June 2011 – Mystery, fantasy and romance at the dangerous ends of the earth

Cover Design: What is your favorite book cover?

By Karen Abrahamson | June 26, 2011

This morning I happened to talk to a reader of one of the Karen L. McKee books called Judas Kiss. The reader told me she had had difficulty reading the book; it might have been the fact that she was in hospital at the time, but when she got home she picked up the book and still had trouble. When I asked her what stopped her there was no hesitation: The cover. She described it as too dark, and though the book is a romantic suspense, to her the black, white and red cover said this book was horror.

Not what I was going for.

So I decided to get in touch with one of my cover-designing, author friends, Pati Nagle, and ask her a few questions about how to design a proper cover.

1. Are there specific design elements, like title fonts and placement authors should think about as we design covers?

Pati suggests that a good rule of thumb is to use only one or two fonts on a cover. Critical to this is make sure the text is legible even in small (thumbnail) size. This means that if you are using an ornate font, you need to check whether it is readable in the size cover that will come up on Amazon or Smashwords or Barnes and Noble.

Pati also says that generally the title and author go at the top and bottom, or both, leaving the centre for the main image.

2. Are there guidelines regarding using too many or too few images on a cover?

Pati suggests that we should keep it simple as too many images will confuse the reader.

From my experience, when a reader looks at a book, the cover is generally designed with one or two strong images that the reader’s eye moves back and forth over. My experience as a photographer says that too many images make the reader’s eye keep bouncing from image to image and never really come to rest so the cover never really gains a focus for the reader. As a result, they don’t know where to look.

3. How do we convey mood? For mystery? For Fantasy? Horror? Etc.

The best way to really understand book covers for each genre is to study recently published books to see what the genre is doing. You can decide then, whether to follow their lead. This holds true especially for bestsellers.

4. How do we judge when a cover is too dark or too light?

If it’s readable, it’s fine. That usually means there must be sufficient contrast between the image and the text.

5. Are there specific graphic design elements to keep in mind?

1-3-9- rule image — The 1/3/9 guideline. The placement on the page does not have to be in exactly this position.

In graphic design there is a 1/3/9 rule for division of a picture. They can be in any order (meaning you can change placement around the cover).

When designing your cover, create a graphic image with cover dimensions and three bands of those proportions, and compare it to your cover. See if the title/author name and main image are in the 3 and 9 proportions. The 1 proportion can be a secondary image or a blurb. This isn’t an absolute rule, but it’s a good guideline.

6. What is a good process to use to come out with a reasonable cover?

Select a cover image and choose a font for the title and author. Lay those out on the page. Then tweak the text color for contrast and at the same time harmonize it with the other colors. Add a blurb or subtitle last.

When choosing the cover image, consider using elements from the book as that will please the author and the readers. Iconic images are best: things that will immediately raise an idea in the viewer’s mind. If the cover concept is complicated to describe, it probably won’t read well on a cover.

7. Are there specific programs you recommend for developing a cover?

A good graphics program that will let you build a layered image. Many people use Photoshop.

A couple of other points to consider come from readers I’ve spoken to and my own experience:

A cover with a photograph may not go over as well as something more artistic or illustrative.
For authors who can’t afford Photoshop or something like it, covers have been successfully developed using only PowerPoint.
When positioning a picture on the page, consider the strongest elements and where they should be to draw the reader’s eye. Photographers know the rule of thirds – that each picture can be divided into thirds horizontally and vertically. The best place to put major elements is near where those horizontal and vertical lines intersect, because that is where a viewer’s eye naturally goes.
Finally, always consider what image will sell. By this I mean, what image has the best chance of getting people’s attention. Case in point are the two covers here. The one with the feather was my first cover. Then I realized that stories with dragons on the cover (and this story actually has one) probably sell better. Well duh!

So cover two came into being. That’s the nice thing about this electronic world- we can try things out and find what works.

