Warning: any one of these links will take between 15-50 hours to work your way through.
"The net is vast and infinite", but search engines can't give the answers you seek when you don't know how to frame the question. Experts speak specialized languages, and they are opaque to the laymen. Also, when just starting in a new field, it is hard to tell the virtues of those who are experts from the vices of those who hold themselves out as experts.
So, here are some in-depth, actual experts, sharing their knowledge. Each one must be taken for where they started, where they ended, and the audience they were and are speaking to.
1. Write About Dragons.
Write About Dragons is a master class on writing, given by Brandon Sanderson. Who is Brandon Sanderson? (okay, those of you who read epic fantasy are staring in amazement at the question; the rest of you are still looking inquisitive.) He's one of the biggest names in fantasy right now, both from his own works and from being the writer who successfully finished Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series.
In one of those strange and rare moments of clear-headed thinking by an administrator, he has been hired by Brigham Young University to teach a master class on writing. And for two years, students have filmed the class and put it up on youtube for the rest of us to see. The link above is to a student page that lays out the syllabus, and breaks out the entire semester's worth of videos into topics discussed in each.
Caveat: While Brandon is one of those relatively rare people who can teach what he does well, he is at the top of his game in trad pub. Don't go into this class looking specifically for indie publishing advice; he won't BS on what he doesn't know. Also, it's aimed at pre-published writers. It will include the most basic points as well as the highly advanced ones.
2. Kristine Kathyrn Rusch, "The Business Rusch" and other articles
Kris Rusch, and her husband Dean Wesley Smith, have been in publishing from all sides. They're career writers, ranging across many genres and pen names, decades of work from media tie-in fiction to their own original stuff, short stories to novels. Kris was an award-winning editor, and together they once ran a publishing company. So they have a perspective that is nearly unique, and she spent five years writing articles once a week to explain the publishing industry from the inside, the business end of being a successful career author, working with editors, the challenges of discoverability, and even, after the death of a friend, the very-rarely-mentioned topic of how to do estate planning for your intellectual property.
Check out the "business resources" and the "for writers" tabs at the top of her blog - if you're a writer just starting, the "for writers" contains The Freelancer's Survival Guide, which is a great guide to looking at this business not from a "I wrote a book! Yay!" but a "taxes, business plan, reserves in the bank before you quit your day job" sort of way.
Caveat: Kris started writing these before the indie market really exploded. She starts from a fairly trad-pub mindset, aiming only at getting writers to be able to build a career in trad pub. It's fascinating to watch her change as the market shifted radically, but don't swallow all of her advice without chewing on it and thinking about when she was writing, and what's happened since.
3. Writing Excuses
This is a podcast started by Brandon Sanderson (whose cred is already established above), Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary, one of the few web cartoonists to make a full-time, family-suporting living), and Dan Wells (a midlist horror writer, and good guy.)
Their tag line is "fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart." For the first 5 seasons, it worked great, because they tackled one writing topic, and each person had five minutes to work on it. In the sixth season they added a fourth person, Mary Robinette Kowal (midlist regency romance dressed up as fantasy), but didn't make the podcast any longer - and that's about the time I didn't find they were going in-depth enough anymore to really be interesting. Which is a shame, because when they had her on as a guest, she had some really interesting things to say from a puppeteering background about character focus and directing the audience attention.
Give the archives a try, knowing that the first season of any podcast is rough. Maybe you'll get more out of Season Six on than I do, maybe not - but there is good information in the first five, and plenty of fun.
4. Dean Wesley Smith, "Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing" and other articles
Dean is Kris Rusch's husband. He has a lot of interesting things to say in his own right, in a more abrasive style than she does. Every year, he also updates and rewrites a series (and then publishes it when done as a book) called Think Like A Publisher. I recommend that, too.
You'll notice there are workshops advertised on his page. You'll also notice that he doesn't make his living from those; he makes his living from royalties, and WMG publishing, which he and Kris started to put up their extensive backlist... and then inevitably branched out, because they can't do just one project at a time. I've heard nothing but good about said workshops, but have not taken one myself, and can honestly say the advice that is free is plenty good and sound.
5. The Passive Voice
Passive Voice is the instapundit of the writing world, run by "Passive Guy", an IP lawyer whose commentary is brilliant and cutting. The best part are the comments, because that's where you can see working writers chatting about the industry and various events, and actually get a finger on the pulse of the publishing world (indie, hybrid, and trad-only).
Be warned: after reading six months worth of TPV, you'll have learned enough about what it's actually like to deal with tradition publishers in their contract clauses, their attitudes, and their corporate structure that the very idea of an offer from Simon & Schuster or Hachette will set your skin crawling. It's been accused of being an "Amazon cheerleader" site by its detractors.. but really, it's full of authors who have kicked over the can of worms in the bright daylight, are discussing the filthiness displayed there on the ground, and how great it is to have other options!
You'll also regularly see some of the luminaries of the indie world regularly pop up in comments.
Caveat: The unofficial etiquette rules before you start - promoting your own work is verboten, as is discussing religion or politics. The crowd ranges from the hard left to the hard right, from military scifi to erotica authors, so everybody has a little tactful dance they do to avoid pissing in the pool and ruining the unique culture there.
6. And one short site, that'll only take a few hours. Author Earnings
Author Earnings is the ONLY site to try to answer two questions: What does the entire industry, trad and indie, look like in terms of units sales, dollar amounts, and total volume? How much are the authors earning?
The studies you see in the news are, without fail, commissioned by the trad pub, for the trad pub, and completely fail to capture the indie market. Well, that's like saying we're going to study the pizza market - but only look at sit-down restaurants, and completely ignore any pizza delivery information.
So Hugh Howey and an unnamed gentleman (commenters on The Passive Voice referred to him as Data Guy, and he now uses that handle) set out to find a way to capture the data. The first report they ran was met with universal scorn from trad pub, claiming it was incomplete, it had to be utterly wrong, it was only one small snapshot of data and didn't represent the market...
