Indie Publishers, What You Need to Know About Book Covers

Indie publishers, think of your book's cover as the most important page of your book. Why? Because it might be the only one a potential customer will see.

People say you shouldn't judge a book by the cover, because that’s exactly what we all do. We judge books by their covers. Your story might be amazing, but if your cover doesn’t grab a reader’s attention, that reader will pick another book over yours.

That’s why you should try to make your cover the best that it can be, and unless you're a professional designer, that means hiring one.

When you’re sick, you go to a doctor.

When you have legal problems, you call a lawyer.

Yet, it’s amazing how many indie publishers choose to design their own covers.

It’s true that you can. You can also diagnose and treat your own illnesses, and you can be that proverbial idiot who has himself for a lawyer. People do things that aren’t in their own best interests all the time. Sometimes they do it to save money, but more often than not they do it because they think they can.

Our mothers told us, “You can be anything you want to be.” And that’s true.

But to be as good as those who have more knowledge and experience than you, you have to work for it.

You can’t tell yourself, “I want to be a doctor,” put on scrubs, and then start operating on people. You can’t tell yourself, “I want to be a lawyer,” put on a suit, and then start representing clients in a courtroom. You have to learn the profession first. And I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be a doctor’s first patient or a lawyer’s first client. I would want a doctor or a lawyer with experience.

Smart writers know what they can and cannot do, and they hire people to do the things they can’t. J.A. Konrath and John Locke hire cover designers, and it shows. Their books look good, and so do their sales.

Shot of Tequila by J.A. Konrath

The Love You Crave by John Locke

What do these covers have that many other covers of books put out by indie publishers don’t?

• Clear, legible text--You'd think this would be a no-brainer, but I've seen so many covers with titles that couldn't be read once they were shrunk down to the postage-stamp size they appear in the Kindle store. It's not enough that the title of your book is legible on your book's page. The title also has to be legible when the cover of your book is shown super tiny alongside the covers of other books on Amazon search page.

• The simplicity of the design--Each cover contains just one element that pulls focus. With Konrath's book, it's the glass of tequila. With Locke's book, it's the girl's body and legs. You know right away what you're supposed to be looking at. There's only one text type in Konrath's cover, while Locke's has two (although it probably would have been better with just one).

• Everything fits the book’s title--The book entitled Shot of Tequila shows a shot of tequila. Look closely at the glass, and you see two guns. Clearly "shot" has two meanings here. The red of the cover makes you think of something hot and spicy, maybe even dangerous. The only fault I can find with Locke's cover is the font selection. The title appears to be in Comic Sans, which is one of the most overused fonts, and it isn't very sexy. But there's no denying that cover is saying this book is about the love you crave, a beautiful, sexy, red-hot kind of love.

• Emotional response--Both books use red to imply something hot. Konrath's cover conveys something exciting. There are guns in it, and the word "shot." Someone is going to get shot. Don't you want to know who, how, and why? Locke's cover screams craving for hot romance.

• Color balance--these covers use very few colors--just reds, yellows, and darker and lighter variations of those two colors-- which makes it much easier to achieve harmony, balance, and a unified message. Too many colors create what is known in the newspaper business as the "Carmen Miranda" affect, after the singer known for her colorful fruit-covered hats. Yet too many indie publishers think the more colors a cover has, the better. You also don't want to go too far in the opposite direction. Black-and-white is fine for interior pages, but you should put some color on your cover. Just one element of color can be very powerful. Like the red apple on the almost black-and-white cover of Twilight. That single element of color really pops. (The Twilight cover works for other reasons, which I hope to cover in a future article.)

• Flow--Flow is all about where your eye is drawn and where it goes from there. See the way the curve on J.A. Konrath's name mimics the curve of the rim of the glass? See the way it acts like the bottom of the glass or maybe light shining through it? That really makes you pay extra attention to the glass, which is important, because that makes you notice the two hidden guns. And look how everything in John Locke's cover is pointing to... You get the picture.

I've designed close to 100 magazine and newspaper covers, but I wouldn't have been given that first job if I didn't have the education and hadn't proven that I knew what I was doing in that newsweekly's layout department and as its illustrator. My editor wouldn't have let me design the most important page of his magazine if I was just some person who woke up that morning and said, “I want to be a magazine cover designer.”

So unless you have a design background yourself, hire a professional who does.

In a future article, I plan to explain how to choose and work with a book cover designer. Stay tuned.


BOTTOM LINE: Smart indie publishers know what they can and can’t do, and they know they need to hire people to handle the things they can’t, like designing their own cover.


What about you? Which books have covers that you think really stand out? What made them stand out? What do you think of the covers of indie book in general?

