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Posts Tagged ‘cover art’

What Price Vanity?

Posted in Books, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on 06 Oct 2022| 5 Comments »

This has been a week of ups and downs—society, family, health, the future—and, to be honest, right now I’m on the down-side of it. So, fair warning.

In last week’s post, I admitted that my Fallen Cloud Saga needed new covers. This led to other considerations about fixing some of the content (e.g., typos, minuscule factual errors, and one extremely overwritten prologue), but primarily I spent this week focusing on the covers. I scanned sites and services. I downloaded several apps. I contacted artists whose work ticked a lot of the project boxes. Also, realizing how it’s been a long while since I formatted content for a novel, I solicited advice on the state of play as regards the best formatting tools for books (print and digital).

Sadly, rather than this activity working to ratchet up my enthusiasm, the reverse has happened, and the Black Dog has come to visit.

The reason? The costs.

Artwork, software, hardware, I’d need to license/commission/purchase/upgrade almost everything, and for what?

For vanity?

Brass tacks: Money spent refurbishing the covers of my Fallen Cloud Saga will never be recouped. The idea of making them more attractive to the passing eye and thereby increase my readership is, of course, a real and possible goal, but the money spent will not be earned back, not when taking past sales into account. Then, I have to add in the cost of decent formatting software. Everyone swears by Vellum, but it’s Mac-only, and it isn’t cheap, so I’d need the software and either a Mac-mini or a subscription to macincloud (and I loathe subscription-based software models). Alternatives to Vellum, like Atticus, have their adherents, but as with most charts that compare the enthusiasm coefficient of Apple-heads vs Windows-thralls, the Mac comes out orders of magnitude above.

So, in large part, it comes down to this: How much am I willing to spend to indulge my vanity?

My wife, bless her, has encouraged me to recast the discussion in several ways.
—I’m not buying covers, I’m buying artwork (something we’ve done plenty of times in the past).
—This would finally raise my Fallen Cloud Saga to the state I’ve always wanted it.
—Software and hardware could be used for future projects, as well as all my other titles.
—If she’d asked for something similar, I’d have already written the check.
. . . and the kicker . . .
—”I’ll be mad if you don’t.”

I’ve never been good at spending money on myself, at least not beyond a the cost of a good bottle of whisky. This, though . . . it’s different. Where a bottle of whisky is sipped into extinction, a professional presentation of the entire Fallen Cloud Saga would be something I would enjoy until the day I die, even if no one ever bought another copy.

Vanity? Perhaps.

Or perhaps it’s love, love for the saga I spent years creating, the love that drove me to write the fifth and final book even after the publisher had dropped the project, the same love that is shared by a small but ardent group of readers. It’s not something I owe myself or those readers, and it may not be something we even deserve.

It is, though, be something we would all enjoy.

Isn’t that enough?

Onward.

k

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Post-Signing Reevaluation

Posted in Books, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 29 Sep 2022| 5 Comments »

Last weekend’s author-signing event went surprisingly well, but it was not devoid of lessons to be learned.

I say “surprisingly well” only because of my standard introvert’s dis-ease when facing the public, plus the fact that this was my first signing event in nearly a decade. The fact that I sold any books (and to strangers, no less) was also a surprise. Admittedly, we spent that revenue on books from other authors/artists at the event, but let’s be honest: I don’t do this for the money.

Another entry in the “went well” side of the ledger was using Square for accepting payments. When you consider the fact that a week before the event I had no way to accept credit card payments, Square was an excellent choice. Fast, easy, with a top-notch app and high-confidence from customers, I was able to set up an account, enter my inventory, and get a card reader with a few days to spare. I was also prepared to use Venmo and PayPal, but they weren’t needed, as every customer was very comfortable with using Square.

Aside from these plusses, though, there were a few negatives.

First, I need a “pitch” statement. The author at the next table, J.P. Barnett, was able to sum up his books in a single sentence. (“Two college roommates chase monsters instead of going to class!”) While I’m sure this oversimplified his work, the pitch gave potential customers a quick way to know if his books were something they might enjoy. To be fair, all of J.P.’s books were from the same series, so he only needed One Pitch to Rule them All, whereas my books vary in content, style, and genre. That’s just an excuse, though; hearing J.P.’s pitch and watching his customers’ immediate comprehension of what lay before them showed me the value of a pithy catch-phrase.

