Not vanished, honest. Just working with ten great writers at a workshop here on Character Voice.
If you haven’t had a chance, read Kris’s update this week on the ebook royalty mess that traditional publishers have brought onto themselves. And after you read Kris’s two posts, if you are a traditionally published writer, check your royalty statements. And that’s all I am going to say about that on this site. http://kriswrites.com/2011/04/20/the-business-rusch-royalty-statements-update/
As far as the next chapter in Think Like a Publisher, it’s almost finished. I am having to break down the sales aspects of getting book into stores into a number of different chapters. This next one will be on flyers that get a bookstore to read it. And how to get to the bookstores. And what kind of response to respect and so on.
Also I am still losing weight and working into the running. And feeling better. Amazing how losing weight and eating right can do that, but it does.
OLD COVER
I am also on a project to clean up and do new covers for some of the early short stories and books I did for WMG Publishing over a year ago. It is taking me about an hour to do a new cover and reformat the story and relaunch each one. Since there are thirty or so that really have covers that suck, it’s going to take me a few weeks. But thankfully we are not stuck with those early efforts. One large advantage of electronic publishing.
NEW COVER
Amazing difference. And the second cover fits the story perfectly, where the picture in the first cover was more of a metaphor. I am sure some will think my covers still suck, but I sure like them better, and they are fitting better into the publisher look that WMG Publishing wants.
So back to the workshop for me. Back in the next day or so with the new chapter.
No, that old cover stank. The new one’s great! I’m actually curious about the story now, whereas before I just ignored it. ^_^
Glad you’re okay and not sick or anything.
Love that new cover!! Well worth re-doing.
Love the new cover, and it exemplifies what you were saying a week or so ago about a uniform “look” to a publisher’s line. Clean background to the central image on the cover, the way you’ve formatted the author’s name, etc. Cool.
Wish I were doing the workshop. Maybe in the fall. (My daughter’s been accepted to Oregon State U, I’m thinking about moving out in that direction myself. Although right now time off work is more a factor than distance for the workshops.)
I’m in the middle of redesigning my cover, as well. But I only have one, and it should take me 30 hours. So we’re even.
Beautiful new cover. Besides what Alastair correctly said about the look, it also exemplifies what you said in one of the earlier chapters about doing it yourself. It pays off. The going rate, I believe, is around $200 – $300 for cover designs of that quality, not including the artwork itself. Publishing skills improve with practice, just like writing skills.
Much nicer job on this one. Very nice!
For me, it’s as simple as this: I can read the bloody title with the new cover!
With the old one, I was convinced the title was “He Could Have WALKED with Dragons”. That plus the cover image made it look for all the world like a creationist tract.
great new cover. no comment about the old one.
The second cover is much better. I love that I can change covers as my design skills improve. A better cover can definitely boost sales.
Well done.
David
If this isn’t a prime example of practice and focused learning helping to make better, I don’t know what is. (grin)
Speaking of e-publishing and covers….
I finally took the plunge and posted my first e-novelette to the Kindle tonight. It’s a 12,000 word story that was a hard ‘fit’ no matter where it went in the trad-pub world: noir, detective story, elements of cyberpunk, erotica, horror… A real kitbash of a story, but with a character I liked a lot. And when I went back and did the link edit on the manuscript, prior to uploading, I said to myself, “That wasn’t half bad, I should write more stories using this character and setting!” So I guess I am launching a series.
The cover was a lot of fun to create, too. Lets me flex my graphic arts skillz in the service of my writing. Which, after all is said and done, really, really excites me.
http://home.comcast.net/~brad.r.torgersen/misc/blood_and_mirrors_cover.jpg
My only complaint was that Amazon KDP wouldn’t let me slot the novelette in more than two categories! So I opted for mystery and science fiction, as those are the most prominent in the story itself. But really, it could have done just as well in any six other categories too. It’s got erotica elements, a serial killer, buddy cop stuff… I mean, c’mon, I ought to be able to list it more than two places, right?
Anyway, the deed is done. It was a learning curve, but I’d been itching to do it for at least the last month or so. And with the big scandal doing down over NYC publishing, the time seems as ripe as ever to being plying my trade in the e-pub realm.
Dean, thanks a ton (as always) for the advice, especially the, “Think Like A Publisher” series you’re doing. I’ve been using that as my guideline, in prep for the e-pub enterprise. Much obliged.
P.S: the new cover you did (above) is fantastic!
Brad – I really like that cover – good job.
And re the categories, just choose the two that you think will be most useful for you. In any event, you can then go and “tag” the book with all the sub-genres you like, then ask a bunch of other people to apply the exact same tags (or just vote the existing ones as appropriate).
That should solve your problem.
Dave
That new cover looks great. Can hardly believe anyone but a professional designer could do it (which you probably are by now, Dean).
At the moment I’m busy with the writing part of being a writer but I have to start thinking about covers soon. I know you mentioned using PowerPoint or InDesign but you’re looking at someone who doesn’t have a clue about drawing or visual designing. I want to learn, just need the right pointers.
