy at seeing an old friend.

"He knows you!" I exclaimed in surprise as I realized the farmer recognized the visitor, and he actually spoke without repeating another person’s sentence. The farmer’s eyes remained focused on the visitor.

"He should," the visitor replied. "We’ve been friends for years, and we were both on the board of a business in town for a long time, weren’t we?"

"Yes," the farmer answered with gusto.

I could see a calm look of contentment on his face as the memory room’s window crept open to let out the memories I had been so sure were trapped forever in darkness.

"We went to a lot of those board meetings together," the visitor continued. He patted the farmer’s knee again as he said, "This is the man who made a lot of the important decision at the meetings, didn’t you?"

Tears welled up in the farmer’s eyes as he struggled to grasp memories long forgotten. I hated to see him so sad, and I didn’t want this to be an uncomfortable situation for him or the visitor so I tried to add a little humor to the conversation.

"Oh, sure! Were those important decisions what time to go get the beer after the meetings were over?"

Both men laughed at my teasing as the farmer slowly boomed out, "Yes!"

Then I explained to the visitor that it was the farmer’s bedtime so he had to leave. By the time I had wheeled the farmer the short distance down the hall into his room and closed the door, hiss face was expressionless again. His eyes stared vacantly, focused on the drapes behind his bed which were closed across the window just like the pair that darkened the window that had shut again in his mind.

For all my trying, I hadn’t been the one to open a window for the farmer, but that’s all right because I was there to see it happen, and that was enough incentive to make me keep trying.

　

Published in Open A Window – Alzheimer’s Caregiver Handbook by Fay Risner CNA    ISBN 1438244991

And in Jolene Brackey’s book Creating Moments Of Joy –third edition 

ISBN 1557533660

 

 

 

 

Excerpt from Open A Window – Alzheimer’s Caregiver Handbook

 

Windows In The Brain

 

Crafting Your Back Cover — The Selling Continues….

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…or at least it should continue.  The work you’ve put into designing an effective, attention-grabbing cover now continues with the spine and back.  I’ve made a point of mentioning in the first installment of this discussion, that I believe the spine can be as important as the front cover in generating interest.  It might be where your sales presentation begins.

If your book is going to be marketed to book sellers, and they will display it in the stacks, then the spine may be your only chance to persuade a reader to pull your book out and give it a look.  It’s a possibility that you should plan for, whether bookseller sales are a definite part of your strategy right now or not.

Of course, if your book will be hard-bound in cabretta leather with gold-leaf titling, then this discussion won’t be appropriate, but for anyone marketing a paper-bound book, this is for you.  

Tradition seems to work…

Tradition dictates that on a book spine, the authors name appears at the top, and is smaller in size than the book title.  Unless you have a very compelling reason why you want to alter this, having to do with your book’s content, resist the temptation to get too creative here.  The traditional way is what readers expect to see, and it might confuse them, and lose their interest, if it is not set up that way.  Be sure to leave space for your publisher’s imprint, if needed. 

I like the way a wrap around cover/spine/back leads the reader to naturally turn the book over and over in their hands.  If your background graphic image can be set up that way, it subtly implies a "continuing" story — on the cover.  Hard vertical edges, such as in abruput color changes, from font, to spine, to back cover, stop the eye and might distract the reader’s attention from abosrbing your carefully crafted pitch.

Even if only a small section of the front image will wrap around, I believe it is an effective tool to carry the reader’s interest to the back cover, where you do the main selling.

The point of the excercise…

The reason for a back cover design, is to persuade the reader to open up your book.  It will carry some very important information.  Foremost, is your hard-hitting, highly condensed lead-in copy.  A paragraph. Two at the most. Only narrative that leads to action. Events.

Use a "lead in" as the heading. It should be considered your agent pitch on steroids — lean and mean.  You shouldn’t summarize here, you should give the reader a savory taste. Whet their appetite for the salient meal inside: tasty, well-defined and believable characters, an intriguing plot, and questions. 