The second report has been met with a deafening silence, because it confirms things nobody in trad pub wants to hear. Such as the "flattening growth and decline of ebook sales"... is only in trad pub, and it's because they're capturing less and less of the growing market. And that there are now more indie authors making a full-time living, than all the traditionally published authors. Go. Read. The hard numbers, and the raw data, about the true market, are right there for you.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Friday, July 4, 2014
Happy Independence Day
To those of you who are Americans by choice, to those of you who are Americans by birth and by choice, and to those of you who are Americans by birth and will yet learn that it is a choice - Happy Independence Day. It's not a perfect country, but it's the best one out there of all of 'em.
Now go out there and celebrate!
(And for those of you wondering why I'm suddenly writing a lot about the technical and business side of books, I was on a panel at LibertyCon, wherein I had 20 minutes to try to explain the entire marketing side of indie books. This is pretty much the residue rolling around my head of all the things I wanted to say. There's more to come, probably for the next week or so, and then it's back to normal. Most of y'all can roll your eyes and ignore this stuff. Old NFO, though, you and Brigid might find something useful here or there in the lot.)
Now go out there and celebrate!
(And for those of you wondering why I'm suddenly writing a lot about the technical and business side of books, I was on a panel at LibertyCon, wherein I had 20 minutes to try to explain the entire marketing side of indie books. This is pretty much the residue rolling around my head of all the things I wanted to say. There's more to come, probably for the next week or so, and then it's back to normal. Most of y'all can roll your eyes and ignore this stuff. Old NFO, though, you and Brigid might find something useful here or there in the lot.)
What's It About? - How to write the stuff on the back of the book
Out of all the books, your cover caught a reader's eye. Now, quick - in less than 100 words, sell your story to the reader. What's it about? Why's it interesting enough to download a sample - or pay for, sight unseen?
I know, I know. If you could say everything interesting about your novel, it'd be as long as... your novel. Welcome to the wonderful world of ad copy, also called promotional copy, and generally referred to as "the blurb." (Which is a misused term, as "blurb" used to mean solely the line on the front cover by famous author saying "greatest thing since hot running water!" But misused or not, it's becoming the standard term. I still think "blog" is a silly term, but just stand aside while the relentless changes to the english language roll on...)
First, just as the book cover is an advertisement not a true representation of your book, the blurb is an advertisement, not a plot summary. If you are describing what's going on past chapter 3, you're doing it wrong. (Unless it's epic fantasy.)
Second, all blurbs, regardless of genre, boil down to three critical elements. A protagonist, in a place, with a problem.
If you have 50 minutes to spare (actually less than that, once you skip the intro on each video), watch Dan Wells talk about story structure here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcmiqQ9NpPE&feature=share&list=PLC430F6A783A88697
If you don't, answer these questions.
Who is your major character?
What is your setting?
What is your major conflict?
What is your story hook - what is your starting state for the book? (this is usually the opposite of where the protagonist is at the end of the novel / character growth arc / action arc.)
What is your plot turn - what introduces the conflict, and sets the plot in motion? (confronting new ideas, getting a call to adventure, etc.)
What is your pinch? (The point where everything goes wrong/ your characters have to take action.)
There's a whole lot more on story structure, but this is all we need for the blurb. No, really.
"Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse-Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends -- one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena -- Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods."
Your Protagonist is at his Hook / Starting State. When Plot Turn conflict happens, he is sent to second location/introduction of supporting main characters, where he learns Information that sets Plot In Motion. Then Percy Starts Action Plot Arc because Major Conflict of Story.
"The Son Also Rises . . .
On a near future Earth, Good Man does not mean good at all. Instead, the term signifies a member of the ruling class, and what it takes to become a Good Man and to hold onto power is downright evil. Now a conspiracy hundreds of years in the making is about to be brought to light when the imprisoned son of the Good Man of Olympic Seacity escapes from his solitary confinement cell and returns to find his father assassinated.
But when Luce Keeva attempts to take hold of the reins of power, he finds that not all is as it seems, that a plot for his own imminent murder is afoot—and that a worldwide conflagration looms. It is a war of revolution, and a shadowy group known as the Sons of Liberty may prove to be Luce's only ally in a fight to throw off an evil from the past that has enslaved humanity for generations.
Sequel to Sarah A. Hoyt's award-winning Darkship Thieves, and Darkship Renegades, this is Book One in the Earth's Revolution saga."
Tag Line.
Setting. Protagonist in Starting State, with Plot Turn conflict.
When Protagonist moves to secondary setting, he learns Information that sets the Plot In Motion. Introduction of allies and of Major Conflict of story.
Information on Series.
Note - Percy Jackson has a lot less initial setting, because it's set in the "Real World, modern day." The further from baseline normal you get, the more explaining you have to do.
"Revolution rises!
The Interstellar Empire of Man was built on the enslavement of the gentle Stardogs, companions and Theta-space transporters of the vanished Denaari Dominion. But the Stardogs that humans found can't go home to breed, and are slowly dying out.
As the ruthless Empire collapses from its rotten core outward, an Imperial barge is trapped on top of a dying Stardog when an attempted hijacking and assassination go horribly wrong. Trying to save its human cargo, the Stardog flees to the last place anyone expected - the long-lost Denaari motherworld.
Crawling from the crash are the Leaguesmen who control the Stardogs' pilots by fear and force, and plan to assassinate Princess Shari, the criminal Yak gang, who want to kill everyone and take control of a rare Stardog for their own, and an entourage riddled with plots, poisons, and treason. But Shari and her assassin-bodyguard have plans of their own...
Stranded on the Denaari Motherworld, the castaway survivors will have to cooperate to survive. Some will have to die.
And some, if they make it to the Stardogs breeding ground, will have to learn what it means to love. "
Tag Line.
Setting! Setting includes aliens and aliens' conflict!
Protagonists (the whole group) in Starting State, with Plot Turn conflict.
When Protagonists move to secondary setting, introduction of protagonists and Information that sets the Plots (All of them but two?) In Motion.
Introduction of Major Conflict of story.
Now, some more important notes.
Note 1: After you write the intial draft, go back and highlight every past tense and passive voice usage. Eliminate them all. Past tense is for reporting what happened. Present and future tense are for getting people interested at what is happening, and what will happen.