Writers, How Do You Find the Diamond In the Rough Draft?

As I'm working on editing Toren the Teller’s Tale, I’m reminded of an old joke:

How do you become a millionaire?

Step one: get a million dollars. . . .

Becoming a great author is a little like that. Step one: write a great book. But it’s also a little different, because that really is just the first step. After that comes editing, usually lots and lots of editing. 

Some writers hate editing, but I actually love it. I love fixing stuff, and that’s what editing is all about: fixing your current draft to make it so much better. 

A recent Twitter chat for writers asked, “How do you know when your manuscript is ready?” My answer is that it’s never ready, because you never stop growing as a writer. Tomorrow you’ll probably learn something you didn’t know today. But at some point you have to say, “This is the best I can do right now,” and that’s when you send it out into the world. 

You could always hire a good freelance editor or book doctor: someone with a better understanding of what sells and years of experience at a traditional publishing house. But you can’t really learn from your own mistakes if you have someone else fix them for you. And you do want to learn. You want to be able to see the things an editor would fix, so you can fix them yourself or avoid them altogether. Here are some tips to get you started:

12 Tips for Polishing Your Novel

1. Learn to read analytically. Read a lot of books in your chosen genre. Ask yourself what you like and what you don’t like, where your attention is grabbed and where it lags, and what the author is doing to make you feel these things. It’s okay not to like something popular or even a classic. The only thing you need to figure out is why you feel this way. Then you can apply what you’ve learned to your own writing. Because if you don’t like that it took the writer three chapters to get his story started, why would another reader like that in your book? You can also analyze other forms of storytelling, like movies or TV shows. Ask yourself why something was done and how it affects you, the audience. Then ask how you can apply that to your writing. 

2. Read books on writing, style, and self-editing. The two I think every novelist should have are Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Browne and King, and The Elements of Style (4th Edition) by Strunk and White. The Elements of Style is the simplest, cheapest, and shortest book on things like punctuation and syntax; but if you find it too dry, some writers prefer Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Truss, which is longer but more entertaining. The Chicago Manual of Style is considered the best style book, but it’s expensive. The Associated Press Stylebook is cheaper and a good alternative. Some rules differ from book to book, so whichever style choice you make, be consistent. I also recommend The Comic Toolbox by Vorhaus and by Maass for tips on how to write a compelling story.

3. Join a critique group. Once you’ve internalized all you’ve learned from analyzing stories and reading books on writing--and you’ve applied that to your work--your manuscript should be ready for a critique group. Of course, that doesn’t mean you are. It can be hard to hear what others think of your precious baby. But you do need to develop an emotional distance from your own writing. Remember that you didn’t write your book for you; you wrote it for your potential readers. A critique group is your chance to see it from a reader’s perspective. Don’t respond to a critique, except to say thank you, and do ask questions in a non-confrontational way if the critique isn’t clear. Never forget that it’s your story, and only you can make changes to it. Use the advice that resonates with you, and forget the rest. Another great thing about joining a critique group is that it lets you hone your analytical skills. I think I’ve learned more in critiquing the works of others than I have in getting my own work critiqued. If you can’t find a spot in a good critique group, you can always create your own. That’s what I did. I advertised online on the SCBWI boards, and my critique group, the Fantasyweavers, was born. Most writers’ conferences also offer professional critiques for a fee. If you’re lucky, it could be the best thing about going to a conference.

4. Aim for clarity above all else. Writing is a form of communication. If you aren’t clear, you haven’t successfully communicated what it is you wanted to say. Rewrite it. Don’t write in an effort to impress the reader with your literary prowess. Keep it clear, simple and focused, and your reader will get what it is you’re trying to say.

5. Establish visuals early on and keep them consistent. As a reader, I hate to have to erase the image I’ve already painted in my mind because the writer failed to tell me something twenty pages earlier. I once read a book where I thought one character was white, only to discover in the next book in the series (yes, an entire book later!) that he was Chinese. This is true for characters and settings. Think of it like a movie, and start with an establishing shot. Let the reader ground himself in your story. It doesn’t have to be detailed, but if you let the reader fill in the blanks early on, don’t fill them in for him later in the story.

6. Make sure you have a beginning, middle, and end. Is there a hook on the first page, something the reader needs to know and won’t find out unless he reads the book? Do you raise the stakes in the proceeding chapters by giving the main character more obstacles to what he or she wants to get, obstacles that are related to whatever the hook or central conflict is, not just random obstacles that have nothing to do with them? Is the resolution of the story’s central conflict satisfying, and does that resolution come from the main character’s own choices and actions?  It doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but it does have to be a resolution that puts an end to whatever the central conflict was. Romeo and Juliet ends with the main characters dead. You can’t have a more final resolution than that.