I’ve found that it makes good sense to end your back-cover pitch with a question or two.  The idea is that the answers will be found inside — in the reading.  Never ask a prospective buyer a question they can answer "no" to.  Leave them with "leading" questions — the kind that pose a situation, impart emotions or create empathy.  In the case of a non-fiction work, it’s always a good idea to reinforce the benefits by leaving them with specifics — here, concentrate upon the strengths of your work, as opposed to any other source where the answers might be found by the prospect.

Assembling the pieces…

Insert this element using the grid we discussed before — the rule of fives or fifths.  Be sure to include live space for barcoding/publisher’s imprint in the grid design.  A cover wrap around here can carry over to bleed, or end 1/3 of the way over.  You can end it with a hard color edge — creating a dark field for your copy — or a gentle fade, if a white or light-valued copy area is what you have in mind. 

If the background ilustrative or photographic cover image wraps, look for apparent lines within the image that will provide a good visual tie-in the the pitch heading.  Use the same visual eye-movement ideas we discussed in the first two installments. Lead the reader’s eye to your pitch. Put your pitch copy in the proper position for maximum retention and readability using at least 12 point type here in a font that carries into the book’s content.  You’ve got one more element to place.

Smile….Really?

Another element that will be found on the back cover is the author photo.  It isn’t an absolute, unless who you are is central to the work inside.  On the other hand, a good portrait can work well in helping the prospective reader find "comon ground" with the author.  This personalizes the message, and gives the writing inside a real voice. 

Don’t just use any old shot of yourself you happen to have handy.  You’ll want to consider contrast and lighting, so the best of the image will be communicated even in a smaller size. It should be cropped tight for maximum "interaction" with the viewer, and your eyes shuld seem to make eye contact. 

Your expression, in the image should connected with the feeling of the "voice" inside, and the subject matter.  For example, I wouldn’t use an author photo with a big, toothy grin on the back of a work dealing with the Irish Famine.  I wouldn’t want to use an image that looked like you were burying your mother either.  I tend to like a generous, open, yet pensive expression in author photos.  Unless you’re pitching (you’re still pitching here…) something hilarious — when a big grin might actually work well. 

Try out a few different images, on dummies of the back cover, printed on your trusty photo printer, until you select one that covers all the bases for you and those whose opinions you trust.  Find out why they like the shot, not just that they "like" it.  You’ll get more insight as to what an author photo can do.  Also don’t be afraid to use a gray-scale image for your photo — it seems to carry a bit more "gravitas" for most viewers, but color might really be important, say if you’re a colorful person (red hair, green eyes, for example) or need to make a more personal connection with the reader.

Double-check the size of the publisher’s live area — for your publisher’s barcode, imprint, etc.  They will usually tell you what size they want you to leave, or it will be in their cover template.

Testing…testing…1,2,3…

One final step, that I recommend, is to find an old paperback, the approximate size of your book and glue (rubber cement works really well here) an actual size full-color dummy of your cover to it, making up a full dummy of your book. 

Then, dummy or full color proof from your publisher in hand, pay a visit to your local book seller. Even if bookstore sales are not going to be a major part of your marketing, the knowledge gained from hands-on experience running a bookstore can be invaluable to acheiving the best cover you can for your book. 

Make an appointment firsthand, explaining that you want to get some impressions from the seller and staff, and that you want to test your cover on tables and in stacks to see if the cover design works the way you want it to. 

Then go in, and do it. Take notes.  Be sure that every impression you receive is the one you’re after. If one differs, be sure to take it seriously. Consider a re-design if the departure is distracting enough to be a problem.  You’re looking for raves here — and while they may be low key (no gleeful clapping, etc.) they are what you need to hear. If you don’t — ask why not, and try to get your respondents to be specific.  Take their comments seriously — and consider them all before signing off on that final proof.  It’s always easier to fix something before putting it out there in front of the market. 

Finally — keep listening. Keep asking. If there is a distraction of problem with your cover, you can still revise it — if you’re POD publishing, that is — and acheive better sales as a result of your effort.  Don’t lose interest.  Your book may have new lives ahead you haven’t considered.  Maybe an entirely new market niche will open up that will require a specialized edition — who knows?  Keep your options open, and be ready to implement them on a moment’s notice. 

