Category: in your corner

elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Choosing a Cover

Welcome to the fifth entry in our current and ongoing series–a series in which we examine some of the many choices which you will have to make as an author entering the world of self-publishing: choices ranging from the all-important “Choosing a Self-Publishing Company” to the nuts and bolts of “Choosing a Trim Size for Your Book” to figuring out how (and when) to “Know Thyself (& Thy Genre).” Last week, we felt our way through the topic of “Settling on a Price,” but this week we’re going to take a slightly different tack.  We’re going to look at the book as a physical object–and in fact, we’re going to look at the most defining feature of a book as a physical object:

Choosing a Cover

Piqued your interest yet? Good.

Here’s the thing about covers: we know a good one when we see one, and a bad one too, but we don’t often know the reasons why–we just … do–and knowing why a cover design works or doesn’t work is a crucial skill to develop as you yourself set about designing a book cover of your own.

GOOD NEWS FIRST. OR MAYBE GOOD COVERS INSTEAD.

Take a look at these, a few of my favorite covers from my time working at Outskirts Press:

Does anything jump out at you?  They’re all rather different, which makes sense given the fact that they’re appealing to different audiences.  Remember talking about audiences when we talked about genre?  Book covers are all about expressing the essence of your book’s content, and doing so in a common language shared with your ideal readers.  And readers are smart.  They’ve been reading a long time, and they know the visual cues that indicate a book’s atmosphere, or aesthetic.  Books of a self-help or nonfiction nature, for example, often present uncluttered, minimalist covers with people enacting some behavior connected to the theme (see Surviving Divorce God’s Way and Do You Know the Story of Superman?, above). Young Adult (YA) books, on the other hand, are targeting an age group interested in adventure and often romance, so the rich colors and exotic lettering of The Avant Champion are attuned to these expectations.

So much for expectations–what about execution?  A good book cover is more than just the sum of its parts, isn’t it?  There’s something to the way the parts are put together visually that matters.  That matters a great deal.

BAD NEWS NEXT. OR RATHER, BAD COVERS.

Everyone loves a bad book cover–the same way everyone loves a terrible audition for American Idol–in that we only enjoy witnessing someone else messing up badly.  When we mess up as authors, sales do not go well for us.  And sales are important.  And so, without being uncompassionate or trite, take a look at these covers:

Pretty bad, right?  But why?  Is it the hazy images or the busy backgrounds or the lack of contrast or the obnoxious font choices or the general impression that someone put these together using Microsoft Paint?

The thing is, we get it.

Making covers is hard, and not everyone has an eye (or software program) to make a brilliant, eye-catching, solidly designed cover.  So we’re not laughing behind our hands at bad covers; we are, however, wiser for exposure to some of the ways in which we might go astray.  Using a sub-par program or manipulating already poor quality images can never give us the perfect cover, and not having the time or expertise to download the perfect font can put us under, too.

The critical components to an eye-catching cover don’t come naturally to most of us.  But if you see yourself in this sentence, I have good news.  There are actually quite a lot of resources out there to help you, from self-help guides built in to self-publishing website like Amazon to the professional services offered by companies like the one I work for.  I’ve even known a couple of authors to make personal contact with illustrators and graphic designers on their own and see some success that way.  The key is to know your strengths and to be realistic about your weaknesses, and to accept help when you reach the end of your own capabilities.

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Settling on a Price

We’ve been at it for a few weeks now, examining a few of the many choices authors have to make during the self-publication and marketing processes, starting with the Big Whopper (“Choosing a Self-Publishing Company“) middling with the choices authors make regarding the text itself (“Choosing a Trim Size for Your Book“), and winding through deciding on a genre for your book–assuming, of course, that genre remains a useful identifier (“Know Thyself (& Thy Genre)“).  Today, we’re going to look at something a little different.  We’re going to ask the money question.  (Or … one of the money questions.)

How Much Do I Charge Per Book?

I’m already aware it’s complicated. Just tell me already.

