RE: "Greed is Good"

Open Letter from the desk of Mr. G. Gekko, Chairman

TO: All Employees 

RE: Setting the record straight on "Greed is Good" 

It has come to the attention of this office that a speech given some time ago has become problematic for the business practices of this firm and this nation. The Chairman has expressed regret (having nothing to do with the current slate of litigation against him) and wishes to set the record straight.

On that day in 1987, when addressing the ethos of his firm and his vision for western culture, he misspoke on rather an epic scale. 

What he meant to say was this:

Read is good. Read works. Read is right.  

Reading clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Reading, in all of its forms; reading for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and reading, you mark my words, will not only save us, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A. 

The chairman expresses his sincerest apologies for any misunderstandings.  If nothing else, unchecked READING is less likely to crash the world economy. 

Semi-sincerely,

G. Gekko, Chairman

Northwest Tutoring Center Conference

The big project at the writing center recently has been preparing to host the NWTCC. Today, that all came to fruition. And what a day it was.

Sleep now.

Watching the Clock: Keeping track of the third 'W' in your writing.

I was recently re-reading an old manuscript when I stumbled across the following passage...

    "Jordan paused before turning the corner, wondering what she was going to say to the old man that would make any difference. She toyed with her lighter, but couldn’t bring herself to light it. MacLeod had done nothing to earn her disrespect; his house, his rules.

     She could smell the old man’s cigar smoke on the late-afternoon breeze and wondered what she’d have to do to earn the latitude Pastor Kipfer seemed to enjoy. Maybe he'd share his stogie, turn it into an ersatz peace pipe. 

     The rattle of gravel echoed off the garage wall as a car pulled up out front and she hesitated. She didn’t want to do this in front of an audience. She stalled for time, stowing the lighter back in her pocket and hoping it was just a deliveryman.

     A gruff male voice yelled “You Ashleigh MacLeod?"

   “Maybe, who’s asking?” growled the voice of the pastor. 

     A sound like twin thunderclaps shattered the afternoon silence. Light flared, casting harsh shadows against the garage wall, freezing the moment like a camera's flash. The moment of inrushing horror seemed to stretch to infinity the moments before Jordan screamed..."

Did you catch it?  

The muzzle flashes of the shooting we're witnessing through the main character's eyes are bright enough that she sees them from around the corner. Moments after noting that it was mid-afternoon.  

If you've ever been around guns much, you know that's just silly -- it's a gunshot, not a lightning flash.

I know exactly what happened. The first time I wrote the scene, the two characters (Jordan and Pastor Kipfer) had just risen from the supper table and dusk had fallen.  During a rewrite, I removed a bunch of material and shifted the preceding scene from dinner to lunch.

End result: The sun was still in the sky, but the way I was describing the scene still assumed it was dark.

Who, What, When, Why, Where, and How?  Sometimes the third W seems obvious, and sometimes it bites you in the butt.


Incidentally, I checked my notes from the beta readers and one of them even mentions that this scene has timing issues. I remember going through looking for things like this and still I missed this one. More than once.


It goes to show the value of close-reading during revisions.

There are many ways to keep track of this. I've known some authors to keep an account of every scene with a minute-by-minute timestamp. I'm convinced that the trend in thriller novels to include a timestamp at the top of each chapter started with an author's attempt to keep track of what was happening when and then forgetting to erase it.

Instead of military-style timestamps, I've started using an Afterthought Outline (patent pending).

It's not a new idea. In high school and college, instructors would require me to turn in an outline for a paper. Because I didn't see the value in them then and still don't, I would write the paper and then generate a fake outline after the fact. They're fine for those they help, but an unnecessary chore for those they do not.

Good thing I'm not teaching high school English, I suppose.

These days (since long after I wrote the passage above) I've started using the afterthought outline as an editing tool.

Instead of writing from an outline, I have a short precis of the story and some notes about how the main characters will interact. Sometimes I have character sheets for the characters detailing their descriptions and mannerisms, sometimes I don't. Sometimes, I just pin all of my cocktail napkins and bits of paper to a cork board in approximately the order in which they will unfold. Then I start writing and let things happen organically. It's not until the second or third draft that I start seriously jot noting how the story finally settled down and start flagging pages with Post-it notes to indicate where certain events begin and end.  This helps me sort out the flow of events and ideally, notice discrepancies like the one I mentioned above.

To avoid the kind of mistake I detailed above, I often note the date and time at the top of each scene either in the manuscript or in the attached outline: This happens and then this happens. And it's ___ o'clock. And in that location at that time and date, the sun would be ____.