Good luck — remember that the writing is supposed to be the fun part. The rest is hard work.

Note: If you’d like specific feedback, in a curmudgeonly fashion of course, on your book’s cover design, then by all means, submit jpg image(s) for my consideration in your comments.  I’ll get back to you within a week, if I can.

#FridayFlash: Justice For Cody

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This is something new for me. Since I’ve been so busy with the whole indie author dog and pony show, I haven’t had time to work on my latest novel in over a year. But this new thing, flash fiction, has come to my rescue and I’m finding I really like it. Flash fiction is short stories of just a few pages (or less!), and many authors have begun posting them on Fridays. Hence, #FridayFlash.

The brevity of the format makes it feel much more doable than trying to make progess on a novel, and I’m finding the limited space forces tight writing and necessitates focus in a piece. I think it builds and hones skills. As often as time allows I’ll be posting my #FridayFlash here on Publetariat, since people come to my Indie Author Blog to read stuff about self-publishing and indie authorship, not my fiction. So here’s ‘Justice For Cody’. – A

 

She drifted back into awareness as the voice intoned, “…but we’re afraid your son’s—” the doctor glanced at the chart, “Cody’s vision impairment is permanent.”

“Vision im…you mean the blindness?” she whispered.

“Yes, Mrs. Cortez.”

She didn’t react, just sat there, pale and blank, in shock. After a full minute of uncomfortable silence, Dr. Whaley cleared his throat and motioned for a nurse to take Linda by the elbow. “Mrs. Cortez, Carrie will take you to a private lounge where you can lie down and rest for a while. Is there anyone you’d like us to call?”

“My husband,” she mumbled.

Two long, blurry days later, Linda and her husband sat at the breakfast table in their small apartment. Linda slapped the Formica surface hard with an open palm and raged, “No, Rafael! Paying the medical expenses is the least of this, our son is blind! He will be blind forever!” She stood up and paced the room as she became desperately businesslike. “He’ll have to quit Little League, and you know how he loves it. Then there’s karate, I don’t see how he can keep going to karate. The fun run in May, he’ll have to withdraw.”

Rafael grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to stop her frantic movements and thinking. “Linda, please. Forget about all of that for now, none of it matters. What Cody needs most right now is both of us, and his best friend.”

Linda’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. “A proper best friend wouldn’t have made him do anything so dangerous. I never liked that Steven, I never trusted him!”

Rafael pulled her firm to his chest. “Shhh! You know that’s not true. We both love Steven as much as Cody does; he’s a good boy. It was an accident.”

“No!” she shrieked, and Rafael hugged her tighter. She buried her tears in his chest. “Don’t you care? Don’t you want…justice for Cody?” she whimpered.

“Baby, there is no justice for Cody. This is nobody’s fault.”

Linda yanked herself back from him and fixed him with a hateful stare. “You can give up on our son, but I never will.” She grabbed her purse and stalked out, leaving Rafael to gaze out the window. And feel guilty for being able to do it.

It took weeks to find the right attorney, but at last Linda was satisfied the Lynch boy’s family would pay and pay dearly for what their son had done to hers. She knew Steven’s mother would be bringing him to visit Cody at 4pm today, as she did every day right after school at Steven’s insistence. All of this Linda had learned from Rafael, having successfully avoided running into those awful Lynches herself during visiting hours.

Linda clutched the papers in her hand as her heels clicked curtly on the tiled hospital floor; she was looking forward to seeing the reaction on Debbie Lynch’s face. Rafael’s ultimatum sprang to mind one last time like a warning bell, but she shoved it aside. If Rafael didn’t want to do right by his only son, then she didn’t want to stay married to him, either.

She took a deep breath and threw the door open. “Debra,” she said, flatly.

Steven rushed up to her, shoving brochures and papers up toward her face. “Mrs. Cortez? I been learning about all the things to help Cody—well, my Mom helped me look on the internet…” At this, Linda shot a glance at Debbie, who averted her reddened eyes and lifted a Kleenex to her nose.