It’s true.  Pricing is complicated, not least by the fact that we’re probably looking at two different products here, even when we’re talking about one book–because let’s face it, it’s a good idea to sell both a digital copy or ebook edition as well as a physical copy or print edition of your book.  The more diverse your offerings, and so on and so forth.

price in euros

Some facts hold true no matter which edition you’re looking at, however.  The first being:

  • Pricing your book too high relative to your competitors all but guarantees your readers will go elsewhere.

Readers are whatever the book version of an omnivore is called.  (A genrevore?  Never mind.  I’m terrible at coining memes.)  They’re far more likely to pick a sequel of a book they’ve already read than a book by a new author, and failing that, they’re more likely to pick a book within the same genre as an existing favorite.  But a book by an unfamiliar author that’s expensive compared to its shelfmates?  Not going to happen.

The second fact?

  • Pricing your book too low undercuts the perceived value of your book, unless the pricing is temporary.

When we talk about selling readers on a new book, we’re actually making a value proposition; we are attempting to cultivate a perceived value of the book in someone who has never encountered it before, and there’s nothing that shouts “Not worth my time!” than something that doesn’t come with its own built-in novelty factor. There should be a synergy between the quality of your book as an object in the hand and its price; and unless you’re creating the aforementioned novelty by running a short-term sale or discount, your book should be only fractionally lower than the average price of a new book in its genre.

Thirdly:

  • Print books need to account for physical manufacture costs.

So, yes, your ebook should probably cost less than your print edition. It follows.

And lastly:

  • Price is a question of audience.

What does your audience expect of a book like yours?  I’m not just talking about genre; I’m talking about length (Wolf Hall costs more than Moll Flanders, for example), paper and binding quality, whether it’s an oversize or mass market size, hardback or paperback.  The only real way to make a thoroughly researched decision on what these expectations mean in terms of pricing in today’s market is to wander through a bookstore.  Don’t just hang around in one section, either–walk every aisle.  Eye every book.  What qualities does your book share with each item?  What makes it stand out?  Flip through books of a similar page count.  Turn a few books with similar cover designs and aesthetics over to check the price.  Check the gloss of the pages.  Count the illustrations.

Ultimately, the price of your book can only be set and determined by you, so you will at some point have to just make a call and stick with it.  But if you’re feeling particularly brave, take your book in to a bookseller and without giving them much of a clue, let them handle the book and try to guess the price.  Let them estimate how much they would charge.  Neighborhood and indie bookstores are the best for this.  There’s no substitute for experience, and there’s not substitute for the assurance that you’re part of a larger network and system dedicated to putting books like yours in the hands of eager readers.

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
Book Marketing, elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Marketing Your Self-Published Book, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Know Thyself (& Thy Genre)

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent some time looking a few of the many choices authors have to make during the self-publication and marketing processes, starting with the Big Whopper (“Choosing a Self-Publishing Company“) and then moving into choices regarding the text itself (“Choosing a Trim Size for Your Book“).  This Thursday, however, I’m writing less about making a choice than I am about detecting past choices you may not have been aware you were making … and then totally exploiting them for marketing purposes.

Let me explain.

You Don’t Choose A Genre So Much As Discover It:

It Probably Only Matters for Marketing Anyway

Thinking back over the history of publishing, I can’t begin to count the number of times a book has been rejected as “too weird” or “too out-there” when really, the issue at hand was the fact that the book in question didn’t fit neatly into one of the prescribed genres (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Fantasy/Science Fiction, Western, Biography, etc).  And the marketing folks at a traditional publisher know: it’s hard to market something that doesn’t fit neatly into a category, because doing so requires flexibility and out-of-the-box thinking.  Hybrid thinking.  Opinions are changing, slowly, but not fast enough within the Big Five traditional publishing houses.

Self-publishing gives you a third way. You don’t have to pick a genre while writing, but you can take advantage of a book’s genre or genres plural by approaching genre as a diagnosis after the fact, and an expedition in search of what the Atlantic’s Noah Berlatsky calls “a ‘web of resemblances’ created by intertexual references” that are “constituted basically by social and cultural agreement,” quoting John Rieder and Jason Mittel.  It’s a hunt for markers that point you toward certain resemblances … resemblances you can capitalize on for their social currency.

genre

The diagnosis process is simple:

  1. What books have you read that influenced your work in a measurable way?
  2. What books on the shelves in bookstores now bear resemblance to yours in style and content?

