You Can Relax About Your Book Cover Design

I’m starting to get the hang of this social media thing…really.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about cover design: http://1106design.com/why-crowdsourcing-book-cover-design-is-a-bad-idea/

This morning, my WordPress dashboard revealed that “Ellie”,  an author I never met, found the post useful, and she went on to express her own worries about her upcoming book cover.  http://theliteraturediary.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/a-designer-for-my-book-cover/ Here’s an excerpt (emphasis added in red):

• I know what I want, well I think I do. I know from experience that when I have set an idea in my mind in terms of design it has turned out to be awful. I think for me I never see the complete picture, it is always a little blurry around the edges.
• I have looked at past book covers listed within an archive. I have considered the ones that work for me, the ones that jump off the page. For me personally, it is the most simple designs, with plain texts, and bold colour.
• So how do I translate that to a designer? I have been in touch with one, we are very much at the preliminary stage. As in, we are arranging to talk soon.
• Tell me also, what covers appeal to you? The more feedback I get, the more I can work out in my mind what I want.

These worries, expressed in one form or another, are very familiar to cover designers. Most authors who sign up for our services understand that a book cover is very important. Since book cover design is usually new to them, they often feel stress about the subject, just like Ellie. They want to do what’s right, and they’re not sure what “right” is. From there, their thoughts naturally turn to what they want.

In this post, I’d like to tell Ellie, and any other author who happens to be reading, “Relax, we’ve got you covered.”

Above, Ellie articulates two misconceptions:

1. That a book cover should reflect what the author likes; and

2. That the author has to tell the designer what to do.

Grab a cup of tea and sit back. You don’t have to worry about either of these things. Here’s why:

1. A book cover isn’t about what the author likes. A book cover is all about what the prospective buyer likes.  The interior of the book is about the author. The exterior of the book (front cover, back cover, and spine) is all about the buyer. When author and designer remain focused on that fact, all the pressure goes away. Which leads us to item 2:

2. The author doesn’t have to tell the designer what to do. So, how can the designer know what buyers like? Well, we’re not psychic, and we don’t guess. We talk to you about your book, research the competition, and let the market tell us. The best way to discover what buyers like is to look at what they are buying. This is easier to do than ever before, right from our desktop.

Most authors I talk with would really like to sell as many books as possible, or  alternatively, produce a top-quality book that will help them sell their expertise to others.  To get there, it’s important to work with a book designer who does more than browse for images and fonts. A  big picture view is not only more accurate, it’s more relaxing, and more likely to result in a book cover design that appeals to the greatest number of buyers.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Children’s Book Author Asks: What Am I Leaving Out?

I’ve been corresponding this week with a children’s book author on the SPAN website: http://www.spannet.org (SPAN is an excellent resource for self-publishers.) The discussion started as a comment on my blog post there, “A Book Cover Is Everything” (http://www.spannet.org/profiles/blogs/a-book-cover-is-everything) and it touched on several topics that every self-publisher must address. The conversation has become a prime example of where many self-publishers go horribly wrong. I don’t believe that any author sets out to fail when self-publishing a book, but it happens far too often because the author is working with incorrect or incomplete information, or because the author resists correct information when it is offered.

For the record, even though I haven’t seen the manuscript yet, I think this book could have “legs” in a variety of markets. I truly hope this author heeds reliable advice, whether from me or someone else, because he’s clearly heading in the wrong direction, and my heart already aches for him. Here’s our conversation:

Author: My problem I have is my title — I find it catchy, but it doesn’t convey well what the purpose of my non-fiction book is all about.  A dilemma!

Me: Catchy isn’t enough. A title must be specific…a promise to the reader, telling them what your book is about. It’s tough (maybe impossible) for an author to take a step back into the mind of someone who has never seen or heard of the book before. Why not post your title here and test it with me?