Just remember, these are design guidelines, not rules. So keeping all these thoughts in mind, what are some of your favorite covers and how do they meet these guidelines—or not.

And to keep my reader happy, I’m considering changing the color of Judas Kiss. What do you think? Which one would you choose?

: Color 2

Branding Your Books: Having a ‘Look’

By Karen Abrahamson | June 18, 2011

Angelina Jolie has her Bardot lips, while Jennifer Aniston has her girl-next-door appeal. You pick up a James Patterson novel and you can tell it’s a thriller, while Urban Fantasy has a leather-clad woman on the cover. Each of these are examples of having a look, or a trademark, whether of a person, a novelist or a genre. For indie publishers, you need to consider what is the ‘look’ of your books.

Part of your look will depend on what type of book you are publishing, because each genre seems to have style conventions. I mentioned the urban fantasy trope of the leather clad woman, and the cliché for romance is the bare-chested hero rescuing the damsel in distress (thankfully this isn’t the case anymore), but establishing a look for your books is more than the cover art.

Why is this important? Because readers come to recognize books with a similar look and if they liked the last one they read, they are more likely to pick up the next. While readers often don’t pay attention to who the publisher is, they know when the books have a similar look. They also come to expect certain authors to have a certain look to their books. As a result, when a Publisher goes through a rebranding of an author, there is often confusion for readers about which book of that author they have read. How many times have I picked up a book thinking it was a new title by a favored author, only to find it was one I’d read, but released in a different cover. Readers remember covers and are attracted to them. Thus we need to use covers to convey who we (the book and the author) are.

To talk about Branding I thought it might be best to look at some examples of books recently put out by indie publishing authors:

Spirit Dance is an award winning fantasy from Canadian Author Douglas Smith. He has been published through Lucky Bat Books, an independent e-publisher. Smith’s Books have been packaged with a similar look that any reader would recognize. Each of them have the Author’s name in large print at the bottom of the cover, with the title in relatively small print in a narrow black strip across the waist of the cover. This strip acts either as a division between two related images, or as a division in the one main picture. Alternatively the covers have a very simple, single image that conveys a feeling about the books’ content. Most of the covers also use photographs rather than illustrations and all have an other-worldly feel about them, which is good given that Smith is known for his fantasy writing. This use of the specific graphic elements – the title band, the faded-towards-transparent author name, and the same placement of any award notifications on the covers all provide a combination of easily recognizable cues that this is a ‘Smith book’.

Eternally Grounded is a fantasy story from Camden Park Press. Camden Park publishes across a number of genres including fantasy and science fiction, but all of the books have something in common, namely the italicized logo, Camden Park Press, somewhere on the cover, so you always know you are getting a book from that publisher. In the best of worlds, there would be consistency of placement of the logo as well, but design sometimes requires this type of thing be moved. Structurally, within the Camden Park family of books, those by Elizabeth Ann Pierce also have a commonality of the author’s name being set off in a neutral band at the bottom. If used in all the Pierce books that can become an easily recognizable standard for this author.

Downhill Rush is one title in a line of books from Fiero Press. Terri Darling is one of the authors who specializes in romance. If you look at the cover, the publisher has passed on a logo, but has used layout and color to show a common line of books. In this instance most of the Terri Darling books have a valentine-red border at the top with the author’s name and the tag line “Where the action is hot and the romance is hotter”, in a consistent, easy to read font that puts the author front and center . Does the tag line sound a little sexy and a lot hot? Does it tell a reader what they’ve got? With this memorable little tag line and the familiar look of these books, it won’t be a surprise if these books sell well once the author is established.

The Nara Effect is a Science Fiction book from Matthew Lieber Buchman. Matt has a line of books that cross genres, but there is a similar look to most of them, so you know you have a Buchman book. Across the books, the covers have a consistent upper and lower border with a consistent placement of the Author’s name and title. The central cover art section of the cover often uses a montage of images out of the book and the blurb usually is placed right at the top. Again the reader is going to know they have a Buchman book, and just to be certain of that, on the back of each novel Buchman has placed a knife, a Samurai Sword or some other sharp-bladed object diagonally across the back cover blurb. This is unique and memorable and I can see people describing them as ‘the knife book brand’.