So it goes that even an organic writer (so-called) finds it necessary to outline at least a little. Because if they don't watch the clock, at the very least they're going to have lighting issues.

Write Everywhere & Everywhen: A pocketful of ideas.

Sitting at dinner among other writers, I am often struck by the number of times someone says "I'm going to write about this as soon as I get home!"

I usually hear this as I am tucking a scribble-covered napkin in my pocket and wondering why they're waiting.

I once told someone that I started a new book whenever I didn't have anymore room for my wallet or keys. And it's not far from the truth.

I would imagine that in a world where almost everyone carries a tiny computer in their pockets, we could stop waiting until we get home to write something down. The sad fact is that even with the ubiquity of smart phones and other devices, we still rely on our memories to preserve the ideas that spring fully-formed into our heads at the drop of a word.

There's magic in places where different minds meet. Conversations in real life are fertile ground for ideas.  We're told to keep our eyes open and watch for the stories all around us, but what good does it do us if we don't write it down?

We spend a lot of time on writing blogs and at conferences reminding aspiring writers to keep a notebook on their nightstands for those 3 am epiphanies. (I've moved mine down the hall to the bathroom cabinet because turning on the table lamp wakes up my wife and I got tired of using a headlamp.) But I think we don't spend enough time stressing the need to carry a notebook (or equivalent) at all times where we're out with friends.

Not that I should throw stones; I don't always have a notebook with me either. That's no excuse to let the ideas slip, though. I'll use a napkin or an envelope, or my hand, or a patient passerby if necessary... pretty much anything that will take ink will suffice.

They're not all gold, of course, but they're not all dross either. And the only chance I get to decide which is which is if I stopped for a second to jot a note and shove it in my pocket. Ideas are transitory things. They'll slip away from you if you don't get them down while they're fresh in your mind.

I've never had anyone tell me they find it rude, but I accept that some people might. It's all part and parcel to befriending an author, I'm afraid, occasionally we'll get that far off look in our eyes and start searching our pockets for a pen.

I think that it's a goal we should all have: to come home at the end of the day and find that our pockets are full of ideas.

The Colbert-Patchett Interview

Stephen Colbert sat down with bestselling author and newly-minted bookstore owner Ann Patchett for a throwdown on the book biz.

In case Jeff Bezos reads this: I am appalled, shocked and appalled.

It's a terrible thing. . . honest.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Ann Patchett
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire  Blog Video Archive

My Time Machine: Born in the wrong era?

As a writer, I spend a lot of time delving into the past and exploring what life was like at various points in history. I've written about WWII, Prohibition, the Great Library of Alexandria, and Shakespeare. And a question I often hear is "Do you feel like you were born at the wrong point in history?"

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed that since I wrote Howard Carter no one has asked whether I was born on the wrong planet.

It annoys me at times, but I suppose it's a fair question.

Let's face it, I have a lot of skills that aren't of much use in the 21st century. And by the metric of the rest of the country, my childhood was more on like my dad's than it was like the rest of my peers. We didn't have a video game system or computer. Dad didn't believe in them. I learned to type on a typewriter (as is right and proper.)

My friends refer to this as a 'sheltered upbringing' but I'm not sure I'd agree.

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' farm where I made a lot of my own toys. I built rafts. I sank them. I swam to shore and built new ones. I played with GI Joe while we listened to Fibber McGee & Molly on the radio. I watched Star Wars like every other kid of my age, but read voraciously from a library that was stocked mostly with books written over a half century before I was born.

My childhood was a Mark Twain novel ghostwritten by Ray Bradbury, filtered through an Archie comic.
The world that was shown to me on MTV seemed distant and somewhat surreal, simultaneously more modern and less than the world around me.

I still prefer hand tools to electric, my typewriter to my laptop. It probably also explains why I have no real attachment to those wonders of modern technology that the people around me can't live without. It's not inarguable that I really am a man out of my era and I wouldn't blame you if you thought that if given a time machine and license to use it that I'd be off like a shot.

I certainly used to think so.  Why, I may have been misplaced several centuries! I even said as much to my dad once. Dad looked at me and kind of snorted and said "Take off your glasses."

Touché, Dad. 


I have allergies and poor eyesight and I have an asthma inhaler in my pocket as I type this. Even when I join in a historical reenactment and try to sink into a past age, never far from my mind is the fact that I never would have survived childhood in these past worlds.

Books are my time machine. Then and now, they are my preferred method of time travel. If someone offered me a trip through time I might not take them up on it if I cannot close the cover and return to the modern era any time I wish.

