From Slate:

In an interview with the Hairpin this week, best-selling author Jennifer Weiner discussed the pinkish-gray area between serious literature and chick lit. When it comes to marketing, she said, an author’s picture is worth a thousand literary judgments:

If you’re smiling in your (color) author photo, it’s chick lit. If you’re smirking, or giving a stern, thin-lipped stare in your black-and-white picture, and if you go out of your way in every interview to talk about how “unserious books do not deserve serious attention,” then it’s literature.

These comments exist within a larger crusade Weiner has waged to get the literary world to take fiction written by and for women more seriously. It’s a campaign founded in a very real under-representation of such literature in publications like the New York Review of Books and the New Republic.

. . . .

If she’s right, then female authors of chick lit should have smiling color photos, while female authors of “serious literature” should be dour and colorless on their book jackets. Since it’s hard to be completely objective about categorizing a book as one versus the other, I used the ultimate arbiter of literary classification: Amazon.

Amazon includes among its “Literature and Fiction” category a sub-category called “Women’s Fiction” (a euphemism for chick lit) and another called “Literary Fiction” (a.k.a. the real stuff). “Women’s Fiction” has a handful of sub-sub-categories, including “African American,” “Divorce,” “Domestic Life,” “Friendship,” “Single Women,” and “Sisters.” “Literary Fiction” is not broken down further.

To conduct this study, I compared the photos for the top 20 best-selling female authors in “Women’s Fiction” with the same group in “Literary Fiction.”

. . . .

Seventy-five percent of “Women’s Lit” authors were smiling, compared to 55 percent of “Literary Fiction” authors. But if you look at not just whether someone’s smiling, but with how much gusto, of the shiny, happy writers, 60 percent of chick lit authors bared their pearly whites, while more than 70 percent of the literary writers did. The chick lit writers smiled more often, but when the literary writers smiled, they did it with abandon.

Link to the rest at Slate and thanks to Matthew for the tip.

From Joel Friedlander:

As an author said to me last night, “This self-publishing is a lot of work, it’s hard.”

Hey, at least she has good advice and people to call on. It’s the other people I worry about, the ones who don’t know when they are poised to step right in something unpleasant, something that might require some real effort to get rid of.

Yes, it’s the Self-Publishing #Fails.

. . . .

1. Formatting for beginners.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been handed 2 books by their authors that really made my heart sink. Why? In each case the author was a professional, highly educated, well-informed and determined to create a book worthy of commercial publication.

Problem? They had each found a “semi-pro” book formatter to create their nonfiction book interiors. How do I know they were “semi-pro”? Immediately I saw things like blank right-hand pages, running heads on blank pages, an entire book typeset with hyphenation set to “off,” inappropriate visual spacing, all the usual suspects.

. . . .

3. Is That Cover Yours or Mine?

An author in the popular paranormal romance genre was just getting started in her career. She studied all the blogs that other writers in her peer group wrote, and learned how to put together a book for print on demand publishing.

She wanted a distinctive cover treatment, especially because she was launching a series, with the intent to publish a whole line of books with the same characters appearing in different settings and combinations.

So the whole representation of the story on the front cover of the first books was of a lot of concern.

She found an artist who specialized in illustrations for book covers, and the two had a great working relationship.

Together, they came up with a beautiful cover, attractive typography, and a custom illustration that truly represented the whole work.

Everyone was happy.

But then a funny thing happened. The book, and it’s sequel, started to get really popular, selling tens of thousands of copies.

When the author got back in touch with the illustrator for a new cover for the next book, she also got a shock.

The illustrator let the author know that she now owed more money for the first illustrations, and that the new illustrations were going to cost a lot more, like triple the original cost.

Link to the rest at The Book Designer

Last year, PG put up the following post:

Passive Guy received a simple question from Amey:

Where does an indie author find cover illustrators online?

She knows about DeviantArt, but finds it too complicated and believes there aren’t a lot of real artists there.

So, what’s the answer to Amey’s question?

He recently received a request from a cover designer to be included in the comments to the original post which is currently living in TPV’s attic where nobody goes.

So PG decided to post the question again to generate updated information.

From CreativeIndie:

Using the right fonts on your book cover helps tell the reader what genre your book fits into and elic­its an emo­tional response.