The last of the books I’m examining comes from best-selling e-book Thriller author, Joshua Graham. His cover for Beyond Justice follows the tropes of many thrillers. It has the emphasis on name of a ‘big name’, best-selling author. It has the black band at the top for the author’s name to stand out in and the cover image is clean and simple with this cover focused on the primary character. This similar layout is present in many of his other publications, but the focus here is on NAME. He has made himself a brand, just as Clive Cussler, and James Patterson have made themselves brands, though not at their level yet.

So the look or brand is layout and font and logo and feel. This means that in establishing your brand it’s helpful to:

Chose something that you can present consistently on the cover of your books. This could be a logo, a tag line or even the name of the Author.
Consider whether your approach is to have a collage of images or a single strong image. This can be used consistently across all your books so that your Brand either has complex or minimalist covers, both of which are used in ‘traditional’ publishing.
Be consistent in format. If you are using bands of text, use the same type of band across all your books. If you use a specific font for your books and a brand is important, use that font consistently. If you are going to include a tag line or logo, position them consistently on the cover.
Think about whether color can be used to show consistent branding.
Think about how you are trying to position yourself or your books and your genre. If you are writing/publishing big thrillers, then use a thriller format for the covers. If you are writing/publishing epic fantasy, it will be something totally different, than if you are writing/publishing sweet romance. So go study the covers in your genre and see what you can come up with as cues for readers regarding your brand.

So creating a brand can include combinations of graphic elements that build a ‘look’. When you are creating your brand, try out various combinations to see what works best.

I’d be interested in seeing or hearing about what others are doing to establish their brand of books. Now I’d better go do some branding of my own.

Prepping for the Market

By Karen Abrahamson | June 5, 2011

This post is on preparing your novel/story for the e-market. I’m not talking about the formatting required to put a novel on Amazon or Smashwords, I’m talking about what you need to do after you complete the manuscript, but before you begin the Smashwords or Amazon process. To make this of the most value to the most people, I encourage readers to please share what you’ve found worked for you.

Editing –

Of course you edit. We all learned to do this before we sent a manuscript to the traditional publishing world, but the stakes are a little different in the indie-e-publishing world. In the traditional publishing model, writers sent the best manuscript they could manage to an editor and it was that editor’s task to make sure that the book was the best it could be before it went out into the world for readers to see.

In this new world of indie publishing, the writer is selling directly to the reader, and thus ensuring the book is ‘the best it can be’ is now the writer’s job. Sure, we all say our manuscripts are the best they can be, but if you talk to writers who have been through traditional publishing they will tell you things like ‘the editor didn’t just pick up on things I’d missed, they saw the possibilities I had failed to explore’.

Editors are the ones who suggest to writers that their manuscript would be better if they shifted points of view. Editors are the ones who point out, for a second book in a series, that you’ve changed from writing a romantic thriller to just writing a mystery. Why is this important? Because the readers who loved the first book in a series are going to be expecting the thriller in the second book.

So editors are our friend and we writers becoming indie publishers need to find a way to overcome the lack of an editor. This means that writers have to develop new skills and resources.

Not only must the writer complete their usual editing process, but they must also go one step further to ensure their book is ready for the reader. This means that the writer must cultivate first and second readers for their books. These readers need to have the skills to not only read for proofing, they need to read for things like (and this isn’t a complete list):

Opening hook,
logic,
plot,
character arc and consistency,
consistency (e.g. character with blue eyes on page one, must have blue eyes on page 300), and
whether the book fulfills its promise and the promise of the series.