And it's not at all about the asthma inhaler. The women around me are valued as highly as the men. My wife is an engineer. My boss is a woman.  I can see someone passing me on the street and talk to them without see more about them than just the color of their skin. I can say whatever I want here and as long as I don't libel anyone, no one can stop me.

Because honestly... the 'good old days' weren't that good.

So until the man in the Blue Box comes to escort me to the opening night of Hamlet and then safely home again... I like this time period just fine, thanks.

Writing isn't a major, it's a lifestyle choice: Advice for Aspiring Writers

Because I work in a college writing center (and maintain this and other writing-related blogs) a question I get asked a lot is "What do I major in if I want to be a writer?" Because I'm online in several places, those questions now come more often as emails and messages.

Here's an actual message sent to me on Tumblr the other day...

"I'm a freshman in college with an undecided major. What do you think my major should be if I want to be a writer for magazines and websites maybe eventually write a book one day?"

The correct answer is: Whatever you want to major in is fine. Writing isn't a major, it's a lifestyle choice.

I've said it before and will say it again: Unless you want to teach, the schools aren't going to teach you anything you cannot learn much better and at less expense by sitting down and doing it. Major in business; it's more useful to an artist than an art degree, I assure you.

Ignorance of business principles is the number one reason why artists starve.

If I had my way, everyone who wanted to be a writer would get a business degree. In other words, major in something that pays the bills and minor in something that stimulates your soul. Because the 'starving artist' thing is overrated.

No, I'm not kidding.

YA authors, because of the age of their readership, get asked this question constantly. Let's see what New York Times bestselling YA author Maureen Johnson has to say on the topic.

I've heard dozens of bestselling authors give the same advice, MJ was just nice enough to put it on Twitter in her usual charmingly emphatic style.

Does Maureen Johnson saying it make it true? No. Neither does it make it true because Ann Patchett said it. Certainly, majoring in Creative Writing or English isn't going to hurt you. But as Ms. Patchett points out, this isn't medical school we're talking about here; you're not very likely will never recoup the cost of your degree by working in your field.

As I've noted before, I majored in journalism and then left that program to go to art school. Art school taught me nothing about art and a lot about finances, mostly student loan interest and structured payments.

Everything I actually know about art or writing, I taught myself or learned by doing it. Everything.

I think anyone interested in becoming a writer after college should read an essay by Lawrence Block called "Dear Joy" (you can read it for free by following that link). It is written as a letter to a college freshman who wants to become a writer and should be required reading for anyone else who wants to do the same. It's worth noting that he doesn't tell her not to major in a writing-related field. He just tells her the pros and cons.

It really is a great essay and I wish I'd read it as a high school senior.

Which brings me to this: If you're in college right now, majoring in writing or English, I am not advising that you change your major or drop out. For heaven's sake, finish your degree. No one is going to look down on you or refuse to publish you for having completed a college degree. I work in a college writing center; I know how hard it is to get from your admission letter to your diploma.

When you walk down the aisle in your cap and gown, you'll have genuinely accomplished something. You have every right to be proud.

But in all honesty, an arts education isn't something that happens at an institution, it's something that happens in your head. The ivy covered walls, the brick paths, the echoing classrooms... it's all stage dressing for the artist. That what I mean when I say that art and writing aren't majors, they're a lifestyle choice.

When you're majoring in the visual arts, your college admission garners you access to valuable and expensive studio space and things like ceramics kilns that you cannot afford on your own. But for a writer, it's all about what's between your ears. And you don't have to pay for the privilege of using that space, you just have to do it.

Reading is the only education a writer gets. The only thing you need to get access to that education is a library card and those are usually free.

Read. Write. Experiment. Pack your inner art studio with all the supplies you can get your hands on and then sit down at a keyboard and see what you can do. When you type The End on your first novel or short story, that's a graduation of its own. No professor required. The story is your diploma. You have genuinely accomplished something. You have every right to be proud.


That diploma is not what allows you to call yourself a writer or an author. Like Ms. Patchett said: This isn't medical school. You don't need a license to practice (and no one dies if you do it wrong).

The only thing that qualifies you to be a writer is writing something.

Designated Dreamers

Cover Story: Designing 'The Dragon Ring'

What more can any man hope for than to sit and be creative among friends?

When it hits the digital shelves of your local online bookstore, it will be called The Dragon Ring but when I read the first draft of Maggie Secara's sweeping fantasy epic, it was still titled Sparrow's Dragon.

I was enchanted. I remember thinking: Boy, I'd love to do the cover for this...

So when Maggie told me her publisher was looking for a cover designer, as you can imagine, my hand shot up. Luckily, I've done some web design for Maggie in the past, so when I stepped forward, she welcomed me with open arms. We talked about. We talked some more. Then I received a sketch of a dragon from noted folklorist, artist, and author Ari Berk and Maggie said "Yes, something like that" and it was on.

