8 Cover Design Tips for Self-Publishers

Since good book covers help sell books, wouldn't it be great if a professional gave us newbies some tips? Joel Friedlander has done just that in his article, Top 8 Cover Design Tips for Self-Publishers.

He writes:

1. Establish a principal focus for the cover—Nothing is more important. Your book is about something, and the cover ought to reflect that one idea clearly.

One element that takes control, that commands the overwhelming majority of attention, of space, of emphasis on the cover. Don’t fall into the trap of loading up your cover with too many elements, 3 or 4 photos, illustrations, maps, “floating” ticket stubs.

You could think of your book cover like a billboard, trying to catch the attention of browsers as they speed by. Billboards usually have 6 words or less. You have to “get it” at 60 miles per hour, in 3 to 5 seconds.

A book cover ought to do the same thing. At a glance your prospect ought to know;

- the genre of your book,
- the general subject matter or focus, and
- some idea of the tone or “ambiance” of the book.

Is it a thriller? A software manual? A memoir of your time in Fiji? Your ideas on reform of the monetary system? Each of these books needs a cover that tells at a glance what the book is about.

2. Make everything count—If you are going to introduce a graphic element, make sure it helps you communicate with the reader.

3. Use the background—Avoid white backgrounds, which will disappear on retailer’s white screens. Use a color, a texture, or a background illustration instead.

4. Make your title large—Reduce your cover design on screen to the size of a thumbnail on Amazon and see if you can read it. Can you make out what it’s about? If not, simplify.

5. Use a font that’s easy to read—See above. There’s no sense using a font that’s unreadable when it’s radically reduced. Particularly watch out for script typefaces, the kind that look lacy and elegant at full size. They often disappear when small.

6. Find images that clarify—Try not to be too literal. Look for something that expresses the mood, historical period, or overall tone of the book; provide a context.

7. Stay with a few colors—If you don’t feel comfortable picking colors, look at some of the color palettes available online to get a selection of colors that will work well together.

8. Look at lots of great book covers—You may not be able to mimic all their techniques, but the best book covers are tremendous sources of inspiration and fresh ideas.

Excellent points! Read Joel's entire blog post here.

Also check out his more recent article, How to Reinvent a Book with a New Book Cover.

Good luck with those covers!

Kristine Rusch: Should writers be compared with abused spouses?

Writing is challenging regardless of whether you're going the traditional route or are independent. Many of us have been told since we were toddlers that we couldn't make a living as a writer. Not only are we not good enough, but there is just no money to be made. If you are stubborn and persevere, it only gets worse.

Kristine Rusch writes:

Last week in her blog, writer Sarah Hoyt compared writers to battered spouses. She says that some of what she hears from writers reminds her of the reasons battered spouses stay with their abusers. I have to admit, I’ve had that same thought myself, but I’ve never written a blog post about it because it seems too simple.

Writers do react badly to any suggestions for change, from leaving an agent who is clearly no longer interested in working for them to staying with a publisher even as the publisher’s contracts and advances get worse. But I think the way that writers act has a lot more to do with crisis response than with abuse.

The writers who stay in the business become survivors. “Survivor” is an interesting word because it implies that the survivor went through something traumatic. Indeed, my handy dandy Encarta World English Dictionary defines the word “survive” as managing to stay alive “especially in difficult situations” or “after something such as an accident or war that threatens life.”

Read Kristine Rusch's entire article here: The Business Rusch: Fighting Uphill.

Joe Konrath: Paper books are going the way of the 8-track

Joe Konrath just got rid of about 300 paper books, books he never thought he would part with. Why did he?

Joe writes:

You got rid of your 8-track tapes, and floppy disks, and Betamax. You got rid of your Razr and bought a smart phone. You threw out the tube TV and went with an HD flatscreen. You sold your Atari 2600 at a garage sale for $5, and now play Wii with your family.

The new tech replaces the old tech. Books are just more of the same.

You may not believe me. You may think you'll take your paper books with you to the grave.

Do me a favor, and bookmark this page. Look at it again in 18 months.

You'll see I was right.

Joe's blog post is short and thought provoking: Digital Me.

Elizabeth S. Craig: The First Draft Is Supposed To Be A Disaster

Elizabeth S. Craig, author of Progressive Dinner Deadly, Pretty is as Pretty Dies, among others, has written a wonderful blog post on how to be productive entitled, appropriately, Perfectionism and Productivity.

Elizabeth writes:

I’ve always been pretty good about resisting perfectionism during first drafts. That’s because I’d never get anywhere with a book if I tried to make it perfect as I went. The first draft is supposed to be a disaster. I don’t look at what I wrote the day before, just end my writing time with a quick cheat sheet to tell me where I left off and where I need to pick up.