7. Kill your darlings. Some writers think this means you should kill off your favorite characters, but that’s not it at all. Everything has to be in your story for a reason. It has to move the story forward, set the mood, and/or give readers a deeper understanding of your characters. “Your darlings” refers to stuff you’re proud you wrote because it’s just so well written. If doesn’t have a reason to be in your story beyond being pretty, cut it out. Doesn’t matter if it’s single word, a paragraph, a chapter, or even a character (very often multiple characters carry out duties that could be better carried out by just one), cut it out. And if it really is that great, put it aside. Maybe someday you’ll write a story where it does move the story forward, set the mood, and/or give readers a deeper understanding of your characters. Put these darlings in that story, but not here.

8. Be flexible. A recent article in Popular Science pointed out that, since the Rosetta Stone, writing has become less and less permanent. We’re now writing in virtual clouds, for goodness sakes! It was a lot harder to change your words hundreds of years ago when it had to be written by hand on very expensive paper. Now it couldn’t be easier to do it on your computer. Try to think like an Improv actor. Sure, you wrote your scene this way, but what if you wrote it that way? When I was editing Why My Love Life Sucks: The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, I often wrote several versions of different scenes so I could choose the best one. I would then move the other version into Word’s comments section, so I never really lost anything. (My daughter likes reading this version of the novel, which she calls the one with the “outtakes.”) Sometimes I’ll use the comments section to write down ideas for changes while I’m still writing the first draft.  It’s better than losing them because I didn’t write them down right away.  Give it a try. It could make your story a lot better, and you have nothing to lose, so why not?
 

 A “Scenes From a Hat” game from the Improv show Whose Line Is It, Anyway?

9. Make everything in your story matter. This isn’t the same as killing your darlings, although it might seem like it. This is about adding depth and meaning to the things that are moving your story forward, setting the scene, or revealing your characters. So how do you do this? I’ve found the best way is by making everything matter to your main character. If it matters to him or her, it will matter to the reader. There’s a huge difference between just any old rag doll and a rag doll your fifteen-year-old main character hugs when she’s lonely because it’s the best friend she’s ever had.

10. Show, don’t tell . . . except when it’s better to tell. Many beginning writers go a little overboard on the whole “show don’t tell” thing. There are times to tell and times to show. The important thing is to know when to do which. If your character is having an important discussion with another character, that’s a good time to show. If your character then goes home, eats dinner, goes to bed, wakes up when the alarm clock rings, eats breakfast, and does a lot of stuff that really doesn’t matter, that’s a good time to tell. “. . . she said, and then she turned around and walked away. The next day . . .” Bam, right into the next thing that matters. That’s the way to do it.

11. Follow all the rules? Um, no. This is related to show don’t tell, but it’s not just that. I think writers have to know the “rules,” because only in knowing the rules can you break them with good reason. One of the “rules” that drives me nuts is the one regarding incomplete sentences. Incomplete sentences can be very powerful in the right situations. The same goes for starting a sentence with a conjunction. There’s a difference between “Ashley looked up at the towering Ferris wheel” and “The Ferris wheel towered over Ashley. She looked up. And up. And up.” The latter gives you a better sense of how overwhelmed Ashley feels by how tall the Ferris wheel is.

12. Once you’re done, put it in a drawer for a month. Then go over the whole thing again, hopefully with more distance and a better, more objective perspective. Read it out loud. (After all, if it ever becomes an audio book, someone will have to read it out loud.) If you have text-to-speech software you can use, or you can transfer your book to your Kindle and listen to it, you should. Sometimes you’ll be able to hear things your eyes might miss, like a repeated word or sentence, or a typo. Printing your story on paper can also give you a different perspective. Again, if there are changes you’re not sure of, use the comments section in Word to jot them down. Try it both ways, and pick the one you like best.

This is certainly not a complete list of tips, but hopefully it’s enough to get you started. I know many authors do things quite differently. How about you? Do you have any editing tips you’d like to share? If so, I hope you’ll leave them in the comments section below. I’d love to hear them.

Me Write Funny Someday—how to add humor to your writing (part 2)

I have a surprise for you, and it’s a doozy. Are you ready? Here it is:
You’re a comic genius.

Okay, did I see some eyes rolling? Well, it's true. You ARE a comic genius, and that’s because you know how to create the kind of unique surprises that create laughs. Um . . . at least you will after you read this post.