Author: Here’s the title: Jack’s Fish Bones. Of course, you can’t figure out from the title that it’s actually a book that teaches children how to read, and write in Chinese.  On my mock-up I follow that with ‘A fun step-by-step guide for writing and reading Chinese.’  But that will have to move to the back cover. See the dilemma?

Me: I think your subtitle must be on the front, in this case. Without it,  your book sounds like any other children’s story. Remember, not everyone will read the description online or turn the book over to find out otherwise.  You told me in your message that the book teaches children, but your title and subtitle don’t say that. I  recommend working with a professional title consultant for this book, so that every word on your front cover speaks directly to the folks most likely to buy your book, and tells them what it is about.

Author: I think you’re right. I might re-title it ‘Jack and Ivy and the Mysterious Chinese Code’ or something of that nature. But I like short and catchy titles.

Me: Just my opinion, but that may be too long, and it sounds more like a novel.

Author: I will just have to let the name issue percolate in my brain for a while. I still have to connect with someone to do the illustrations — maybe in the process of doing that part of the book something will leap out at me.

Me: Yes, there are so many decisions to be made to launch any book. I wrote a blog post about children’s book illustrations that may be helpful: http://1106design.com/finding-an-illustrator-for-your-childrens-book/ Have a nice weekend! (In this post, I recommended a good site to find qualified children’s book illustrators, and explained why why a book designer should be hired BEFORE an illustrator is retained. I wrote this post because authors often bring terrible illustrations to designers, to the detriment of the final product. )

Author: Thanks for the tip — I had already checked Society of Children’s Book Illustrators, but got tired of searching through the gazillions of illustrators, ha!  (Will find time to look again). Since I’m a newbie, my book production idea is simple. I have made Word files which contain clip art. I convert these into PDFs, and voila! that’s my book! So my next step is, I find an illustrator with the right style, who creates and converts their original art work into ‘clip art’ which I can pull into my Word files. For me identifying exactly how many pieces and what to draw is no problem – it’s already by and large in the draft.  I negotiate on a price per piece, delivery dates, payment terms, etc.  Easy! Of course, this all may sound very naive to anyone with some real experience like yourself in the book publishing business.  Any comments?  What am I leaving out? Thanks, Michele.

So ended our conversation (at least as of this moment).

What is he leaving out? I’m not sure where to begin, but let’s start with this:

It’s amazing to me how many self-publishers judge their own work in isolation and not against the competition in the real world.  Even a casual trip to a bookstore will reveal that the  children’s book section is filled with top-quality books. If this author took his mockup to said bookstore, and objectively compared his efforts with any book on the shelf, I’m certain he would immediately see the difference.

It might be helpful to describe how a “real” publisher achieves this difference. First, they’ll research the market to determine if there is a demand for the book and how strong that demand might be. Part of this research involves a look at competitive titles and how well they are selling. If, and only if there is a demand, will a publisher move to the next step: determine the costs to professionally write, edit, illustrate, design, and market the book. Once these expenses are tallied, the question becomes, “can this book be sold at a price point that will attract consumers?” If not, the project ends right there. If so, the wheels are set in motion, and when the final product finally hits the store shelves, it is a masterpiece. More importantly, it is what buyers have come to expect when they shop for children’s books.

This process is far different than that taken by most self-publishers, as my conversation so far with this author reveals. Stay tuned.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Chap Stick and the Power of Packaging

If you spend any time reading blogs about self-publishing (including this one), you’ll see the same phrases over and over again: The Cover Sells the Book; Your Book Cover is Your Package; Your Book Cover is Not the Place to Save Money. The problem with all of these messages is that they don’t sound very convincing. They don’t explain WHY.

So, I’m going to tell you my own story about  how packaging really does work, and if you observe your own behavior the next time you go shopping, you’ll be able to add a similar story of your own.