You want it to look great, but also be appro­pri­ate, fit in well with the cover design, and (prob­a­bly) be just a lit­tle more inter­est­ing than a stan­dard font.

So I’ve put together some cheat-sheets of the best fonts to use for your book cover, divided by genre.

In gen­eral, stick to 1 “fancy” or dec­o­ra­tive font, and keep the other fonts very sim­ple. You don’t want them to compete.

. . . .

Link to the rest at CreativeIndie

From book designer Joel Friedlander:

This month we received:

72 covers in the Fiction category
16 covers in the Nonfiction category

. . . .

Rachel Cole submitted Zebras In London designed by Littera Designs. “The author said zebra stripes, rain, and the colour red were important elements in the story. But I took a bit of literary license with the zebra stripes as my immediate thought were the famous “zebra crossings” in London.”

 

JF: Great job. Economical with a strong graphic sense, a design that stands out boldly, yet at the same time contains just enough story to create a powerful allure.

Link to the rest at The Book Designer and thanks to Eric for the tip. You’ll see some covers from TPV regulars.

From Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

Readers identify these things as brands (in no particular order): Characters, Worlds, Series, and Writers. Readers rarely (almost never) consider a publisher a brand. There are exceptions—Harlequin has done a fantastic job branding its fiction. But most traditional publishers have not.

In fact, traditional publishers seem to have very little idea what branding is at all. They do branding on bestsellers, almost accidentally. Generally, the book’s designers have no idea how to brand anything. A few years back, Putnam decided to brand Nora Robert’s work, and the publishing trades made a big deal out of it.

But if you’re traditionally published, chances are your work has no individual branding—meaning, the branding is not tied to your writer name. The branding is tied to something else if branding exists at all.

Traditionally published writers of long-standing, like me, have books that look like mishmash of stuff, even if the books are in the same genre and same series. The lack of branding has hurt us. This is not an area where you, as indie publishers, should look to traditional publishing. You need to think outside their narrow little box.

You want your readers to identify your work as quickly as possible. You want them to find you easily. Hybrid writers who understand this are actually changing the industry. Their traditional publishers are starting to ask who their cover artists are and are copying the self-published designs of the hybrid writer, rather than the other way around. (Sad, isn’t it?)

. . . .

Every time you see a muscular woman with her back to the viewer, looking over her shoulder while brandishing a weapon, you know you’re looking at an urban fantasy novel. Genre branding is so ubiquitous that in some genres, it becomes cliché. Then some traditional publisher changes up the genre branding, and everyone follows suit.

I’m not telling you that you need to put that sexy mean babe on your urban fantasy novel. But…

The reason I use the phrase “indie published” instead of “self-published” is because if you write a lot and publish a lot, eventually, you will have a team helping you. Even if you’re only  publishing your own work, you have become an independent publisher.

And as an independent publisher, you must make decisions within your publishing house about branding.

. . . .

But if you’re a writer who writes in more than one genre, like I do, then you will need different branding for each genre you write in.

In other words, your stand-alone romance novel cannot look the same as your stand-alone mystery novel which should not look the same as your stand-alone fantasy novel.

. . . .

You must brand by genre. Readers expect it. They want to know what they’re picking up. For example, many romance readers read the genre to escape the difficulties in their lives. They have enough tribulations; they don’t want those in their fiction. They would be horrified if they picked up Sins of the Blood, without some clue that it’s a horror novel, not a sweet romance like Davy Moss.

You want to be discovered? Being discovered by genre is a fine way to do so. Make sure your tags on the various bookstores are correct as well. If you don’t know genre—and most writers don’t (even though they think they do)—then learn it.

Link to the rest at Kristine Kathryn Rusch

From The Guardian:

The moment of receiving your first book jacket is one that every author remembers. I was so excited when I got mine – a jacket, for a book, written by me, that was going to be published – it took me a while to realise it wasn’t quite right. When the time came for the smaller, mass market paperback edition of the book concerned . . . and my agent and I suggested a change of image, my publishers were only too happy to work towards something that suited everyone.