“—an’ I found out there’s this special school for the blind right here in Austin, an’ I got this application for a seeing eye dog an’ my mom and dad said it’s even okay if I wanna raise a puppy to be Cody’s seeing eye dog, an’ I can help Cody learn his way around the neighborhood till then, an’ I’ll walk him anywhere he wants to go, an’…an’ I’ll….” he burst into tears and threw his arms around her hips.

“Mom?” Cody’s small voice called from the bed, his bandaged head swimming to try and locate the sound. “Is Steve okay?”
Linda’s hand curled into a fist, crumpling the papers. She weighed them for a moment before tossing them in the wastebasket. She put a hand down to stroke Steven’s head. “Yes, honey,” she said. “Steven’s just fine.”

How Book Authors Can Use Facebook As Part of Their Social Media Strategy

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This post, from SACHI Studio, originally appeared on the SACHI Studio site on 4/23/08.

This is the next in a series of guides on how book authors can achieve social media success. The first was a 5-page article on why book authors should use WordPress as part of their web presence.

The following is a 4 page primer on how book authors can use Facebook as a viable social media tool to give more exposure to their book and work.

If you wish to read a print version of this, you can download the 4 page pdf guide here. Otherwise, you can read the entire guide in its entirety below.

Sachi Studio is available for Facebook social media consulting for selected book authors as well.

Update 8/13/09: Our new free eGuide, “Facebook Fan Pages for Book Authors” is out. Click on the badge to learn more.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: we’ve disabled this link since it leads to a page where you’re asked to complete an online form; as Publetariat has no control over the site or form, we prefer that if you’d like to follow the link, you do so on the source web page.]

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A Primer to Social Media Marketing on Facebook for Book Authors 

Like many other businesses, book authors are flocking to various social media communities such as Facebook and Myspace. They want to leverage these sites as best as possible to give more exposure to their books. But too many are lost and lack both direction and strategy as to how to best use these communities.

The following is a primer for authors to use Facebook as a viable social media marketing tool.

Before we get into specific methods and activities to use on Facebook, there are five principles that any book author should adhere to in the social media space. It is important you are aware of these fundamentals as they make up the foundation of success in social media.

  1. It’s not about you. It’s about the community. Too many overzealous marketers forget this principle when it comes to social media. They focus too much on promoting themselves at the risk of ignoring the needs of their users. Your followers have a voice that want to be heard. Create initiatives that allow your users to voice their thoughts and opinions on your work. Try to focus on their needs while simultaneously meeting yours.
     
  2. Be sociable. It’s not called social media for nothing, folks. This means that you shouldn’t just upload photos of your latest book tours or just promote the book on your Facebook profile. Be personal and allow those connected to you to see some personal stuff of you. In the world of social media, it helps to be three-dimensional.
     
  3. Think long term and be consistent. Don’t quit after a few days of work. Social media is a relatively new field. You have to continually test and benchmark various initiatives before you start to see results.
     
  4. Focus on user generated content. Much of the successful social media strategies today focus on allowing the end user to generate the content for us. There are too many authors who ignore or don’t realize how much power their users have in contributing to their work. Look for ways where you can get the community to do the work for you.
     
  5. Focus on multiple generations of users. Many of the failed social media strategies today are a result of marketers focusing on their first generation users. Successful strategies rely heavily on getting the first generation of users to continue to spread the message to their network and getting that network to spread it to their network. Hence, don’t just market to friends but to friends of friends of friends. As they say in networking, it’s not who you know, but it’s who they know.
     

Now that we’ve listed the basis tenets of successful social media strategies, let’s get into specific activities that authors can use on the Facebook platform.

Read the rest of the post, which includes 8 specific Facebook strategies for authors and book promotion, on the SACHI Studio site.