Read the rest of her article here: Perfectionism and Productivity.

Milton Bagby talks about recording an audiobook

I've been flirting with the idea of recording Until Death as an audiobook and, somewhere along this process, discovered Milton Bagby who is not only an author and actor but a recorder of audiobooks. Milton took the time to talk to me about making an audiobook and I thought his response deserved a larger audience so, with his kind permission, I'm posting it here. :)

Hello, Karen --

Thanks for asking about how one converts a novel to an audiobook. I personally do not have any audio equipment. I am an old radio and voiceover hand who has done about a jillion commercials and other narration work over the years, but I am not a techie. I am also something of an actor and am a graduate of the Hormel School of Drama. This helps when doing audiobooks.

I am fortunate to live in Nashville, where every other resident has a state-of-the-art recording studio in his basement and is personal friends with Tim McGraw, or wishes they were. I do all my work with a friend who has just such a studio. When we get an assignment, we split the proceeds down the middle.

My friend Bryan Talbot at Talbot Sound is a veteran of twenty years of audio production, so our work goes fairly smoothly, We average about one hour of finished audiobook for every two hours in the studio. In other words, it takes about twenty hours to produce an audiobook that is ten hours long. If you work alone, it takes much longer, because you have to record, then edit your own work. If you are new to editing, it takes even longer.

We have recently started doing projects for Amazon's Audible division on the ACX site. They pay us, at a minimum, $100 per finished hour to do audiobooks. No matter how long it takes us, we get the same fee per completed hour, so it is to our benefit to finish quickly. A 10 hour book pays $1,000, and so forth. As a rule of thumb, 10,000 words translates into an hour of material, so a 60,000 word book might be roughly 6 hours long. For a job like that, we charge $600, but we often make more with big authors and big publishers. We also have a select list of guys who don't sound like me and some topnotch female narrators who can do books in need of a woman's point of view. The work we produce is at the highest technical standard for the industry (my talents aside). Anyone interested in our work can hear samples by searching "Bagby" at Audible.com under the "Narrators" search option.

I have blogged about the process of audiobooks at my blog, and I'm always happy to answer questions.

If you are adventurous and have an appetite for great labor, you can record your own book. Some people have been very successful at it. The most notable do-it-yourselfer is Nathan Lowell, who is a sci-fi writer whose books, including "Quarter Share" have all been done as podcasts sent out for free. This has netted Nathan a huge following and helped sell a ton of his books.

To record your own books, you need a decent microphone, a quiet room (no traffic noises, airplanes overhead, railroad trains outside, dogs barking, etc.), a computer with some decent storage space, and an interface like a Digidesign M-box. Here's a kit that has mostly everything you need. The M-box includes the software that lets you edit your recordings. If you are technically inclined, you will find this to be a fun challenge. If you are not, you will liken it to the Bataan Death March.

Do you have any friends who are musicians or who have a recording set-up? You might see if they will go along with you, if you plan to be the voice of your own book. Otherwise, you might post your book to the Amazon/Audible ACX site as a "share" project, in which you offer 50% of all the revenue if someone will do your book for free. Your audiobook will be offered on Audible, with the Kindle and CreateSpace versions cross-marketed on Amazon. Might be worth investigating.

Hope this explains some of the things involved. If you have more questions, please send them along. Best of luck.

Thanks Milton! I like knowing what's available for the independent author. I think that releasing an audobook version of a book could be a great way to get new readers.

Here are some links:
- Milton's Blog
- Milton's Book, Before I Sleep
- Milton's Email
- Milton's Facebook

Dean Wesley Smith: The Best Price For Ebooks

Dean Wesley Smith is well-known for his view that the best price for ebooks isn't 99 cents, it's not even $2.99. He believes that, all things being equal, the best price for ebooks is $4.99. He writes:

I did this post originally in November of 2010. And at the end of this post I said that everything was up in the air and I might change my mind in six months on the price structure. Well, nope. In fact, I am more firm on the price structure of $4.99 for novels than I ever was.

And now I have ten more months data on how that structure works and trust me, it works great.

That said, I have zero problem with loss leader pricing, if, and only if, the writer has some other books to advertise. For example, if a writer has a five book series up, it would make great sense to lower the price of the first novel down to $2.99 and maybe do some give-aways as well of that novel.

Everyone has an opinion on this pricing stuff. My focus is what will get readers a fair value and make the writer a working wage at the same time.

Even though I've priced my book, Until Death, at 99 cents, I think that Dean makes a lot of great points. His blog post is well worth the read.

