Thriller Book Cover Fonts: Go Big or Go Home?

Yesterday, after reading my post about eBook covers, author Elizabeth Kirke stopped by my Facebook page to mention she had blogged about the importance of titles and fonts, something I’ve actually been thinking about for a few days.

As a thriller writer, I’m not a big fan of the way thriller book covers are presented to readers, with those gigantic fonts that scream at you the moment you walk through the doors of Barnes & Noble. Like this (actually I kind of like this one, but you get the point):

But I guess what these kinds of covers have going for them is that they connote immediacy and danger and, yes, screaming, so readers readily identify the books behind them as thrillers. And that’s a good thing — readers know what they’re getting and can march right to that book at the bookstore, or online, if that’s what they’re after. But I’ve always pictured the cover of Baby Grand a certain way, not necessarily with tiny type, but with more of an airy feel to it. I’m wondering if it would be a mistake to veer from what is obviously a successful formula for the genre.

What do you think?

Meet Ethan Dreilinger

We’re mixing things up a little today. I’d been meaning to feature my friend and colleague Ethan Dreilinger on this blog to discuss his first novel, Out of the Dust, which he self-published last June. But that wascally wabbit went ahead and published his second novel in October, before I had the chance, making him, technically, ineligible to be featured here. So we’re working around that minor detail today by showing my interview with Ethan for “The Writer’s Dream,” which aired last fall — before he published his second book. Enjoy!

Attention, Self-Publishers: Edit, Edit, Edit!

A quick word to my self-published author-friends. Please know that I totally love and respect what you’re doing. So many people think self-publishing a book is easy, but the truth is you are totally on your own out there when it comes to marketing and selling your book. You are joining blog tours, doing interviews and networking, networking, networking. You are all amazingly brave and entrepreneurial. As I wrote in a recent blog post, if my traditional-publishing travels for Baby Grand do not turn out the way I would like, I would indeed consider self-publishing and make a go of it on my own.

But, please, I beg of you, have your book professionally edited (or at least read by grammarphile friends) before you self-publish. A friend of mine recently self-published a novel, and eager as I was to see a “sneak peek” of the book on Amazon, I immediately became disillusioned when right there in the second sentence was a grammatical error.

Ugh.

I know that might not be a big deal for some — hey, Amanda Hocking has sold millions of books that she herself says could have been better edited — but for me it’s a huge turnoff. Do traditionally published books have typos and grammatical errors? Yes, but they’re usually few and far between. Recently, my 14-year-old son had to put a self-published book down because there were “just too many” spelling mistakes. That’s a shame.

Yes, it’s the book’s story that is most important, but the way the story is told is pretty darn important too. And as more and more people self-publish, you want your book to rise above the masses, and one surefire way to do that is to be sure that your spelling and grammar are as close to perfect as possible.

MO Reads: San Franscisco Hotel Introduces Book Club

This month, Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco, one of the city’s leading luxury hotels, is launching a new book club program, “MO Reads.” The program offers complimentary books to guests of the hotel and the opportunity to join its virtual book club on Goodreads.  What’s more, the hotel’s year-long “MO Reads” program will also be complemented by a social media contest and author events to benefit Room to Read, a non-profit charity dedicated to improving the literacy of children in developing countries.

Five books will be featured in 2011. Guests of the hotel in March and April will receive a complimentary hard copy of the recently published Gideon’s War: A Novel (Touchstone Hardcover/ Simon & Schuster), the first novel from veteran Hollywood writer and Emmy winner Howard Gordon, the executive producer of the hit television series 24.  “MO Reads” continues through 2011 with the following selections:

May – June: Parents Behaving Badly by Scott Gummer

July – August: Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger (paperback release)

September – October: Fatal Error by J. A. Jance

November – December: Pink Princess Party Cookbook by Barbara Beery

On Goodreads, members can share their insights about each book. Participants of “MO Reads” can also enter hotel’s monthly social media contest, “Don’t Bother Me, I’m Reading” by submitting a photograph of themselves at the hotel reading the book club selection.  Photos will be posted in the Photo Album of the hotel’s Facebook page, and hotel colleagues will select the “best” photo each month. Winners will receive a complimentary one-night stay, with breakfast for two, valued at $450.

Author events at Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco will commence on Saturday, March 26, when the hotel hosts Gideon’s War author Howard Gordon at the premier “MO Reads Tea.” Gordon will read from his novel, answer questions and autograph his book.  For all my Frisco readers, the event will begin at 1:00 p.m. and is $38 per person, with $10 from each tea benefiting Room to Read.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is pretty darn cool and beats chocolate on the pillows any day of the week. :)

A Is For Agent?

As readers of this blog know, I recently attended a fab free seminar moderated by Susan Shapiro. Last week, I wrote two posts containing info gleamed from the discussion: 8 Quick Query Letter Tips and Shapiro: Debut Book Should Not Be Cross-Genre.