Note 2: So, your protagonist has a bunch of friends who helped him, and a mentor, and a mother who saw him off, and people and people.... Almost none of these need to be mentioned in the blurb. If he doesn't find out who is holding his kids hostage until chapter 22, it doesn't go on the blurb.
Note 3: Use adjectives and adverbs. This is like poetry - every word needs to be doing something, or it doesn't need to be there. Haiku gives you about 17 syllables in English; blurbs give you about 100 words. So use connotations, denotations, alliteration and implication!
There is a difference between that and hackneyed cliche. Don't go cliche, man. Readers' eyes glaze over so fast they look like Krispy Creme donuts when they hit cliche, because they assume the story will also be full of hackneyed cliche... Just Don't Go There.
Note 4: When you think it's pretty good, try to tell a friend about this really cool book you found... using your blurb as memorized, not as written and consulted. You will find, when text is converted to speech, that not only are a lot of hand gestures involved, but that you'll start dropping words, phrases, entire sentences that sounded really cool when you were writing and editing, but aren't going to keep your friend's attention. Go back and edit with this in mind.
Note 5: There is a form of pitch known as "the elevator speech." It often is presented like this: you get on an elevator, and realize the other guy on it is an acquiring editor / your favorite director / an actor you want to get really excited about your story/screenplay/novel. To break the awkward silence of the elevator, they peer at your con badge and say "A writer, huh? What's your book about?" You have three to five floors to sell your story, off the cuff and impromptu (but you do have a short speech prepared for this moment, don't you?). Go.
Yeah, that's your blurb. Instead of Adam Baldwin or Toni Weisskopf, though, you're trying to reach through a computer screen and get your money from a bored browser who wants something good to read, and has been momentarily distracted by your book cover. You want his money? You have three to five paragraphs. Go.
I know, I know. If you could say everything interesting about your novel, it'd be as long as... your novel. Welcome to the wonderful world of ad copy, also called promotional copy, and generally referred to as "the blurb." (Which is a misused term, as "blurb" used to mean solely the line on the front cover by famous author saying "greatest thing since hot running water!" But misused or not, it's becoming the standard term. I still think "blog" is a silly term, but just stand aside while the relentless changes to the english language roll on...)
First, just as the book cover is an advertisement not a true representation of your book, the blurb is an advertisement, not a plot summary. If you are describing what's going on past chapter 3, you're doing it wrong. (Unless it's epic fantasy.)
Second, all blurbs, regardless of genre, boil down to three critical elements. A protagonist, in a place, with a problem.
If you have 50 minutes to spare (actually less than that, once you skip the intro on each video), watch Dan Wells talk about story structure here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcmiqQ9NpPE&feature=share&list=PLC430F6A783A88697
If you don't, answer these questions.
Who is your major character?
What is your setting?
What is your major conflict?
What is your story hook - what is your starting state for the book? (this is usually the opposite of where the protagonist is at the end of the novel / character growth arc / action arc.)
What is your plot turn - what introduces the conflict, and sets the plot in motion? (confronting new ideas, getting a call to adventure, etc.)
What is your pinch? (The point where everything goes wrong/ your characters have to take action.)
There's a whole lot more on story structure, but this is all we need for the blurb. No, really.
"Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse-Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends -- one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena -- Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods."
Your Protagonist is at his Hook / Starting State. When Plot Turn conflict happens, he is sent to second location/introduction of supporting main characters, where he learns Information that sets Plot In Motion. Then Percy Starts Action Plot Arc because Major Conflict of Story.
"The Son Also Rises . . .
On a near future Earth, Good Man does not mean good at all. Instead, the term signifies a member of the ruling class, and what it takes to become a Good Man and to hold onto power is downright evil. Now a conspiracy hundreds of years in the making is about to be brought to light when the imprisoned son of the Good Man of Olympic Seacity escapes from his solitary confinement cell and returns to find his father assassinated.
But when Luce Keeva attempts to take hold of the reins of power, he finds that not all is as it seems, that a plot for his own imminent murder is afoot—and that a worldwide conflagration looms. It is a war of revolution, and a shadowy group known as the Sons of Liberty may prove to be Luce's only ally in a fight to throw off an evil from the past that has enslaved humanity for generations.
Sequel to Sarah A. Hoyt's award-winning Darkship Thieves, and Darkship Renegades, this is Book One in the Earth's Revolution saga."
Tag Line.
Setting. Protagonist in Starting State, with Plot Turn conflict.
When Protagonist moves to secondary setting, he learns Information that sets the Plot In Motion. Introduction of allies and of Major Conflict of story.
Information on Series.
Note - Percy Jackson has a lot less initial setting, because it's set in the "Real World, modern day." The further from baseline normal you get, the more explaining you have to do.
"Revolution rises!
The Interstellar Empire of Man was built on the enslavement of the gentle Stardogs, companions and Theta-space transporters of the vanished Denaari Dominion. But the Stardogs that humans found can't go home to breed, and are slowly dying out.
As the ruthless Empire collapses from its rotten core outward, an Imperial barge is trapped on top of a dying Stardog when an attempted hijacking and assassination go horribly wrong. Trying to save its human cargo, the Stardog flees to the last place anyone expected - the long-lost Denaari motherworld.
Crawling from the crash are the Leaguesmen who control the Stardogs' pilots by fear and force, and plan to assassinate Princess Shari, the criminal Yak gang, who want to kill everyone and take control of a rare Stardog for their own, and an entourage riddled with plots, poisons, and treason. But Shari and her assassin-bodyguard have plans of their own...
Stranded on the Denaari Motherworld, the castaway survivors will have to cooperate to survive. Some will have to die.
And some, if they make it to the Stardogs breeding ground, will have to learn what it means to love. "
Tag Line.
Setting! Setting includes aliens and aliens' conflict!
Protagonists (the whole group) in Starting State, with Plot Turn conflict.
When Protagonists move to secondary setting, introduction of protagonists and Information that sets the Plots (All of them but two?) In Motion.