Rising Above The Grass

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This post, from Bob Spear, originally appeared on his Book Trends Blog on 10/6/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Last year over 275,000 new books were published. Actually, there were more than that because not all were reported to Bowker, the keepers of the assignment and registration of ISBNs and publisher of Books In Print. Then add to that very large number the books written and proffered to publishers which didn’t make it. Now, look at the various Best Seller lists and count the number of books listed (a few hundred at best). Now you have an idea of the odds involved in marketing books, especially your own. How can you rise above the crowd or grass level so that you’re seen?

There are many genres and sub-genres; however, for our purposes, let’s address nonfiction, fiction, and leave children’s books for another blog.

Nonfiction: This is the easiest genre to market. There are major distributors who refuse to carry anything but nonfiction because of this. It’s easier to: write well, define, identify market segments, and has multiple delivery channels. In addition to traditional bookstore channels, other channels can include: selling off the back table at a speech or training, partnering with a corporate entity to publish their own edition, selling direct by snail mail or by internet. Nonfiction lends itself very well to “Long Tail” marketing, which is identifying small but myriad niches that are outside the radar of the major publishers but can be lucrative to small, specialized presses. Working the media is far easier because specific topics and themes break out nicely for talk show themes.

To be seen above the grass in the nonfiction pasture, one needs to understand all these market channels and more. Use any and all the channels in conjunction with publicity, article marketing, blogging, social networking and general word of mouth. Obviously, any one of these areas is deserving of a separate blog.

Fiction: This is much more difficult to write well and to market. Although fan groupings can be broken out and defined, it’s not so easy to do so as it is in nonfiction. Fiction can be far more emotional (except for certain nonfiction “causes”). Reader tastes vary widely and reader needs are more difficult to nail down than they are in nonfiction.
It’s more difficult to align a book’s story with a talk show theme, for instance, yet that is what an author or publicist must do to fit into a media format. Some fiction genres, such as Sci Fi or fantasy are especially difficult to shape into an interview environment.

For fiction to be seen above the grass, social networking and word of mouth are king. Another avenue is getting your book turned into a movie, which usually won’t happen in nonfiction how-to books. The marketer’s focus is at the mercy of people who are opinion drivers. That’s where their focus should go: toward opinion makers such as Oprah and the like.

Endurance: Nonfiction tends to stick around longer due to its education potential. It lends itself to updating and new edition publishing. It can be milked for a long time. Fiction, unless it becomes a classic, is here today and gone tomorrow. Even really popular fiction authors are only as popular as their latest book (how have you entertained me lately?). These are considerations when deciding what to write. Some of my nonfiction has been around since the late 1980’s and still sells steadily. I expect my fiction, which will be coming out this winter, will have its day in the sun, and then I’ll have to write more, if I want to stay above the grass. As an author, you need to consider all these aspects and elect how you want to spend your writing minutes.

Crafting a Cover, Part II…Making Relationships Work….

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Last week we covered the use of photography in your book cover to create a simple, attention-grabbing cover image.  This week we’ll look into why some colors seem to work better than others on bookstore shelves.  We’ll also investigate good layout and design practices when it comes to typography and non-photographic covers.  It’s all about relationships.

Natural Design…(Not necessarily on the test)

There was an important mid 20th Century school of design, the brainchild of Swiss-French architect and designer LeCorbusier, which at its root broke all design proportions down into fifths, corresponding to the five element of the human form: arms, legs and head. Because that is how we’re laid out, he intuited, we would be most comfortable living and viewing designs which incorporate these proportions.

I don’t know if he was right or not, but to me, layouts along these line intersections seem to “work” better than others.  If it works for me, and it may work for you as well. Of course, the idea is NOT to fill all these intersections up with content!  The idea is to set up natural alignments of only the necessary elements to your cover design. Create relationships between elements. Some of the individual elements may also be parts of your photo image.  Look inside the photo.  Considering also the typical eye movements of the reader. Combining these into an effective cover is our goal.  A cover with these kept in mind will be more effective, because it will tie-in to the reader’s mind and emotions naturally – not in a awkward, contrived way which sets up it’s own conflicts.

Design Color Points from Nature…

When designing a book cover, don’t make the mistake of minimizing the importance of color.  Color adds important elements to your cover and reactions in the reader all by itself.  The intelligent use of color will help elicit the intended response in your cover’s reader. Most of these reactions are natural and predictable, as their basis is nature itself.