Dry winter air being what it is (even in Phoenix), I was shopping for lip balm this weekend. The usual selection of wax-filled stubby tubes was on display. Most were labeled “lip balm”; a few were labeled “lip therapy.” Some packages were pastel-colored to reflect the flavors inside (oddly, tropical fruit flavors, perhaps to distract us from winter). With minor variations, I’d seen all of them before. Z-z-z-z-z-z.

Then I noticed something different: A slender white tube with the words Soft Lips, printed in what was probably a custom handwriting font designed especially for this product. Into the shopping cart it went, even though it cost more. The question is, Why?

Did I know intellectually that this tube contained the same waxy substance as all the others. Yes. But now I knew what I was going to get for my money. And, I was entertained. (Go ahead, add a snarky comment here, if you like.) The ho-hum task of buying lip balm momentarily reminded me that life still holds surprises, that surprises are found in the most unlikely places, and that surprises are worth paying for.

I purchased that brand of lip balm, because the small package delivered a very big message. Your book cover and title can deliver a similarly powerful message to your prospective readers, so they’ll put your book into their shopping cart, too.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

News You Can Use: Working with a Book Shepherd

Guest Post by Gail Kearns, owner of To Press & Beyond

There are advantages to using a book shepherd (so dubbed by the original self-publishing guru Dan Poynter)—one of which is that it can save you money in the long run. A good book shepherd will help you navigate the publishing process, avoiding the many pitfalls, and increase your chances for publishing success.

Here Are 6 Tips for Working with Your Book Shepherd

1.    When you work with a book shepherd you are going into business, and the shepherd is your CEO, overseeing all the different departments of your publishing company. It’s like hiring at least eight different people: editor, researcher, designer, art director, production manager, administrative assistant, business manager, and public relations officer.

2.    Keep an open mind as you go into the project, just in case there is a really good idea you have missed. Generally the authors we work with are very good at something else . . . we are very good at getting books ‘to press and beyond.’ For example:  If the author is a nephrologist, there is no way she or he would let a book shepherd perform a kidney transplant!

3.    Book shepherds know the book business, and if they don’t know something they know where to go for reliable information.  Recognize that professionals worth their salt do know their business. This is especially true in the edit and design phases. Content and copyeditors, art directors, and professional book designers simply make you and your book look better.

4.    Deadlines are important for a variety of reasons. Be as prepared as you can be and try to keep the deadlines outlined by your book shepherd. Deadlines can involve getting your social media up and running to getting advance reading copies of your book out to long lead publications and opinion makers in your field. “Timing Makes Champions” is a favorite motto at To Press & Beyond.

5.    Articulate your book goals. Book shepherds work much better when they understand your aims and goals.  It could be having your expertise in print as a speaker for back of the room sales, your philosophy or message to share with the world via new media, a memoir or children’s book for your family, or a book to support your workshops and seminars. With your goals in mind, book shepherds can best guide you.

6.    Whether you have a publisher, a distributor, a book shepherd or publicist, as an author, you still have to believe in and promote your book yourself. Perpetual promotion is the name of the game. Very few books will sell themselves.

Here’s to your publishing success!

Gail Kearns is owner of To Press & Beyond, a full-service book shepherding agency. Visit the website at www.topressandbeyond.com

For a half-hour gratis consultation about your book project, e-mail her at info@topressandbeyond.com.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Four Wise Words from an “Old” Book

A couple of months ago, a client gave us a small book of quotations to use as a design model for his upcoming title. This handsome book, The Book of Excellence: 236 Habits of Effective Sales People by Byrd Baggett, published in 1990, is the very definition of a traditional book design: black leatherette hard case, gold foil stamping on the front and spine, classic fonts and ornaments, printed on textured ivory stock. We designed the client’s book in a similar style, and everyone was pleased with the outcome.

In today’s business world, where a typical day means processing a long list of emails and juggling tight deadlines, I promptly forgot about the book, until this holiday weekend, when I finally caught up with my “to be filed” pile. Somehow, it didn’t seem right to bury this lovely little book in a filing cabinet, so I decided to read it.