Introduction of Major Conflict of story.
Now, some more important notes.
Note 1: After you write the intial draft, go back and highlight every past tense and passive voice usage. Eliminate them all. Past tense is for reporting what happened. Present and future tense are for getting people interested at what is happening, and what will happen.
Note 2: So, your protagonist has a bunch of friends who helped him, and a mentor, and a mother who saw him off, and people and people.... Almost none of these need to be mentioned in the blurb. If he doesn't find out who is holding his kids hostage until chapter 22, it doesn't go on the blurb.
Note 3: Use adjectives and adverbs. This is like poetry - every word needs to be doing something, or it doesn't need to be there. Haiku gives you about 17 syllables in English; blurbs give you about 100 words. So use connotations, denotations, alliteration and implication!
There is a difference between that and hackneyed cliche. Don't go cliche, man. Readers' eyes glaze over so fast they look like Krispy Creme donuts when they hit cliche, because they assume the story will also be full of hackneyed cliche... Just Don't Go There.
Note 4: When you think it's pretty good, try to tell a friend about this really cool book you found... using your blurb as memorized, not as written and consulted. You will find, when text is converted to speech, that not only are a lot of hand gestures involved, but that you'll start dropping words, phrases, entire sentences that sounded really cool when you were writing and editing, but aren't going to keep your friend's attention. Go back and edit with this in mind.
Note 5: There is a form of pitch known as "the elevator speech." It often is presented like this: you get on an elevator, and realize the other guy on it is an acquiring editor / your favorite director / an actor you want to get really excited about your story/screenplay/novel. To break the awkward silence of the elevator, they peer at your con badge and say "A writer, huh? What's your book about?" You have three to five floors to sell your story, off the cuff and impromptu (but you do have a short speech prepared for this moment, don't you?). Go.
Yeah, that's your blurb. Instead of Adam Baldwin or Toni Weisskopf, though, you're trying to reach through a computer screen and get your money from a bored browser who wants something good to read, and has been momentarily distracted by your book cover. You want his money? You have three to five paragraphs. Go.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
But I'm Not An Artist! - Cover Design for the Rest of Us
If you want great covers, and your drawing ability is still stuck at little stick men, do not despair. You don't have to be a good artist to get great covers. Go back and read up on design, typography, layout, and art not with the despairing expectation that you'll be called upon to create your own cover, but with the confidence that you'll now know just enough to be able to tell the cover artist / designer you hire why you like their design, or why not, and what you want changed. If you can speak the same technical language as them, or even get fairly close pidgin, you'll be able to collaborate for a far better cover than "Um, I don't like it because it doesn't feel right. I dunno, the thingie is just not good, so change it."
Where do you find said designer? First, check out covers you like. Many indie authors put their cover designers (and cover art source) on the copyright or acknowledgements page, right up front. Find an ebook in your subgenre you really like? Check Amazon, click the "look inside" feature, and see if the designer / artist are listed on the copyright page.
Second, there's word of mouth - who do you hear people making happy noises about - especially if they're in your genre? (Do you wonder why I keep bringing up genre? It's because each genre and subgenre have very specific treatments and conventions in their covers, that cue the readers. If you're not on top of these and able to point them out to your designer, then you'll need a designer who's already familiar with them.)
You could also go to http://www.thebookdesigner.com - he has monthly awards for submitted covers, which not only is an education watching designers critiquing design (as opposed to the book), but lets you skim to see if you find a submitted designer you want to work with.
Still, getting a cover usually involves the time sink of either finding your cover art and the designer, or working with a designer on why the cover art he found is not what you want, and why. If you ever wished that you could just look through a page of covers and pick yours out, already made, from a catalog...
Well, you can. The technical term is "premade cover." Most common for the Thriller, Horror, and Romance genres, you can see some options from the following designers. Understand, I've never bought one, so I don't have any endorsement for a specific designer. Caveat Emptor, do your research, etc.
Damon.za and Jason Gurley are two well-known designers; they'll give you a feel for the high end of the business. There are a multitude of designers hanging out their shingle - the best directory I've found so far is on kboards at http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,123703.0.html
Like any list of people and services on the internet, you'll need to see if you can find a designer in your genre, in your budget, and still actively responding - but that'll be a good start for you.
Where do you find said designer? First, check out covers you like. Many indie authors put their cover designers (and cover art source) on the copyright or acknowledgements page, right up front. Find an ebook in your subgenre you really like? Check Amazon, click the "look inside" feature, and see if the designer / artist are listed on the copyright page.
Second, there's word of mouth - who do you hear people making happy noises about - especially if they're in your genre? (Do you wonder why I keep bringing up genre? It's because each genre and subgenre have very specific treatments and conventions in their covers, that cue the readers. If you're not on top of these and able to point them out to your designer, then you'll need a designer who's already familiar with them.)
You could also go to http://www.thebookdesigner.com - he has monthly awards for submitted covers, which not only is an education watching designers critiquing design (as opposed to the book), but lets you skim to see if you find a submitted designer you want to work with.
Still, getting a cover usually involves the time sink of either finding your cover art and the designer, or working with a designer on why the cover art he found is not what you want, and why. If you ever wished that you could just look through a page of covers and pick yours out, already made, from a catalog...
Well, you can. The technical term is "premade cover." Most common for the Thriller, Horror, and Romance genres, you can see some options from the following designers. Understand, I've never bought one, so I don't have any endorsement for a specific designer. Caveat Emptor, do your research, etc.
Damon.za and Jason Gurley are two well-known designers; they'll give you a feel for the high end of the business. There are a multitude of designers hanging out their shingle - the best directory I've found so far is on kboards at http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,123703.0.html
Like any list of people and services on the internet, you'll need to see if you can find a designer in your genre, in your budget, and still actively responding - but that'll be a good start for you.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Typography & Cover Art - It's How You Say It
"Don't judge a book by it's cover" is not a rule, it's an admonition to try to get better behavior right up there with "Don't eat those cookies now, you'll ruin your dinner." Readers, browsers, customers, reviewers, and probably the cat all judge a book by its cover. (Okay, the last one's criteria is 'best spot to sleep.')