Once you sketch out a couple of lists to answer this question, it’s time to hit the bookstore and your library.  Libraries tend to scale the number of genre sections they stock according to how much shelf space they have, so bigger libraries will have finer distinctions between genres, while bookstores tend to pick the genres they’re going to stock according to what’s popular.  If you survey both your local Barnes & Noble, Tattered Cover, or (*gasp*) actual real-life physical Amazon Bookstore as well as your local public library, you’ll pick up on some of the more common genres out there, including:

  • Action/Adventure
  • Biography
  • Fantasy/Sci-Fi
  • Horror
  • “Literary” Fiction
  • Mystery
  • Thriller/Suspense
  • Romance
  • Self-Help
  • Westerns
  • Women’s fiction

But the list could be a lot, lot longer.  I haven’t, for instance, mentioned more obscure genres like Steampunk and Grimoire.

Once you’ve found the shelf or shelves on which you could picture your book sitting in a bookstore or library, you’re ready to start integrating genre into your publishing and marketing processes.  Now, your book may have “resemblances” to any number of genres, but for simplicity’s sake it’s a good idea to pick just one or two that have left very clear thumbprints on your text.  You can take a quick poll of your early readers, or consult the professionals, for what they find most striking about the style and tone and voice of your book if you end up stuck for answers.  And before committing to your genre or genres, you’ll want to consider your readership.  What are they likely to connect to the most in terms of language?

Genre safely discovered and stowed away for future use, it’s time to start putting it to work.  The language of genre is rich with possibility in terms of “buzzwords” for marketing purposes, so sow them liberally amongst your back-cover blurbs, your press releases, your Amazon and Goodreads listings, your website and blog posts, as well as your social media interactions.  (Genres like #biopunk and #horrorlit make for great hashtags, don’t you think?)

There are lots of ways to use genre once your book is already written and ready to meet the world…but remember, it’s all a matter of timing.  You don’t need to write your entire book to meet a genre’s proscriptive requirements…just your promotional materials.  Genre can be confining, so it’s best to bring it into play only after the creative work is already done.  In my opinion.

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
Advocacy in Self-Publishing, elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Self-Publishing, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Choosing a Self-Publishing Company

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
//
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
//
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
//
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
X
– Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (1916)
***

You may very well be asking what Robert Frost has to do with self-publishing.  After all, he’s rather more a titanic figure in the world of literature (read: traditionally-published literature) than an icon of the D.I.Y. generation.  But here’s the thing: Robert Frost wrote about choices.  A lot.  And while the poem means as lot things to a lot of different people–a lot of things and a lot of people–Frost himself was taken aback to discover how seriously his readers took it.  He’d written it, quite literally, about his friend and walking buddy Edward Thomas, who had rather a lot of trouble making up his mind where to go while they were walking together.*

choices

If Frost had a point, it was that indecision can lead to rather long walks–and maybe damp hair, if there’s a fog or a rain cloud about.  And as you can no doubt verify, the same principle is at work when it comes to choosing a self-publishing company: indecision leads to long waits, and long waits have more consequences for books than just damp hair.  Timeliness is an important part of a book’s appeal, and when we delay publication for whatever reason, that timeliness is undercut.  But making a rash decision can be equally if not more problematic, can’t it?  Finding yourself trapped into a contract which privileges the company and not the author is always a bad thing.  And so we come to it; if I have any advice in choosing a self-publishing company from my years working with self-publishing authors, I could boil it down to these three pointers.

How to Choose a Self-Publishing Company:

1. Choose the people, not the platform.

A lot of self-publishing companies keep costs down by sacrificing customer support and real humans on the other end of certain processes.  But believe me when I say these companies have lost something vital and important; publishing, even or perhaps even especially self-publishing, is about connection.  Connecting the dots between manuscript and book, between author and readers, and yes!  Between the author and the process of publication itself.  If there’s no one on the other end of the line, the final result will suffer.