Martin,
Just study from professional covers that you like. That’s how you learn. I spent about an hour last night doing nothing but picking up books, studying the cover and putting them down again. On and on, looking for a “look” I wanted but couldn’t quite figure out.
John, exactly. Put the thing up even if you aren’t sure and not really happy with the cover. Trust me, I could see that some of those early covers sucked, but I wanted the stories up more than I wanted to wait and try to spend months and months learning how to do covers. So now I can change them out, fix interior problems in the process, and you are right, they did sell along the way.
Thanks, Eric, very much appreciated.
Dean, much better cover. Worlds better.
Brad, put it on B&N also. You get five categories there. At least with Amazon you can use keywords to sort of add categories.
Hmm. I might be going against the tide here, but in defense of the first lame cover, I think it’s far better to go ahead and post the story even though the cover may not be spot-on, rather than wait until the cover is perfect and then post it. I bet you sold some copies even with the old cover. I’ve only been designing covers for my short stories for a few months, and I’ll probably go back later and fix up some of my covers, but I think it’s better to go ahead and get those stories out and, as you did, improve the covers as my skills get more sophisticated.
But really, this post is a good example of the flexibility and adaptablility of this new world of publishing. It reminds me of something I read about yoga: it is called “practice” because there is never attainment – only a continual improvement.
Dean:
I have found your blog very valuable in the last year or so since I discovered it. What I particularly like is your sheer fearlessness. You admitted that your first WMG covers weren’t very good and simply … redid them! But instead of “quietly dropping” the old ones, you made it into a learning point.
I, and so many others, appreciate your generosity of spirit. It is as though the Wizard of Oz were beckoning from behind the curtain saying, “yeah, come on, have a look!”
So many writers are afraid of doing the wrong thing that they forever remain would-be writers. It’s good to be reminded to keep pushing ahead.
Brad, no shameless link? I’m disappointed. Always make buying easy for the impulse shopper!
I understand if you feel uncomfortable doing a shameless link on Dean’s comment thread. But I didn’t find one on your site or your blog, either. That’s about as far as an impulse shopper is likely to go out of simple curiosity: if they can’t find the book in a couple of clicks, the impulse will pass. The next step is an Amazon search, and only a motivated reader is going to go that far.
I’ll echo what Dean said about practice and focused learning. I use the GIMP for covers (probably overkill) and it has a bit of a learning curve. Still, after doing a few I’m finding they go a lot quicker. Finding the right starter images takes most of the time now. (Well, no, writing the stories takes most of the time — as it should!)
I also ditto what several folks said about getting something up with an okay cover, then perhaps later putting a better cover up. I redid covers for two of my stories a little while ago, and it bumped sales (there were other variables though so I can attribute it just to the covers) — but there were several months with the old covers, those sales would have been missed if I’d waited.
Comparison of old and new covers, if this comment lets me include small images:
. I did a similar ‘reboot’ of the cover of the next story in the series. I think they look much better.
Ack. Wish I could edit my earlier post. That should be “so I can’t attribute it just to the covers”
And since apparently comment images aren’t allowed, here’s a link to my old and new covers, thumbnail sized: http://www.alastairmayer.com/images/jason-cover-compare.jpg
I used mostly the same graphic elements but re-did the layout and fonts.
Dean’s advice about making covers was spot on the money. Study book covers, plan a publisher “look,” and so on. I made a cover for a short story a while back and had an absolute blast doing it, even though it took a while to learn how Photoshop works.
(For the record, no, I didn’t get Photoshop with the intent of doing covers with it. Actually, someone in my dorm was moving out and didn’t want it anymore, so I got it for free. And I figure I might very well use it in school at some point, so the “learning curve” for covers may benefit me in other ways down the road.)
In any case, I think the cover is pretty decent. Here’s a link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B004X6U8GI/ref=dp_image_text_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&n=283155&s=books
Anyhow, I’d like to thank Dean again for the Think Like A Publisher series. It gave me a heck of a lot to think about, and I’ve already had a lot of fun just following the advice and experimenting a little.
Nice covers both Dean and Brad.
I snookered my wife into learning Photoshop, so she’s been studying the Lynda videos for the last few weeks. Her first covers are looking pretty good and I can’t wait to put them up. The best part is I don’t have to do them.
Tom
The new cover looks much better – it has a dragon on it, for a start!
The previous cover was just… obscure. (But I’m sure you knew that…)
I use the presentation element of OpenOffice to make my covers, which gives me the option of saving the finished item straight to a jpeg. So far it’s been adequate. Next, I’m going to try using Inkscape to improve them – while they look okay, I want them to look great (i.e. professional).
Actually I really enjoy making the covers. It puts me in mind of a musician or band making a “concept album”, controlling everything their audience experiences about the music. It’s just another aspect of creativity to play with.
Keep up the good work, Dean – I’m looking forward to the next chapter(s).