In my last post, I told you that when I was a political cartoonist I invented a very simple formula for creating humor, and it is

Setup+Surprise+Sense=Humor

I call this formula the House of Funny, and the reason why is that it works like a house of fun.

Look in a house-of-fun mirror, and you will see things in a surprising new way. Likewise, the House of Funny creates surprise by changing your perspective and giving you a new way to look at things. And also like a house of fun, it does this with a variety of mirrors and lenses.

As I said in the previous post, your setup creates an expectation, and you create surprise by taking the setup in an unexpected direction. Which direction? That depends on the mirror or lens you decide to use.


The Mirrors and Lenses of the House of Funny

·        A regular mirror

·        A closed-circuit camera

·        A magnifying glass

·        A reverse magnifying glass

·        Blue, pink, yellow and other colored lenses

·        A wiggly mirror

The regular mirror

A regular, household mirror flips right to left and left to right. We don’t usually laugh at this, because we’re used to it. In fact, when we don’t see this--for example, in the monitor of a closed-circuit camera--we might actually find it funny. You move off to your left, and you see yourself move off to the right on the screen. It takes some getting used to.

The regular, household mirror in the House of Funny, though, goes against our expectations. It flips it. Right becomes left, and left becomes right. While we're used to this when we peer at ourselves over the bathroom sink, we're not used to it in the stories we read.

For example, in so many fairy tales, the handsome prince comes to the princess’s rescue. So what’s the flipside? Well, the flipside of a handsome prince is an ugly ogre, and that gives you the plot of Shrek.

In fact, that’s just one of many flips in Shrek. The charming prince who wants the princess is actually a less-than-charming lord. The princess is . . . . well, I wouldn’t want to give any spoilers. In the second movie, the Fairy Godmother is not the kindly lady from Cinderella. The Shrek series is all about flipping fairy tales from left to right. But that’s not the only possible flipside for the standard princess fairy tale. You could write a story about a brave princess who rescues a prince, or a prince who gets a princess in trouble instead of rescuing her, or a princess who prefers not to be rescued, or . . . the possibilities are endless.


A closed-circuit camera monitor

This shows us things exactly as they are, and this is surprising because we’re used to see things--particularly ourselves--differently. Like I said, every time you look in your bathroom mirror, you see yourself flipped from right to left. It's interesting to note that the only person incapable of seeing you the way the rest of the world does . . . is you.

I think that the humor that comes from exposing the truth behind false assumptions is the greatest humor of all. It shows us what we’ve been missing . . . or maybe something we once noticed but ignored because someone told us it was wrong. It's the little kid from the story of the Emperor's new clothes, the one who points out that the king is naked.

I also think that this is one of the hardest kinds of humor to create, because it requires that you first recognize that a generally held assumption is untrue. The other problem is that some people hold very tightly to their false beliefs. They need them. It gives them a steady footing on reality, and anything else throws them off balance. In medieval times, people were often ostracized or worse for exposing false assumptions. The sun turned around the earth, and people didn’t want to hear otherwise. The Dark Ages didn’t have a sense of humor.  

But there are those who think this is the only kind of standup comedy that’s worth something, the kind that tells the truth. It can also be a fun way to look at fairy tales. While we know they aren’t true, there are some things about them that are just plain out absurd. Like who wears glass slippers? And who has such a weird shoe size that her shoes won’t fit anyone else? And where did Cinderella get her shoes before her Fairy Godmother showed up with the only pair of shoes that precisely fit her very weird feet? And why was the prince so obsessed with her feet anyway?

Looking beyond assumptions can lead to some pretty funny results.  


The magnifying glass

Take anything small and blow it up way out of proportion. In fiction, don’t write small when you can write big. Characters shouldn’t like each other but be madly in love. A nemesis shouldn’t be mildly annoying but outright evil. It makes readers care more, love more, worry more, hate more, feel more, and laugh more. Of course, if you want it to be funny, it has to be surprising, too, not something that has been magnified in that way many times before. And it can’t be viewed as too painful to the audience.

The obvious example from a children’s book of a magnifying glass being used to create humor? Clifford the Big Red Dog, of course!

The reverse magnifying glass

British humor is often about understatement. It’s Monty Python calling a severed leg, “just a scratch.” Take something huge and treat it as if it’s something tiny. This is the reverse magnifying glass, and it’s great for satire. When something huge and outrageous—like nuclear war—is treated as no big deal, you have all the ingredients for satire or black comedy.


Blue, pink, yellow, and other colored lenses

 

My all-time favorite humorous fiction series is The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and one of my favorite characters in it is Marvin the paranoid android. Marvin’s comedy comes from the blue lens in the House of Funny. For him, everything is depressing. Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh is another funny, blue-lens character.