A good self-publishing company, on the other hand, hires professionals who really and actually care about producing beautiful books that their authors are proud of.  A good self-publishing company hooks you up with partners, with people who care as much about bringing your vision to life as you are.  Choose the company who makes you feel like a priority, who makes you feel like you actually matter.

2. Post-publication assistance matters.  A lot.

Publishing your book is just the start; there’s a lot that comes after.  Don’t just look for a company that offers pre-publication assistance (like copyediting and custom book cover designs) but one that also offers post-publication assistance.  A good self-publishing company will offer marketing assistance, maybe some merchandising options, social media insight, and distribution not just to online retailers like the Apple iStore or Barnes ?& Noble’s Nook Store, but also to physical retailers like Ingram and to reviewers, award committees, and book fairs.  It doesn’t matter if one or two of the offerings don’t strike you as must-haves … but it does matter that you choose a company with diverse options available (which proves they have a lot of muscle, and a lot of influence) and that you choose a company which can still be useful to you after your book hits Amazon.  A company you can turn to if, for some reason, your book sales stall six months on.

3. Don’t give up what made you decide to self-publish in the first place.

Look, I get it: most of us choose to self-publish because of money.  Or because of intellectual freedom.  There’s usually a bank balance or an ideology at work, and I would caution you against thinking of this as a bad thing.  Something pulled us towards self-publishing, even if it’s just plain old simple curiosity, and that something is both valid and worth hanging on to.  Stick with your guns.  Don’t give up on your instincts–because ultimately, your instincts are the most trustworthy and valuable thing you have when it comes to choosing a self-publishing company.

choices

You are not alone. ♣︎

*  And when Thomas himself took the poem seriously and made some rather intense life choices–for example, going off to WWI–Frost was devastated.  He was even more devastated when Thomas died in Arras.  The moral of this story being, it would seem, to make major life decisions upon thorough research and consideration, not the (misread) interpretation of a poem.

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Help. It’s Not What You Think.

When we talk about seeking help in the world of self-publishing, we come up against a struggle almost right away—a struggle almost as old as the indie publishing world itself: that inner debate between going it alone and creating the best possible book, a goal which in reality sometimes requires us to go very much not alone. A reality which requires us to seek assistance. And when you face up to that question, what you’re really asking is something else entirely. Something even more important:

What can having an expert in your corner do for you?

There’s great value in seeking personal help when it’s called for, just as there’s great value in considering all of your options and pursuing only those which benefit you more than they cost you. And really, when you think about it, pretty much every option costs you something, even if we’re talking about intangibles like time and energy and creativity instead of tangibles like hard cash. (But even hard cash is largely symbolic, isn’t it? That’s another story for another blog, though.) Often, the costs are ones we don’t think about, beyond the surface-level acquiescence of I guess I have to do this thing or this other thing, so here goes. I’ve spent many an evening on the floor of my living room snipping out shapes from craft paper only to sit back after hours of sweat (and the occasional tear, if I’m honest) with the lightning-strike realization that I could have just ordered these shapes online or something. But for one reason or another, I had already sunk a great deal of labor into the craft while assuming that I had no other option.

Many people have the same kind of AHA! moment when it comes to self-publishing—only, most of them have it too late, after they’ve already agonized through the various minutiae of picking out a self-publishing package, maybe even designing their own book cover or conscripting vaguely interested friends into copyediting, and even chasing down local distribution options to no avail.

consultation

Here’s the thing, though:

Help, in the world of self-publishing, is abundant. And it’s readily available. If you know where to look, and if you’re willing to look.  There’s definitely a bit of resistance to giving up the solo attempt, stemming partly from the legacy of indie being tied to a flat rejection of the traditional publishing model, with its teams of marketing aides and editors with gatekeeping tendencies. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with questioning the need for help. Question away! Just know that it’s out there, and that true to the indie mindset it is as myriad and adaptable as the self-publishing process itself.

Thinking of my own personal experience in the world of self-publishing, I know for a fact you can find help with:

The true value of personal help in the self-publishing process is in knowing you have an ally. Many allies. All of the time. They might come in the form of a Publishing Consultant or a Personal Marketing Assistant, or something else entirely. They’re out there on message boards, email, and of course you can catch them over the phone. They’re even out there lurking in live chats.

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.