Most of the quotations were classic, quick tips designed to inspire anyone who provides customer service. Some were a revealing look into how much our world has changed in just 20 years. For example: “Use a beeper. That will let the office get in touch with you when a customer needs you in an emergency,” and “Carry a business card file. You never know when you’ll need a phone number.”

One quotation stood out from all the others for me:

Excellence is not optional.

The moment I read this, I realized with some sadness that our world has changed in this way, too. Today, the voices of excellence in book design and typography are drowned out by those who claim that “template” cover and interior design is good enough. That “do-it-yourself” book layout is just fine. That craftsmen in the field are quaint, old-fashioned folks who offer an unneeded product at a high price. And even worse, this advice is doled out by so-called publishing “experts”  (including some very large companies) just waiting for the next naive self-publisher to come along.

It was good this holiday weekend to take a breath, leave all the posts, tweets, emails, and updates behind,  and remember that the quiet voice of wisdom can still speak to us in profound ways. My client’s updated book of quotations is: LifeExcellence Treasury of Quotes. I promise, it will inspire you, and it doesn’t contain one word about beepers.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Book Cover Design: Clan Ground by Clare Bell

In any book cover design, but particularly an illustrated one, it’s important for the title and the graphic to complement each other and work together.

For this cover, a fabulous illustration was provided to us by the publisher, so our task was to build on the illustrator’s talent.

For the title, we chose the typeface Archeologicaps, to depict a sense of the esoteric and mysterious.

Rather than choosing a flat color for the title, we enhanced it with a yellow-orange gradient, so that it appears to be illuminated by the flames below.

We removed the crossbar of the “A” and replaced it with the eye of the cat to tie the title and illustration together.

The author’s name was set in a light green color, sampled from the background.

The series title at the bottom was letterspaced, just as it was on the first volume, for continuity of design.

Some folks would call this a “simple” cover design, but attention to detail is one way that book cover designers create covers that are eye-catching and appealing to the buyer.

How many of these enhancements did you notice before reading the post? If the answer was “none”, congratulations! The details of a design should never call attention to themselves. They should quietly serve the purpose of selling your book.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

The Benefits of a Professional Index

Have you ever used the index in a book and found it to be almost useless? Was the subject or term you were interested in missing? Or, was the topic listed, but not on the page when you turned there? Doesn’t this make you crazy?

Indexing is a lot more difficult than it seems. Like any other specialty, training and experience are needed to produce the best results. We talk to a lot of self-publishers who believe that they can save money by compiling their own index; usually  this is a big mistake.

Below are two indexes for a book we recently designed: one was created by an amateur, the other by a professional. Click on each link below to download the PDF of each version and compare for yourself.

Amateur-Index.pdf

Pro-Index.pdf

The difference is clear to see. The Amateur Index is just four pages long. It contains a lot of names, but very little else that’s useful.

By comparison, the Professional Index is 12 pages long, contains names as well as many topics, and also includes cross-references that will make the index truly useful to the reader.

So, what goes into a professional index? Indexer and 1106 Design team member, Doran Hunter, explains it best:

First, I go through the Table of Contents and chapters in order to get an overview of the whole book and what some of the key concepts and terms will be. Then, reading the text very closely, I mark it as I go along for entries, subentries, notes about equivalent terms, etc. As I do this, I try to think as a reader and user of the Index and structure it in such a way that it is truly useful and provides easy and convenient access to the subject matter of the book.

We have all been frustrated with inadequate and poorly-constructed indexes at one time or another. We go to look up a term and it is not there. Or we do find the term we’re looking for in the Index but the entry says the term appears on twenty or thirty pages, and we have to painstakingly check each page until we find the section of the book where the topic is discussed in the way we are looking for. By putting a lot of thought into the Index as I go along, I try to avoid these and other pitfalls that render many indexes almost unusable.