However, what are the criteria by which they are judging the cover? There's the rub.
Readers have a very specific set of questions as they browse, and when your cover comes up, it'll get between 0.2-0.7 seconds to answer all of them. If the answers aren't good enough, they'll never click over to your blurb.
1. Who wrote it?
2. What genre is it?
3. What subgenre is it?
4. What's it about?
5. is it well done?
When you're trying to convey this much information in so little time, every design element is crucial. Let's go through them.
1. Who wrote it?
As an author, your name is your brand. If you give me a list of titles I haven't read yet, and there's a Mike Williamson or a Lois Bujold on there I haven't read, I'll buy them sight unseen, cost irrelevant. If I see a new Patricia Briggs, I'm not going to spend $16 for an ebook - but six months later, when I've long forgotten most of the books I didn't buy, I'll still check now and then to see if the publisher's dropped the price yet. You don't have to be a mega-bestseller to have readers who like your books enough to look forward to your next one - in fact, chances are high you'll have these long before you know it.
2. What genre is it?
3. What subgenre is it?
4. What's it about?
So, genre. Look at your genre very carefully, then look at your subgenre very carefully - again, look at the print books over the ebooks, because they're less likely to have risen that high despite the cover instead of with its help. Two caveats. First, make sure the books you are looking at are recent. Fahrenheit 451 is going to sell gangbusters despite a very dated cover because Fahrenheit 451. Imitating its cover is not a help. Second, Baen Books has put decades of branding into a very specific art style that really pops in print, not in ebook. They've built a large and loyal following who look for that style, that branding, in order to buy new Baen books / try new Baen authors. This isn't going to help you if you're a new science fiction author trying to get people's attention in a 60x100 pixel space with your cover.
Fantasy genre practically requires something that looks like a painting, but not a piece of classical art.
Literary can be a photo or an excerpt from a classical painting, depending on the subgenre of literary.
Science fiction must look like a painting, not a photo - unless it's of a planetary view. However, where fantasy tends to "this looks like an oil painting", science fiction tends to "this is an almost-photo-quality-realistic" painting.
Romance tends to actual photographs.
Thriller and Horror tend to actual photographs, then heavily altered/darkened/blurred past the central point... or icons.
Chick Lit tends strongly toward drawn, almost cartoonish illustrations.
Mystery... depends heavily on the subgenre. What kind of art you use will signal which subgenre.
These will change over time. What I say now may not apply in five years. Keep up with your cover art trends, and expect to have to rebrand / redo your covers in the future, to make them look exciting and interesting to new browsers.
Then, of course, there's your actual image. This image is supposed to indicate at least three of the five W's: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. (How, we leave for the reader to discover on the pages inside.) It can be as simple as a woman with a katana and a gun, in a dynamic pose (dynamic - looks like she's moving, as opposed to static, like a cityscape.) Great. That tells us there's a woman, there's action, and it involves modern guns and swords (as long as it's not a blunderbuss or a raygun, or she's not wearing a futuristic bodysuit or historical garb.) Probably thriller, maybe action/adventure... now, if she had her back to the reader in a static pose, was showing a fair bit of skin, and there was a dark city in the background, it'd be paranormal romance instead.
Important note. Your cover is not a representation of your book; it's an advertisement for your book. Has your cover designer shown you a picture with a heroine that doesn't look like the character in your head? Does the beefcake model have brown hair instead of black, and wide shoulders instead of a wiry body? Is the spaceship completely different than the ones in the book, and they never exploded in an orbit that close to the planetary background?
IT DOESN'T MATTER. Repeat after me: "Advertisement, not accurate representation." It's great if you can get both. It's not crucial.
No matter how strong your cover art, it isn't strong enough to carry the information alone, and must work hand in hand with the typography (the font of your title, author name, and any other words on the cover.)
For a great example of how much work the typography does, watch this.
If you go back and look up the original movies, you'll promptly see how much the typography alone enforces and reinforces the genre. In books, we don't get multiple images like movie trailers, so the font carries an even heavier load. Go back to your top books in genre, and look at the font. Then, go to a place like font squirrel, and look around at just the different fonts to see what they convey.
Yes, fonts are works of art, just like paintings and books, and unless you get one that's public domain (why do you think I'm sending you to FontSquirrel?), you're going to have to buy a license to use it. For the absolute right font, that's as worthwhile as buying cover art. For those of you just getting started, you can trade time for money, and do it free, just as you can do public domain images - but it will take longer.
5. Is it well done?
If, when you stand back and eye your cover in amongst other covers, it looks just like the trad pub books around it, it will subconsciously promise "this is a good one - it won't have terrible plotholes, bad spelling, cardboard characters and awful cliches." If it stands out - photo when the others are paintings, wrong typography, unbalanced cover - it's not promising a bad novel, it's just not promising a good one. This is not the time to be groundbreaking; this is the time to be the best of the herd.
However, what are the criteria by which they are judging the cover? There's the rub.
Readers have a very specific set of questions as they browse, and when your cover comes up, it'll get between 0.2-0.7 seconds to answer all of them. If the answers aren't good enough, they'll never click over to your blurb.
1. Who wrote it?
2. What genre is it?
3. What subgenre is it?
4. What's it about?
5. is it well done?
When you're trying to convey this much information in so little time, every design element is crucial. Let's go through them.
1. Who wrote it?
As an author, your name is your brand. If you give me a list of titles I haven't read yet, and there's a Mike Williamson or a Lois Bujold on there I haven't read, I'll buy them sight unseen, cost irrelevant. If I see a new Patricia Briggs, I'm not going to spend $16 for an ebook - but six months later, when I've long forgotten most of the books I didn't buy, I'll still check now and then to see if the publisher's dropped the price yet. You don't have to be a mega-bestseller to have readers who like your books enough to look forward to your next one - in fact, chances are high you'll have these long before you know it.