But I wanted to mention a random tidbit that was mentioned. An audience member lamented that he had sent a manuscript to an agent and was waiting a long time — months — for feedback and was wondering when a good time would be for follow-up. Of course, follow-up procedures are different for each agent — that kind of info can be found at places like Mediabistro and Literary Marketplace — but the panelists generally agreed that a quick follow-up right now should be okay. One of the agents on hand apologized for said agent and said that she could relate: Sometimes things fall through the cracks even though we try to be as diligent as possible. (Certainly, as an editor — and mom — I can relate to that.) Then she said this, off the cuff:

“Authors who have manuscripts with titles at the beginning of the alphabet I usually read first, because I read them on my Kindle.”

She quickly added:

“Not that you should change the title of your book, but that’s just the way I read.”

My first thought on hearing this was: “Yay! Baby Grand starts with a B.” Although that doesn’t really matter since my novel is represented, read and revised at this point. But I was reminded of all the factors there are to getting a book published that are out of the aspiring author’s control: what slots editors have available on their lists, when agents respond to our queries/manuscripts, what’s hot in the market right now, what’s not. The waiting… That’s probably the hardest.

“I used to think that a person just wrote a book, sent it to someone who liked it, and it got published,” my husband said to me recently. “I’ll never look at a book in Barnes & Noble the same way.”

Still, since I started writing Baby Grand in February 2009, I’ve had a very lucky, wonderful, smooth experience so far, but I’ve always known the road would be long and fraught with all kinds of stops and starts and things that were out of my control. And I don’t mind. I’m with Jimmy Dugan, who in A League of Their Own said: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

Book Trailers

A growing trend in independent book promotion is the “book trailer”: a video advertisement for a book, similar to a movie trailer. I’ve seen everything from “talking head” book trailers, where the author discusses his or her book, to animation, photo montages set to music and full-production trailers. If you’re marketing your novel, you may want to think about creating a book trailer. You don’t have to spend a lot of money — I’ve seen some very well done simple videos. Creativity goes a long way.

Here’s a terrific trailer for a book titled Meet the Annas that I stumbled upon on YouTube. Yes, it’s put out by a publisher, Coral Press, and not a cash-strapped author, but it’s rather simple. Just a few photos, music and narration. It’s effective — sets the tone for the novel, provides a review and makes the viewer curious to find out more. Just what a trailer should do. Be aware, though, of copyright issues. I’m assuming Coral Press has the right to use everything shown, but it’s important to remember you cannot use any materials that are not your own — music, photos, film — unless you are granted permission to do so. There are far too many people crossing legal lines on the internet either naively or just hoping not to get caught. The last thing a first-time writer wants is to be accused of lifting other people’s creative material.

The Future of Publishing

Today’s guest post is written by Bob Mayer, the bestselling author of more than 40 books. Mayer, who is a West Point graduate, served in the Infantry and Special Forces (Green Berets) and has been studying, practicing and teaching change, team-building, leadership and communication for over 30 years. He is the co-creator of Who Dares Wins Publishing.

There are two major trends in publishing going on right now:

1. Midlist authors going it on their own. David Morrell, the award-winning author of First Blood, just announced he is bringing nine books from his backlist into print AND his newest title on his own, skipping traditional publishing altogether. This is biggest name fiction writer to do this. The perception right now is that, overall, the quality of self-published books is poor, and the reality is that most new authors who have self-published are indeed putting up poor quality. However, there are a number of traditionally published authors who are bringing backlist into print, and these are books that have hit bestseller lists. Readers will separate the quality out.

2. Digital publishing is exploding. I’ve seen it just this year. In January, there were many yawns at the Digital Book World conference. Those yawns have changed to expressions of shock. I’ve been predicting that the change from print to digital would be many times faster than most were predicting, and I’ve been proved right (slight pat on the back). Change is happening exponentially, not linearly. I predict by the end of 2011, we will be close to 50 to 60 percent of all books being digital. Romance is a genre where readers are very tech-savvy, so that might lead the way. Although, I suspect Scifi might also be a genre that is tech-heavy. And eBooks are changing the playing field as far as book length. Both ways. For print, you needed at least 60,000 words to be viable – ebooks can be as short as 10,000. Right now there are 6 formatting styles for eBook; someday there will be one.

Additionally, something that is starting to be addressed is how to create additional value for eBook content. David Baldacci added content to his recent release. Because the platform can accept additional content, it is inevitable that it will become an inherent part of the business. While Kindle doesn’t want to get into multimedia, the iPad does support it.

All in all, I think it’s an exciting time to be an author with lots of opportunities.  But only if you educate yourself and stay on top of the latest developments and trends.