Yellow animals, for the most part are dangerous to humans, including Yellowjacket wasps and poison dart frogs.  The use of striped yellow and black on barriers for protection is not just by chance.  The combination means DANGER, subconsciously and it seems to be hardwired into our genetics.  Color is an integral part of how our emotions are connected to our conscious thought.  There are color-relationships that have been proven in behavioral studies that you can use effectively in your choices. 

Red for example, is connected with excitement and alarm. Blue with serenity and sleep. Green is naturally connected with healing and growth.  One of my favorite examples is how often the walls in maximum security psychiatric prisons are often painted a soft shade of pink!  Pink seems to calm us and is one of the most non-confrontational colors.

When approaching a color choice for your cover, first try to summarize the mood of your work. how do you want the reader to feel when reading it?  Is there a specific emotion that your book revolves around – an emotional “glue”?  Once you’ve determined what that is, you can choose from images, and design elements that will help communicate this instantly to the reader, side-stepping the need to read the title or other cover copy at all.  The point is – don’t leave anything up to chance here.  Control every step along the way.

Adding Conflict with Contrast…

One of the easiest ways to add a sense of conflict to a cover design is by creating areas of extreme contrast within the layout.  These might include large size differences of elements, extreme color contrasts or the use of display typography in contrast to other elements or to itself.

Look through covers and book jackets in your own bookshelves and set aside the six or so that are instantly exciting and attention grabbing.  Now, with your notepad, quickly jot down the first three things that come to your mind when viewing these, one-by-one.  The title or author’s name doesn’t count right now. Although the importance of recognition and/or “branding” can’t be dismissed, what we’re trying to do here is train your eye to see the emotional content of an overall cover design. 

Set your notes aside, then come back to them later, and see if you’ve written down the same “feelings” for more than a couple of your chosen covers.  If that is the case, then, for you, those covers have effectively done what the designer intended.. You bought the books, didn’t you?

The Letter-perfect Cover design…

Having trained your eye to begin to separate out the Elements of contrast and color we finally move into the realm of Title and Author’s Name.  Typography is a tricky subject.  It involves both our emotional responses and our thinking.  Letterforms vary not just in size and shape. They are each small graphic elements that contain intentional stresses and suggest certain emotional responses completely apart from their utility as carriers of language. 

Find a site online which sells typography – fontmarketplace is one I use – and look through some examples of display fonts.  Most sites will have typography pages that show entire fonts (all the letters, numbers and characters) Some of these will be extremely ornate – overpowering the eye unless used in very short, concise headlines.  If a type face design is very complicated, graphically, it has the tendency to confuse the eye, or lead it in too many directions – if confusion is your goal, this might work well for your cover – assuming a very simple title, of course. 

There will be many others which are much simpler. They may contain very subtle differences in the “thicks” and thins”, called stresses by type designers, that lend emotion and recognition while still remaining legible even in smaller sizes.  These are the fonts you will probably find most useful.  Some of these, like the sans-serif (no little feet on the ends of ascenders or descenders or along the baseline) font Machine, can be very powerful in establishing high-contrast and conflict, based upon their ponderous letterforms.  Others, such as Eras, or the font I use in my cover for The Red Gate, Papyrus, are very subtle, open type designs that convey a very different emotional content.  Some fonts are almost serene – but you would not want to use these in titling an urban-disaster-themed novel, or an auto-mechanics do-it-yourself book, unless you were seeking to insert another emotional element: humor. Humor can also be an effective element.

The most effective covers – some of Elmore Leonard’s covers come to mind – are the ones with a heightened sense of emotion, conflict, or danger.  This can be achieved most effectively with the least number of individual elements.  Sometimes a large title typographic element paired with a small, but significant photographic or illustrative element placed for contrast and conflict will draw the reader’s eye and hold it as they figure out the image’s connection with the rest of the cover.
 