Also, I have to decide if an occurrence of a term merits entry into the Index. Sometimes, it’s just a passing mention, and including it would be annoying to a user of the Index trying to find something substantive about the concept, so I have to think hard about whether it should be included. For example, suppose this is the last sentence in a section about American foreign policy: “As Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘Speak softly but carry a big stick.’” Roosevelt, Theodore, wouldn’t be included here because a reader interested in him would be disappointed to turn to the place in the text and find just this passing mention.

In short, the process involves careful reading of the text, a lot of judgment, and great care to create an Index that will allow readers to engage more fully with the content of the book.

So why should an author care if someone reviews the index and is disappointed ? Because that someone just might be a librarian who is about to purchase multiple copies of your book. Unlike bookstores, who care most about the cover, librarians care most about a book’s content. An amateur index can break the sale in an instant.

A professional index isn’t an expense. It’s essential to your book, and your readers will thank you for it.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Finding an Illustrator for your Children’s Book

We’re often asked, “Can you recommend a good illustrator for my children’s book.” We love this question, because it heads off a very common problem faced by book designers.

The short answer: A good place to start your search for an illustrator is the Society of Children’s Book Illustrators at http://www.scbwi.org/

Here you’ll find serious illustrators who offer quality work, which is a necessity if you want your book to compete well against those released by major publishers. Good illustrators don’t work cheap, and that’s as it should be, since they possess a rare talent unavailable to the rest of us.

The longer answer: Over the years, we’ve worked on many books where the illustrations were provided by author. Often, these illustrations are not up to professional standards because they were created by a family member, or by a “cheap” provider that the author found on a freelance graphic design site.

Your book should be designed first, and then the appropriate illustrator hired to create drawings for the planned design. Often the reverse procedure is followed, which ties the hands of the designer and can result in a lesser quality book.

Your book designer can help you review illustrator portfolios to make sure they actually know how to draw (believe it or not, some don’t) and help manage the process so the illustrations provided are in the correct proportions for the page and the correct resolution and color mode for printing.

There are a lot of technical issues to consider, beyond just “liking” the illustrator’s style. Your book designer will be more than happy to help you through this process.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Book Cover Redo: Making Mammon Serve You by John Harrison

Recently we completed a book cover for John Harrison, “Making Mammon Serve You: A Biblical Manual for Money Mastery.”

For this book, the author wanted the image of wheat on the cover. In the “before” version it’s there, but the view from above makes it all but impossible to see the beauty of the plant. The subtitle and author name float aimlessly in white space, and the typography is dull.

For the “after” version, we found an image of gold silk fabric to symbolize wealth, and added a more beautiful image of wheat that gracefully curves from the subtitle to the author name. This connects the two elements and leads the eye from the top of the book cover to the bottom.

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What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

Book Cover Redo: The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil

Recently we completed a book design project for Debbie Weil, author of a very successful book on corporate blogging. For this assignment, Debbie wanted to update the book to more effectively promote her consulting practice without breaking the connection to her earlier edition.

To accomplish this, we filled more than half of the new cover with Debbie’s portrait, since she is now the “product” being sold. To maintain the connection to the earlier book, we retained the black and orange color scheme, chose more contemporary fonts, and utilized just a small portion of the previous illustration.

This before and after example underscores the importance of having a clear and specific goal in mind before book cover design begins.  Your objectives should drive the design, not the other way around.

Oftentimes, new publishers will spend months or years creating a book without asking one simple question: “Will anyone but me be interested?” First, research the market. Then, write to the market. Last, design to the market. Who is your target audience? (No, it’s not “everyone.”) What do they want to know (that hasn’t been said before)? What do they need to know (urgently enough to spend money)? How can you fill that need? How do you plan to cut through the clutter and reach your target buyers? Answering these questions before you write the first word will drive every other decision and put you on the path to publishing success.

What do you want to know? What topics should we explore together? How can we help you along your publishing journey? Everyone here at 1106 Design wants to help. Post your comment here or email us at office@1106design.com

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