2. What genre is it?
3. What subgenre is it?
4. What's it about?
So, genre. Look at your genre very carefully, then look at your subgenre very carefully - again, look at the print books over the ebooks, because they're less likely to have risen that high despite the cover instead of with its help. Two caveats. First, make sure the books you are looking at are recent. Fahrenheit 451 is going to sell gangbusters despite a very dated cover because Fahrenheit 451. Imitating its cover is not a help. Second, Baen Books has put decades of branding into a very specific art style that really pops in print, not in ebook. They've built a large and loyal following who look for that style, that branding, in order to buy new Baen books / try new Baen authors. This isn't going to help you if you're a new science fiction author trying to get people's attention in a 60x100 pixel space with your cover.
Fantasy genre practically requires something that looks like a painting, but not a piece of classical art.
Literary can be a photo or an excerpt from a classical painting, depending on the subgenre of literary.
Science fiction must look like a painting, not a photo - unless it's of a planetary view. However, where fantasy tends to "this looks like an oil painting", science fiction tends to "this is an almost-photo-quality-realistic" painting.
Romance tends to actual photographs.
Thriller and Horror tend to actual photographs, then heavily altered/darkened/blurred past the central point... or icons.
Chick Lit tends strongly toward drawn, almost cartoonish illustrations.
Mystery... depends heavily on the subgenre. What kind of art you use will signal which subgenre.
These will change over time. What I say now may not apply in five years. Keep up with your cover art trends, and expect to have to rebrand / redo your covers in the future, to make them look exciting and interesting to new browsers.
Then, of course, there's your actual image. This image is supposed to indicate at least three of the five W's: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. (How, we leave for the reader to discover on the pages inside.) It can be as simple as a woman with a katana and a gun, in a dynamic pose (dynamic - looks like she's moving, as opposed to static, like a cityscape.) Great. That tells us there's a woman, there's action, and it involves modern guns and swords (as long as it's not a blunderbuss or a raygun, or she's not wearing a futuristic bodysuit or historical garb.) Probably thriller, maybe action/adventure... now, if she had her back to the reader in a static pose, was showing a fair bit of skin, and there was a dark city in the background, it'd be paranormal romance instead.
Important note. Your cover is not a representation of your book; it's an advertisement for your book. Has your cover designer shown you a picture with a heroine that doesn't look like the character in your head? Does the beefcake model have brown hair instead of black, and wide shoulders instead of a wiry body? Is the spaceship completely different than the ones in the book, and they never exploded in an orbit that close to the planetary background?
IT DOESN'T MATTER. Repeat after me: "Advertisement, not accurate representation." It's great if you can get both. It's not crucial.
No matter how strong your cover art, it isn't strong enough to carry the information alone, and must work hand in hand with the typography (the font of your title, author name, and any other words on the cover.)
For a great example of how much work the typography does, watch this.
If you go back and look up the original movies, you'll promptly see how much the typography alone enforces and reinforces the genre. In books, we don't get multiple images like movie trailers, so the font carries an even heavier load. Go back to your top books in genre, and look at the font. Then, go to a place like font squirrel, and look around at just the different fonts to see what they convey.
Yes, fonts are works of art, just like paintings and books, and unless you get one that's public domain (why do you think I'm sending you to FontSquirrel?), you're going to have to buy a license to use it. For the absolute right font, that's as worthwhile as buying cover art. For those of you just getting started, you can trade time for money, and do it free, just as you can do public domain images - but it will take longer.
5. Is it well done?
If, when you stand back and eye your cover in amongst other covers, it looks just like the trad pub books around it, it will subconsciously promise "this is a good one - it won't have terrible plotholes, bad spelling, cardboard characters and awful cliches." If it stands out - photo when the others are paintings, wrong typography, unbalanced cover - it's not promising a bad novel, it's just not promising a good one. This is not the time to be groundbreaking; this is the time to be the best of the herd.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Cover Art Composition and Layout
Or, Why You Keep Hearing "Make Your Name Bigger!"
If you studied movie poster composition and layout, you'd find that almost all good, eye-catching designs fall into a very few broad layout categories.** If you hadn't (like most of us), take the cliff-notes version and go read this class handout (PDF format) so we're all on the same (cover) page. http://eetwagga.riverinainstitute.wikispaces.net/file/view/Poster+Composition.pdf
OK, now for ebook cover design, we're going to focus on two layouts. They call them "The Z Layout" and "Perspectives Layout" in that handout, but I'm going to use the terms I was taught instead: The Hourglass, and The Triangle.
Why "The Hourglass" instead of "The Z"? Well, because it's much easier for me to look at a cover, draw an X across it, and see what size font and image makes the whole thing feel balanced - the further away from the focal point, the larger the font needs to be. (Also, because I learned that term first.)
StarDogs note the starship is not at the exact center of the page, but if you draw an X across the cover, starting at each corner, the starship fits almost completely inside the hourglass. Thus, it feels balanced to the eye. The tag line, on the other hand, does not - and that's why it looks slightly "off" for the cover.
Ride The Rising Tide On this one, the starship itself is positioned to outline the X, and completely fills the hourglass. Because the title is so long, it's unbalanced for an hourglass, and the tiny series heading would have been too short - unbalanced - if stuck beneath the title. So, Oleg put it on top, making a second triangle of the series/title text.
In case you hadn't figured it out, you're rarely going to get a "perfect" design illustration that absolutely follows the outline of the hourglass. It's a rule of thumb, not a commandment, and it's supposed to help you figure out what looks subconsciously pleasing to the eye. You can violate the heck out of it and have an awesome cover - but it really helps to know the rules so you know when and why to break 'em.
Baptism By Fire here, which is a great book in the Monster Hunter International style, has a good strong central image, and the top text is perfectly balanced for the hourglass layout - but the Author Name at the bottom is way too small. To properly balance, it should fill the bottom of the image in the same way the title fills the top. This is (a large part of) why we keep saying "Make your name bigger!"
Ok, on to The Triangle, which had a much more complicated name of "perspectives" in the handout. Every Perspective has a vanishing point and a foreground making a triangle. It's much simpler to just say "triangle" instead of trying to isolate the vanishing point, because really, the triangle's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience of the king... or at least the pocketbook of the reader.