In my stories, Amber from Why My Love Life Sucks: The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer generally dances through life (and un-death) with rose-colored glasses. That’s the pink lens of the House of Funny, and it works because it contrasts nicely with Amber’s less-than-rosy circumstance.

Colored lenses are all about seeing the world with one very specific attitude, one that’s often at odds with the setup or the character’s situation.  Many standup comedians use colored lenses to give their onstage personas a focused, unified character. Steven Wright, for example, is deadpan. He’s the Eeyore of stand up, and his lens would be blue. Kate Micucci is always perky. Her onstage persona definitely wears rose-colored glasses.  The next time you see a great standup act, ask yourself, “Does the persona the comedian plays see things through a colored lens? And if so, which color?”

The wiggly mirror

As I wrote in an article on my website, the wiggly mirror is great for writing fiction, because the humor in it comes from conflict. Look in a wiggly house-of-fun mirror, and you’ll see a too long neck with too short legs, or a too thin body with a too wide head. This mirror is all about putting together things that don’t belong together--and that’s what conflict is all about. Since conflict is a necessary element in fiction, this mirror is the perfect mirror for creating fiction.  Put a character with another character who doesn't fit him, in a place or situation that doesn't fit him, or have him want or be or believe two things that are mutually exclusive, and you have both a story and the potential for humor. (Click here to read more.) 

One thing I didn’t mention in that article is that the wiggly mirror can be used in another--almost opposite--in the House of Funny. While this mirror puts unlikely things together, it also shows us how something is like something else. People who look in these mirrors in a house of fun often say, “I look like a giraffe!” or “I look like a penguin!” By changing certain parts of your appearance, you end up looking like something else.

This aspect of the wiggly mirror is great for adapting stories, whether in funny or dramatic ways. I could use it to adapt the news of the day when I was a political cartoonist. If someone reminded me of a captain of a sinking ship, I could draw him as a captain of a sinking ship. This aspect is also the one used for creating puns, because puns are based on things that are different but sound alike. It can also be used in parodies, like the movie Airplane!

And when it comes to writing fiction, this aspect of the wiggly mirror can let you use anything--from your life, to the news, to old classics--as a springboard for creating new stories.

For example, when I wrote Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey, I looked at the classic story of Don Quixote and asked myself what it might be like in today’s world. Don Quixote, with his love of reading and his desire to become a storybook hero, reminded me of a kid who wants to be Harry Potter or Prince Charming. Don Quixote’s trusty servant, Sancho Panza, reminded me of a faithful friend. So I turned Don Quixote into 13-year-old Dan Tyler; and I turned Sancho Panza into his best friend Sandy.  I went through the rest of Don Quixote asking what in Dan and Sandy’s lives could be like the elements of Don Quixote’s story. And that's how Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey came about. 

In conclusion

If you want to write something funny or add humor to something you’ve already written, try to look at your setup through the various House of Funny mirrors and lenses.


Ask yourself the following questions:

1.       What is the expectation your set up creates?

2.       What is the opposite of that expectation?

3.       Is your setup about an assumption, and is that assumption false or plain out absurd? If so, what’s the unrevealed truth about that assumption?

4.        If your setup is something small, what happens when you magnify it?

5.       If your setup is something huge, what happens when you understate it?

6.       What is the expected attitude people have about your setup, and which colored lens might create a surprisingly different perspective?

7.       What conflicting thing can you put together with your setup in a surprising way that makes sense? (In fiction, this can be a conflicting character, a conflicting external situation, or a conflict a character has with himself or herself.)

8.       If your setup is something that’s been done to death (variations on Cinderella, for example), what does the setup remind you of? Is there something similar but very different that’s never been done before?  

Brainstorm this out on paper. In the center, write down the setup you intend to use. Put a circle around it. Now write or draw (when I was a political cartoonist, I often drew) the answers to these questions. Sometimes one question will have several promising answers, and sometimes a question will not lead to any answers at all. When you find an answer you like, put a circle around it. If you like, you can even rewrite your answer at the center of another piece of paper and use that to brainstorm the next part of your story.
                                                               
Not only will this method help you add humor to your writing, it can help you come up with an infinite number of story ideas, or brainstorm solutions to all sorts of problems by giving you new ways to look at them. After all, anything can be a setup.

So now you know how to add humor to your writing in ways no one else has thought of before. See, I told you you were a comic genius!

~~*~~

I hope this was helpful, and if so I hope you'll use it to create humor wherever and whenever you find a need for it. As always, I welcome your questions and comments.  As the tagline for Dan Quixote goes, life and laughter are better with friends.