That was 12 years ago, though, and the publishing industry has changed a lot since then, with supermarkets becoming increasingly dominant and power swinging away from editorial and towards sales. It had already changed a lot by early 2009 when Simon & Schuster, the publishers of my fifth book, Under the Paw, sent me their proposal for the book’s paperback edition. I instantly knew I hated the cover and instantly knew there was not a lot I could do about it.

. . . .

I’d been told by Simon & Schuster that the pet books which sold, and made it into supermarkets, were those with a very simple image of a cute animal on the cover. In this case, it was perhaps understandable that they hadn’t chosen to feature one of my cats, who had chunks missing from their ears and often wandered into the house with slugs and twigs stuck to their fur. But this cover seemed to belong to a completely different book.

The case was even more extreme for Under the Paw’s follow up, Talk to the Tail, for whose cover Simon & Schuster chose another image of an actor kitten straight from the Hallmark collection, despite the fact that the book – which is only 50% about cats, with other animals hogging the other half of the action – doesn’t even feature a kitten.

. . . .

I accepted all this because, in a recession-ravaged publishing industry, I felt increasingly glad to still have my work published at all. My loud dad’s standard comment when I ever moan to him about work – “AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT STILL WORKING ON THE CHECKOUT IN TESCO” – rang in my head increasingly often. Asking not to have my books mismarketed would probably be downright greedy.

But over the next year or two, I received countless emails and tweets from readers regarding the cover images. “I enjoyed your cat books,” several wrote, “but why do they have such appalling covers?” Others asked why they couldn’t see photos of the cats who featured in the books, or said they’d bought the books after reading my writing elsewhere, but done so very much in spite of the cover images. When you write a book, you are forever judged by it. That includes the cover. Most people who’d seen my cat books, without actually reading them, thought I was an entirely different kind of writer to the one I am. Many must also have picked them up hoping their content did match the

Link to the rest at The Guardian and thanks to Vashtan for the tip.

PG had never looked at covers of cat books before, but it appears that writing a serious book about cats for anyone except veterinarians is likely to involve cover issues.

From book designer Joel Friedlander:

This month we received:

89 covers in the Fiction category
17 covers in the Nonfiction category

. . . .

e-Book Cover Design Award Winner for November 2013 in Fiction

---

Siri Weber Feeney submitted Fatty in the Back Seat designed by Siri Weber Feeney. “NPR essayist Prum had a distinct look in mind for Cuss, the learning-disabled protagonist — 1/2 Puck and 1/2 hopeful that he won’t go to jail in the next six months. I illustrated and designed the cover first for an e-book, then print, too. For teens on the younger end of the YA spectrum.”

JF: Fantastic, it doesn’t get any better than this. An indelible rendering of the main character could almost become a brand in itself, and the unique lettering adds a hand-crafted feeling to the cover. Leaps off the screen, a real winner.

Link to the rest at The Book Designer and thanks to Eric for the tip.

Passive Guy was pleased to see some excellent covers from several regulars on The Passive Voice.

8 cover design secrets publishers use to manipulate readers into buying books

From Derek Murphy at Creative INDIE

Indie publishers are slowly coming to realize the importance of an amazing book cover. Since many self-publishing authors are starting out on a very small budget however, homemade, DIY book covers are still a popular choice.

But be forewarned: although book cover designs come in a wide variety, publishers consistently use reliable, time-tested techniques and guidelines to catch your attention and make the sale. You want your cover to be different and unique, but you also want to tick all the right boxes (because they work).

The worst thing an author can do is consider their cover design like a blank canvas and add whatever they want, wherever they want.

So here are the tricks you need to know.

Read the rest, which is quite informative, here.

From Guest Blogger Randall

Take the Plunge!

From J.W. Manus (who has more commonsense than everyone I know put together):

Being the boss is a lot of responsibility. That’s why you need confidence. I’ll let you in on self-publishing’s Big Secret.

If you screw up, you can do it over.

Mistakes in the text? Fix them and update your listings. The cover’s not working? Redo it and update your listings. Don’t like a distributor? Pull your books. Find a new and exciting distributor? Sign up and list your books.

How’s that for a confidence booster? Mistakes aren’t fatal or expensive.

Read the rest of this inspiring article here!

An extra post for today.  Could not resist.  Julia Barrett