Awake in the Night Land
is an easy start - it's a great bloody triangle. Pointed up, as opposed to the usual pointing down, but easy to see. Again, like ride the Rising Tide, you see the long title made into its own little triangle, even as the central triangle of image grounds it point in the title.
Bad Penny
- the triangle is in the bullet holes, with the point at the bottom right corner of the cover. Yes, he doesn't have a "title block" at the bottom, and it works just great. remember, layout rules of thumb to help make something pleasing, not ironclad laws.
Murder World: Kaiju Dawn did something really cool here, and it's the reason they're not going to get "make your name bigger!" - if you look at the monster head image, it's an offset triangle with the point grounded in the "U" of "Murder". The author names at the top are small - but they have subtle white steaks filling out the rest of the triangle, so they still look very balanced. Cool cover, guys.
I could go on and on, but hopefully this is enough for you to start looking around the top books in your genre and start seeing the layout and composition principles at work. A few final related points follow.
1. Make your name bigger because your author name is your brand. As surely as Nike and Pepsi want you to be able to tell their products at a glance, you want readers to be able to identify you in a 60 x 100 pixel cover image in some other book's also-bought or a search results page.
2. Make your name bigger because trad pub has trained readers that big names are important, awesome authors that should be bestsellers, while small names are forgettable midlist. You want to be a bestseller someday - start faking it til you make it, because the reader won't believe it if you don't design your cover like it.
3. When looking for good cover design for your genre, it's often better to check the top 100 print books in your subgenre than the kindle - because kindle has so many more authors who succeed despite their covers, or are in there for one day due to a bookbub promotion and fall right back out. Take what you learn about your genre and subgenre, and apply it promptly to your ebook and print book.
4. Typography is a whole 'nother can of worms, that'll take it's own long post, as is "cover art for genre/subgenre". This is not comprehensive, it's just an attempt to cover one portion of what makes a good cover.
5. When doing triangles instead of hourglass, they can absolutely be offset any way you want them to - but usually, they will face the bottom right (see Bad Penny, above). If there are people, they should be looking to the right, or to the bottom right. (If not directly at the reader/directly away from the reader.) The reason for this is very subtle - on english books, we read left to right, top to bottom. Grounding the image/action/attention to the bottom right automatically cues the reader to open the book / turn the page, just like when they reach the bottom right when reading on the text of a page.
**Oleg, please forgive the butchery of design principles about to be committed in the name of making the concepts understandable to authors.
If you studied movie poster composition and layout, you'd find that almost all good, eye-catching designs fall into a very few broad layout categories.** If you hadn't (like most of us), take the cliff-notes version and go read this class handout (PDF format) so we're all on the same (cover) page. http://eetwagga.riverinainstitute.wikispaces.net/file/view/Poster+Composition.pdf
OK, now for ebook cover design, we're going to focus on two layouts. They call them "The Z Layout" and "Perspectives Layout" in that handout, but I'm going to use the terms I was taught instead: The Hourglass, and The Triangle.
Why "The Hourglass" instead of "The Z"? Well, because it's much easier for me to look at a cover, draw an X across it, and see what size font and image makes the whole thing feel balanced - the further away from the focal point, the larger the font needs to be. (Also, because I learned that term first.)
StarDogs note the starship is not at the exact center of the page, but if you draw an X across the cover, starting at each corner, the starship fits almost completely inside the hourglass. Thus, it feels balanced to the eye. The tag line, on the other hand, does not - and that's why it looks slightly "off" for the cover.
Ride The Rising Tide On this one, the starship itself is positioned to outline the X, and completely fills the hourglass. Because the title is so long, it's unbalanced for an hourglass, and the tiny series heading would have been too short - unbalanced - if stuck beneath the title. So, Oleg put it on top, making a second triangle of the series/title text.
In case you hadn't figured it out, you're rarely going to get a "perfect" design illustration that absolutely follows the outline of the hourglass. It's a rule of thumb, not a commandment, and it's supposed to help you figure out what looks subconsciously pleasing to the eye. You can violate the heck out of it and have an awesome cover - but it really helps to know the rules so you know when and why to break 'em.
Baptism By Fire here, which is a great book in the Monster Hunter International style, has a good strong central image, and the top text is perfectly balanced for the hourglass layout - but the Author Name at the bottom is way too small. To properly balance, it should fill the bottom of the image in the same way the title fills the top. This is (a large part of) why we keep saying "Make your name bigger!"
Ok, on to The Triangle, which had a much more complicated name of "perspectives" in the handout. Every Perspective has a vanishing point and a foreground making a triangle. It's much simpler to just say "triangle" instead of trying to isolate the vanishing point, because really, the triangle's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience of the king... or at least the pocketbook of the reader.
Awake in the Night Land
is an easy start - it's a great bloody triangle. Pointed up, as opposed to the usual pointing down, but easy to see. Again, like ride the Rising Tide, you see the long title made into its own little triangle, even as the central triangle of image grounds it point in the title. Bad Penny
- the triangle is in the bullet holes, with the point at the bottom right corner of the cover. Yes, he doesn't have a "title block" at the bottom, and it works just great. remember, layout rules of thumb to help make something pleasing, not ironclad laws.
Murder World: Kaiju Dawn did something really cool here, and it's the reason they're not going to get "make your name bigger!" - if you look at the monster head image, it's an offset triangle with the point grounded in the "U" of "Murder". The author names at the top are small - but they have subtle white steaks filling out the rest of the triangle, so they still look very balanced. Cool cover, guys.
I could go on and on, but hopefully this is enough for you to start looking around the top books in your genre and start seeing the layout and composition principles at work. A few final related points follow.
1. Make your name bigger because your author name is your brand. As surely as Nike and Pepsi want you to be able to tell their products at a glance, you want readers to be able to identify you in a 60 x 100 pixel cover image in some other book's also-bought or a search results page.
2. Make your name bigger because trad pub has trained readers that big names are important, awesome authors that should be bestsellers, while small names are forgettable midlist. You want to be a bestseller someday - start faking it til you make it, because the reader won't believe it if you don't design your cover like it.