As you can see the choice of typography to convey a desired emotion is very subjective, yet if you “get it” when looking at a font, the chances are that the type designer did their work well, so if it works for you, chances are it will work for your readers, too.

Letter & Line Spacing Issues…

You’ve got your title, pared down to it’s most memorable essence, of course.  You have chosen a color to predominate, based upon how you want your reader affected. Now you have to put the title on the background graphic.  Alignment and legibility are everything. It’s a relationship thing.

Party of the alignment issue is how each letterform relates to its neighbors, above, below and side-by-side.  The spacing between letters and between lines can be adjusted beyond the standard spacing written into the font.  Expanding letterspacing can be very effective if you are working with a condensed font – a narrow style.  Tweaking the inter-letter spacing by opening it up without creating visual “holes” can require finesse, but it can make a hard-to-read title much more legible. Just don’t open it up so much that you see primarily “letters” not the word. 

Another technique on heavy, compact fonts (wider, more ponderous) is to reduce the inter letter spacing, even overlapping letters slightly, especially where round letter forms meet.  It just requires that you finesse the space individually – which might require you to convert the type to curves in your layout/design program, so that individual letters can be moved along the baseline individually.  This letter-by-letter approach is called “kerning” a font, depending upon size, for best legibility and fewest visual holes in a headline, or in text.  Since your title is probably not too long, it won’t be that hard a job to get the best inter-letter spacing you can achieve. Be sure to get back, away from your monitor a few times the process, to check overall legibility and to make sure than you haven’t stacked up the letters to favor one side of the word!

Line spacing, is handled in a similar way, but here, the reverse is true in spacing considerations: the narrower the font, the more interline spacing is required visually, thus keeping the reading "flow" moving left to right, not visually jumping "up and down" with nowhere to go. If you use lower case letters in your title, you’ll have to consider ascenders and descenders in multiple-line titling. Make sure that the portions above and below the baselines don’t interfere with letters on the next line enough to affect their legibility.  You may also have a specific need to jog the letters off their baselines a bit.  This is one way to create a panicked, conflicted feeling in a title graphic. The appearance of kidnappers’ ransom notes, made up of individual letters cut from magazine headlines comes to mind.  If this kind of approach works with the “glue” holding your cover together, then use it, but remember: too much of a good thing is a bad thing – keep it legible.

Next, you’ll apply the same principles to the way your name or pen-name appear on the cover. Unless you have an established brand with your name being the most salient element on the cover, place your name below the title, both physically and in size.  If you need a subhead, or a descriptive tag line consider how adding more typography to the cover might dilute your design, damaging its impact.  Maybe re-thinking the title is a better idea.  If not, at lest make sure that in assigning its position to the cover page, it “belongs” visually” to the title, and you name remains its own focal point. 

Relationship Issues…

In the vector program I use, a nice refinement is the ability to group objects so their interrelationships are locked in place, allowing you to move the object elements as a unit, apart from the background. This allows you to experiment with different locations on the cover for the best results.  You can also use the “duplicate” function to duplicate your titling and authors name and test other type fonts while keeping the relationships constant.  Don’t be afraid to move some of these elements off to the sidelines while you work on each element individually.  When you save the graphic file, chances are you’ll also be saving the empty or not-so-empty space nearby as well, for future tweaking.  Just be sure, when you have finally decided on your design, to delete all of these in the final file.

Vertical alignment is the final key to good cover typography.  If you set up your typography, within your program to “align” left, you’re not finished yet.  In headline sizes, the letter alignments within the font may not be the best possible solution.  This is true also for right alignments as well, but personally, as right alignments lead the eye off the page, I don’t usually consider that for a book cover. You want to hold them for a while. But rules exist to be broken…

One situation where a right-aligned title might be effective would be if, say “speed” is your book’s “glue” – rushing their eyes through the cover might support the content for specific readers, but it wouldn’t work as well, say for a family saga. A centered alignment may be best here, if stability and substance is the idea you wish to communicate.  A centered type design does not usually convey any conflict, unless the type consists of several lines and they are sized differently, or jogged a bit right or left.