I also learned that even though we all say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, we all most definitely do. To that point, I had to admit that the second edition covers for my Fallen Cloud Saga were not doing the job (even though minimalism was all the rage a handful of years ago). By far, the busier, more eye-catching covers on my table got the most attention.

The third lesson was that, if you have a series, bring more copies of Books One and Two. I foolishly brought an equal number of all titles, thinking (wrongly) that people would want to buy the whole series. With one exception, what they did buy was just the first in the series. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense; I’m an unknown quantity, and who wants to lay down cash for a series that they might not want to finish. Luckily, I didn’t run out of “first in a series” books, but it was a near thing.

Each February, Page Turner Books puts on a big signing event, which draws about six hundred sf/f readers, all eager to browse and find new authors. That’s about five times the traffic we saw on Saturday, and I’m seriously considering taking a table. There’s a lot of work I need to do, though, based on what I learned.

As I said, my motivation to participate is not financial. I want more readers rather than more bucks, so as long as I cover my costs, I’m happy. Watching people evaluate my titles, noting their reaction to my (admittedly) long-winded descriptions, and then seeing them walk out with one of my books under their arm, well, that’s the point, for me.

Onward.

k

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The Only Cover Art Resource You Need

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 16 Jan 2015| Leave a Comment »

ND Author Services

Since the day Gutenberg pulled the first sheet off his press, we’ve been told “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and for just about as long, we’ve done precisely that. It isn’t fair, but we do judge books by their cover and now, with the Big-Bang-like expansion of the self-published sub-industry, we probably do it even more.

For self-published authors, cover art is a morass of high cost and low quality. If you’re lucky enough to be an expert photo-manipulator, you may be able to create a decent cover, but even so, the costs of stock images and the complexity of rights and royalty limitations can be daunting.

I’ve created covers for some of my own titles. I’ve negotiated with photographers, fussed with fonts, and tried to apply the wisdom I’ve gleaned from those who do it for a living. I’ve had varying levels of success (the art for Unraveling Time and Cryptogenesis are probably my best), but I’ve never truly been satisfied. Still, whenever I’ve looked into contracting a graphic artist to create a cover, the prices have been out of my range, especially for shorter works which don’t have as high an earnings potential.

Enter ND Author Services.

ND Author Services (NDAS) is the publishing arm of the Hendee writing empire. The Hendees, Barb and J.C., are the authors of the best-selling Noble Dead Saga and other great series, and I’ve sent you over to NDAS before, to learn from some of their excellent articles on the business side of writing.

What most people don’t know is that J.C. Hendee is the talent behind most of their short-form covers. While all their long-form work is published by major houses, they self-publish all their shorter tie-in works, and J.C. crafts the covers. A while ago, I had the opportunity to look over J.C.’s shoulder and study how he builds layer upon layer of graphic elements to create his unquestionably high-quality covers. At the time, I could only dream of having cover art that good.

Now, however, we can all benefit from J.C.’s graphical talents, and you won’t believe how affordable it is.

NDAS began offering “pre-made” covers last year, and they now have an impressive gallery of artwork available for licensing. There are dozens and dozens of high-quality cover art on display, all organized into genre-specific categories. Select the artwork you want, and NDAS will customize it for your title, name, and other specifics. Then they’ll reserve that artwork for a year, so other authors can’t use the same piece.

You can license the work for e-book, print, or both, and here’s the kicker: the price for these is $30, $75, and $85, respectively.

Yes. You can get quality cover art for your electronic and printed book, both for only $85.

I know I sound like a shill, but anyone who has looked into hiring a cover artist knows that this is an incredibly low price, especially if you consider the quality of the work. I’ve paid more than that just to get the rights to a single photo to use in my covers.

Don’t see that perfect fit your title? No worries. NDAS offers services to create custom cover work, as well.

Trust me on this: if you are part of the self-publishing world, you really need to check this out. It may very well be the only cover art resource you need.

k

Typewriter

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