The Secret to Selling Books: Getting Sticky

What is the Stickiness Factor?

The Stickiness Factor says that there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a difference in how much of an impact it makes.
- Kristen Lamb quoting Malcom Gladwell

Kristen Lamb, in her post The Secret to Selling Books Part I, writes:

The Stickiness Factor not only applies to our social media message, it applies to who we are as writer personalities. It also applies to our books. Nailing what I will call The Sticky Author Triumvirate is key to publishing success. We need to get sticky on all three to have the best odds of reaching the tipping point.

Let’s take a look at The Sticky Author Triumvirate:

1. Get sticky with social media messages.
Kristen writes:

What can make people care? Care about them first. Just talking to people can go a long way to making a sale. People buy from who they know and who they LIKE. Stand apart from all the takers and learn to give.

For instance,

Yes, most of us love writing, but we love other things too. We need to extend ourselves and simply start talking to people. We have to learn to be unselfish. Stop demanding that others connect with us via OUR interests–books, craft, writing–and take initiative. We need to find the common ground and extend ourselves and connect where the potential READER feels comfortable.

Surely you have friends, family or coworkers on Facebook who are not writers. Who are they talking to? Who are their friends? Start poaching (befriending) normal people and talk to them. If you meet a pet lover on Twitter who works as an engineer and he is nice? Look at who his friends are and extend yourself. Hey, I am a pal of Jim’s. Thought I would say hello. (DO NOT pitch to them, just talk and be cool).

Just once a day make it a point to add non-writers who are active on social media to your network. Pay attention to them and start a dialogue. Be genuine and positive, and that will be STICKY. People crave attention and positive energy.

2. We need to be sticky writer personalities. Get out and mingle with non-writers.
Kristen writes:

As long as we are all hanging out with other writers we blend into the din. But, if we start talking to other people who love sports, parenting, knitting, the military, politics, animals, horses, celebrities, then we are now injecting ourselves into groups that are not comprised of people just like us. We stand out so we are a bit more “sticky.”

Pick a favorite channel on cable TV, a favorite show, or a video game, and I guarantee there is a Twitter # for it. Start talking to people who love #Lost or #AI, #Glee, #ESPN, #Oprah, #Ellen, #Halo #GoW. Profile your potential reader. What does she do with her day? Maybe she is a #teacher or she plays #WOW. Get creative and get out of that comfort zone.

3. Write sticky books. Don't be polite, be passionate.
Kristen writes:

It is not enough for someone to buy our book. They must also love it so much that they can’t wait to tell someone, recommend our book or even buy a gift copy for a pal. THIS is how word of mouth wildfires get started.

Read the rest of Kristen's article here: The Secret to Selling Books Part I–Let’s Get Sticky

Dean Wesley Smith: The secret of making it as a professional writer

Dean Wesley Smith gives Heinlein's Rules of Writing:

1. You must write.

2. You must finish what you start.

3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.

4. You must put it on the market.

5. You must keep it on the market until sold.”

Then he said, “The above five rules really have more to do with how to write fiction [...] but they are amazingly hard to follow — which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I am not afraid to give away the racket!”

I found these rules and followed them when I got serious about writing in 1982. So did my wife before I knew her. So did so many more of my successful writer friends.

As Heinlein said, the rules are amazingly hard to follow.

And for those of you who are looking for a secret to making it as a professional writer, Heinlein put it right out there in 1947. And it hasn’t changed, unlike most everything else in this business.

Read more of Dean's article here: Heinlein's Business Rules

Joe Konrath: Why Writers Shouldn't Care

You shouldn't care about people liking you. Praise is like candy. It tastes good, but it isn't good for us.
- Joe Konrath, Not Caring

This is why I like Joe Konrath's writing: Not only is it snappy, but there's something behind it. ... Not, of course, that Joe cares what I think!

He continues:

The world is filled with a wide variety of people. But only a few of them should really matter to you. The rest are just white noise. They can amuse. But don't give them more power than that.

One of the greatest journeys in life is overcoming insecurity and learning to truly not give a shit.

But don't take my word for it. My opinion shouldn't matter to you at all.

Great advice! To read the entire article, go here.

Kurt Vonnegut on the shapes of stories

Master storyteller Kurt Vonnegut once gave a talk in which he discussed the different shapes stories can have; it's funny. Here is the video.

The video is only a portion of Vonnegut's talk but this transcript gives the entire thing.

Since we're talking about Kurt Vonnegut and writing, here are his rules for writing:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things —- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Kurt Vonnegut goes on to say:

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.

I would give you a link to where I got these rules but I printed them out years ago and keep them the sheet tacked above my writing desk.