The key to vertical alignment whether it’s separate lines of typography or title and authors name, is to find the strengths of the letter forms and connected graphic elements and use them.  What I mean here, is to use them to create a visual unit. Make it easy, or "natural" for the reader’s eye to find the beginning of the next line. The relationships of all the typography must connect visually, to hold the eye better.  On my cover, for example, you’ll notice that the author’s name doesn’t align at the left with the left end of the top of the “T”, but with the T’s ascender.

Left alignment exampleThat’s because in this size, the ascender has the stronger movement, and aligning the stroing ascender at the beginning of my name with the ascender above moves the eye better. When in doubt, experiment.  You shouldn’t see the underlying rule of fives grid as anything more than a suggested framework upon which to work.  Your title typography and other elements may align best off the grid, for a specific effect, or for an intended conflict.  Don’t be afraid to throw out the rules, at least once for every cover, just to see what you can do – even if it ends up just an example of where you don’t want to go.

Next week: We’ll design your Back Cover and bring it all together….

Extra Information: Eye Movement Studies (This won’t be in the test, either!)…

Natural eye movements?  Again, there have been lots of studies of how a reader’s eyes move when scanning a printed page with photographic and graphics elements in combination with headlines and text. These studies have been the basis for many years of the science of ad placement and exploiting the findings improves the effectiveness of ad design as well.  It seems that with few exceptions, peoples’ eyes travel a repeatable and predictable path when viewing a composite page.  The average eye circles a page (your book cover) in two ways.  The primary circle will be clockwise, middle left, up and around, ending at the top right after a full revolution.  The secondary is counter clockwise, starting at the bottom right and circling around to end at the top left.  The primary is the one where the most important information is absorbed, and the secondary is the follow-up for remaining information.  It makes an ad more effective (your book cover) to take advantage of this phenomenon, or at least to manipulate it to your own uses in holding the viewers eye upon the page as long as you can.  Make ‘em comfortable before you sneak up behind them with the book pitch to end all pitches! Shatter their resistance gently and then take their money!

A Forest Full Of Trees

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This post, from Devon Monk, originally appeared on the Deadline Dames site on 7/20/09.

You’ve got an idea for a novel. You’ve worked on it in stops and starts ferverishly for a few years months, and the first draft is finally done! Congratulations, you’re a novelist! During your moments of deep depression coffee breaks on the veranda, you also researched agents and editors, and cruised web sites and blogs to scream in despair perfect your cover letter, synopsis, and outline skills.

But the thing that’s stopped you dead is getting the novel draft cleaned up for submission. Yes, I’m talking about the dreaded rewrite.

Some writers don’t like to rewrite. Some writers don’t like to stop rewriting. Neither affliction is beneficial to a lasting career in this biz.

I see rewriting (or revising, if you prefer the term) as a very important tool in the writer’s tool box. When you are under contracted deadline and are asked to cut ten thousand words, or get rid of a character, or add more action, or slow down the scene, ore completely change a plot line, and it has to be fixed and beautiful and back in your editor’s hand in two weeks, baby, you’re gonna want a toolbox bristling with every rewriting trick in the book.

But how do you know what needs rewriting? You bled your soul into wrote the thing. You know all the back story, you know what the setting looks like, you know where the characters are running to and from and why.

But you may not have put any of that on the page in a way the reader can clearly see and experience it. Since you’re the author, your mind automatically fills in the missing bits with the info only you have. That’s a problem.

One way to address that problem is to shove your ego in a carpet bag and look at what you’ve written through the eyes of a reader.

Yes, you, the writer, stop being a writer for a second and look at your book as a reader. Print it out and sit down and read your book as if you just pulled it off the shelf. Read it out loud. If you trip over the sentences, likely the reader will too.

Another way to spot what needs rewriting is to critique other people’s work. Over on her blog, Ilona Andrews did a terrific series of line-by-line edits (and suggested rewrites) for opening scenes. Check it out. Read through what she thought should be changed, and why. Then look at your story and see if you can apply any of those principals to it.

Read the rest of the post, which includes an excellent 21-point revision checklist, on Deadline Dames.