Sometimes this can be accomplished through a critique group, but in my experience most critique groups are not at a level to critique a book in this way unless they are professional writers. If you do have access to a reader like this, whether they be a librarian/spouse, or a writer friend, cultivate them and listen to them like they’re gold and treat them very well. If it’s another writer, trade reading/editing with them. We can all use a friend with those skills.

If this option isn’t available, then an alternative is to pay an editor. No, I don’t mean going to one of the author service agencies I mentioned here, because they often expect to sell you a package of other services along with the editing. Nor am I talking about the services of a book doctor who might keep you revising your manuscript for years.

But there are other services out there. For example, Lucky Bat Books offers complete editorial and other services based on what the writer is looking for. Or check within your local writing community for writers who also provide editing services on a fee-for-service basis. Fee for Service means that you agree on the task and a price before the ‘editor’ provides the services and they DO NOT receive any royalties from your work. This is important as it could be a nightmare for the indie publisher to have to provide royalty payments and statements to an editor.

While this service will cost you, it pays in the long run. You’ll provide a professionally edited product to your readers, rather than alienating them due to numerous errors in the manuscript. Finally, even though your editor will provide you with a proofed copy and editorial comment, this doesn’t mean that you don’t still have to provide the manuscript one more read-through to make sure the manuscript is clean. Even after having one of my manuscripts well-edited, I found a continuity error no one else had picked up on.

Covers –

Lady of Ashuelot — Lady of Aushuelot (2010) Twisted Root Publishing

The bane of my existence and very important, because covers are (unless you are a known author) one of the most important ways to draw potential readers’ attention. I’ll discuss what makes a good cover in a future blog, but here I wanted to mention the importance of this and that you need to take the time to put a cover together. For e-publications, the easiest program for this is PowerPoint. You can change the slide size to 6-9 and then create a cover using photographs found on line and graphics provided by the program.

PowerPoint created all of my existing e-book covers using photographs either I had taken or that were available royalty free or free on the internet. If you are going to create your cover yourself, consider what you’ve written and what are strong images contained in your book. Go to bookstores or on line and check out the covers of the books that are in your genre. Often there are style conventions (some might say clichés) for the covers. For instance, Urban Fantasy often has the main female character in black leather standing before something indicative of the story setting. When you are designing covers, start well before you want to publish so that you can try different cover possibilities and get friend’s reactions. I had a cover designed for me and was pleased with it, but when a friend’s daughter saw it (and she was my target demographic) she just shrugged and said it ‘looked like a photo’. Back to the drawing board.

The alternative to creating covers yourself is seeking a cover artist. To find such a beast you can look at covers you admire and try contacting the artist, but this can cost many hundreds (or thousands) of dollars. The alternative is to look for graphic artists who are just starting out. This can be through your local art school or college and can give you the opportunity to work closely with the artist to sort out your vision. Like with editorial services, you want to conduct business on a fee for service basis so that the artist isn’t expecting ongoing royalties for the cover. Definitely set this out in writing.

If you are going with a graphic designer, make sure you give yourself enough lead time before your planned publication. Often preparing a cover can take an artist at least a few weeks, so while you’re doing your editorial reviews, get busy with the cover, too..

So like I said, creating a cover isn’t something you should do last minute. You spent a long time writing a book. You want it to sell. Spend the time to make sure your cover helps.

Blurb –

The blurb is what, in traditional publishing, you would find on the back of the book. In e-publishing, this is the description you’ll read on Amazon or Smashwords or Barnes and Noble that tells you what the book is about.

Let me emphasize that: It tells you what the book is about.

It should be short. It should be snappy and it should catch readers attention and make them go: “I’ve GOT to read this.”

It should not give you a detailed look at the plot or the back story. I’ll talk more about blurbs in a future post, but suffice it to say that if you are starting to think about Indie publishing, start seriously reading the backs of books now. Start to get a sense of how blurbs hook you and try out those techniques for your book.

So what do you do to get ready to publish? How do you make sure your book is edited properly and what have you learned about producing a book cover or blurb, that might help the rest of us?