3. When looking for good cover design for your genre, it's often better to check the top 100 print books in your subgenre than the kindle - because kindle has so many more authors who succeed despite their covers, or are in there for one day due to a bookbub promotion and fall right back out. Take what you learn about your genre and subgenre, and apply it promptly to your ebook and print book.
4. Typography is a whole 'nother can of worms, that'll take it's own long post, as is "cover art for genre/subgenre". This is not comprehensive, it's just an attempt to cover one portion of what makes a good cover.
5. When doing triangles instead of hourglass, they can absolutely be offset any way you want them to - but usually, they will face the bottom right (see Bad Penny, above). If there are people, they should be looking to the right, or to the bottom right. (If not directly at the reader/directly away from the reader.) The reason for this is very subtle - on english books, we read left to right, top to bottom. Grounding the image/action/attention to the bottom right automatically cues the reader to open the book / turn the page, just like when they reach the bottom right when reading on the text of a page.
**Oleg, please forgive the butchery of design principles about to be committed in the name of making the concepts understandable to authors.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Where the bouncy balls went.
A long time ago, I read John Ringo's RavenCon After-Action Report. (the internet remembers in PDF) http://www.orthogonaltonormal.com/midden/RavenCon%202006.pdf
Go read it, if you haven't ever heard of it. After your sides are hurting from laughter, come back here to find out what happened to the bouncy balls.
Back now? While most of you will remember that AAR as an epic failure by feminists to ambush a Baen author, there were a lot of good pieces of wisdom in there. "Marketing is not sales. Marketing is a method for creating a precondition where sales are easier. To do that you have to create a positive impression of your product, in this case your books, and yourself. The most important point is to create an impression."
At every convention, there's a swag table, filled with bookmarks, business cards, flyers, and random sized cards inbetween, usually with cover art for a book, often with a blurb. Friday afternoon at LibertyCon, half the table was filled with free books put out by indie authors, hoping they'd attract potential buyers into the rest of the series, and just about every other square millimeter was filled with the aforementioned other advertisements. I played a form of tetris to make sure I wasn't blocking anyone else's advertisements, and added a handful of ours - cards with slightly cropped covers for War To The Knife (so I could get four in glossy photo quality on an 8.5x11 paper), with the blurb, a QR code directly to the Amazon page, and the URL for that page all fit neatly on the back. Each card was stuck into a plastic bag, along with a bouncy ball.
The bags were picked up by congoers over the course of the weekend. There were sightings - now and then, the roving crowd of small kids underfoot would be spotted bouncing balls down the halls or across concrete patios. (Calmer Half had one very cute kid come up at a signing and politely ask for one for her three cats. Being wise, he gave her one for each cat.) We never put out more than a couple handfuls at a time, but they went fast.
So, "did it work?" We gave out 175 pieces of swag, so yes, we definitely had something that caught the eye and got picked up. As for immediate sales, yes, we had a nice boost - though definitely not enough to cover the cost of the con. However, we were really going for name recognition. After several panels and a weekend of bouncy balls, there were a lot more people who recognized Calmer Half than people who immediately bought the book. This is awesome, because this is a heavily military sci-fi fan con. (They have an unofficial range trip on Friday morning, ok?) So these folks have now heard Calmer Half's name enough to recognize it vaguely the next time they go looking for something new to read - and that's enough to put us head and shoulders ahead of the mass of unknown authors.
And despite the bouncy balls, looks like they'll even let us come back next year!
...this still leaves 50 for the cat. I think she's already lost 20 under various and assorted pieces of furniture. Still, after several nights in a hotel, I look forward to my own bed and the predictable noises of "thump-thump-thump-scrabble-thump-scrabble" tonight!
Go read it, if you haven't ever heard of it. After your sides are hurting from laughter, come back here to find out what happened to the bouncy balls.
Back now? While most of you will remember that AAR as an epic failure by feminists to ambush a Baen author, there were a lot of good pieces of wisdom in there. "Marketing is not sales. Marketing is a method for creating a precondition where sales are easier. To do that you have to create a positive impression of your product, in this case your books, and yourself. The most important point is to create an impression."
At every convention, there's a swag table, filled with bookmarks, business cards, flyers, and random sized cards inbetween, usually with cover art for a book, often with a blurb. Friday afternoon at LibertyCon, half the table was filled with free books put out by indie authors, hoping they'd attract potential buyers into the rest of the series, and just about every other square millimeter was filled with the aforementioned other advertisements. I played a form of tetris to make sure I wasn't blocking anyone else's advertisements, and added a handful of ours - cards with slightly cropped covers for War To The Knife (so I could get four in glossy photo quality on an 8.5x11 paper), with the blurb, a QR code directly to the Amazon page, and the URL for that page all fit neatly on the back. Each card was stuck into a plastic bag, along with a bouncy ball.
The bags were picked up by congoers over the course of the weekend. There were sightings - now and then, the roving crowd of small kids underfoot would be spotted bouncing balls down the halls or across concrete patios. (Calmer Half had one very cute kid come up at a signing and politely ask for one for her three cats. Being wise, he gave her one for each cat.) We never put out more than a couple handfuls at a time, but they went fast.
So, "did it work?" We gave out 175 pieces of swag, so yes, we definitely had something that caught the eye and got picked up. As for immediate sales, yes, we had a nice boost - though definitely not enough to cover the cost of the con. However, we were really going for name recognition. After several panels and a weekend of bouncy balls, there were a lot more people who recognized Calmer Half than people who immediately bought the book. This is awesome, because this is a heavily military sci-fi fan con. (They have an unofficial range trip on Friday morning, ok?) So these folks have now heard Calmer Half's name enough to recognize it vaguely the next time they go looking for something new to read - and that's enough to put us head and shoulders ahead of the mass of unknown authors.
And despite the bouncy balls, looks like they'll even let us come back next year!
...this still leaves 50 for the cat. I think she's already lost 20 under various and assorted pieces of furniture. Still, after several nights in a hotel, I look forward to my own bed and the predictable noises of "thump-thump-thump-scrabble-thump-scrabble" tonight!
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