How could anyone pass up the opportunity to put themselves in the middle of so much talent?

Cover design is more than typesetting and Photoshop manipulations; there's always an element of art direction and packaging.  The photos or artwork has to be gathered from the illustrators, the client has to feel that the images and typefaces chosen correctly reflect their desires, balanced, of course with legibility and style.

And somewhere in there, you have to create something that also fits your own aesthetics.

Photo from Wikipedia: Used under Creative Commons License

The description of the eponymous Dragon Ring is that it's viking in origin.  Appropriately, the sketch that Professor Berk sent me is loosely based on the intricate viking-era serpent carvings like those found in the Urnes Stave Church in Norway. (see photo)

I took Ari's sketch, fed it into Photoshop and started sending ideas to Maggie for comment. One of the hurdles for any project of this sort is the mental image the author holds of their ideal cover, their ideal heroine, or in this case, the ideal artifact at the center of their story. In this case, I was lucky enough to have full participation from an author who understood that cover design is not about illustrating the story, but about creating an accurate impression of the story inside. And not to get in the way of the reader opening the book to begin with.

Fifteen or so emails later, we had a couple of final ideas to send to the publisher for them to choose from.

This is a unique experience in many ways and one of those things that distinguish the "Indie" authors and small presses from the big guys. At larger publishers, the covers are very polished. The cover art is chosen mostly for marketing concerns and often drawn from stock sources rather than commissioned from artists who have read the book and discussed them with the authors.  The authors are given very little input on cover designs in the classic publishing model. I've heard stories of authors managing to get covers changed, but not very often and only with great hardship.

That's neither good nor bad. I certainly understand why it has evolved that way. I've talked to authors who would have to back a Brinks truck up to my studio to get me to take their call. People who cannot put away "This is pretty" and say "This will get people to open the book (or click on the thumbnail) and give my words a chance to capture their hearts."

Maggie gets that. Gets it in spades.

What else can I say about Maggie? We've been the 21st century equivalent of penpals for quite awhile now. She is part of my online writing group and one of the many great and surprisingly close friends I have met online but never in person. She's been a great friend and an excellent sounding board for ideas when I'm contemplating anything to do with history.


Dragon Ring has a lot of time travel in it, and seeing someone with genuine historical chops take on a story like that is always exciting. Maggie is the force behind Life in Elizabethan England: A Compendium of Common Knowledge, a one-stop shop for all matters Elizabethan. Whenever my work wanders into the time of Shakespeare, as when I was writing the first draft of Mummer's Masque last year, Maggie's website is my first stop. (She has handily turned the website into a book, which you can buy in all the finest online establishments).


Look for The Dragon Ring from Crooked Cat Publishing, available March 16, 2012! 

Cover Design by Scott Perkins, Ari Berk, Illustrator.
Copyright 2012, Crooked {Cat} Publishing.

Ben Harper, an American living in England, is an organizational guru with a popular British TV program and a great family. It may not be the career his theatrical and musical training prepared him for, but it’s a good one, and he does have a definite knack for bringing order out of chaos. But for all his success, Ben remains unhappy, aching to find a channel for his pent-up creative talents. 

A chance meeting in the pub leads to an offer from some guy who claims to be Oberon king of Faerie. Oberon--if that's who he is--tells Ben that he can help him with the career crisis in return for a favor. All Ben needs to do is take a dragon arm ring back in time and deliver it to Alfred the Great so the medieval king can make peace with the Vikings and get down to forging modern England. If this doesn’t happen, Oberon says, the world Ben knows will cease to exist... 

The Dragon Ring is filled with music, adventure, faerie magic, and dry humor. It also has solid roots in history and folklore, and some indebtedness to the worlds of Brian Froud, Neil Gaiman, and Marie Brennan. 

Read a synopsis and sample chapters here on Maggie's blog.  

Dickens is beyond modern kids? I beg to differ.

Today is Charles Dickens's 200th birthday.

Naturally, the world media is alight with stories relating to Charlie and his works and whether he's still relevant and so on and so forth. Likewise there's a lot of utter and complete nonsense flitting about, including the usual trumpeting of the downfall of civilization. In case you missed it, Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin in a BBC interview said: 

"Children are not being educated to have prolonged attention spans and you have to be prepared to read steadily for a Dickens novel and I think that's a pity."

I hear this sort of stuff and nonsense all the time. Kids these days (with their shaggy hair and baggy clothes and loud rap music) just aren't able to follow the complex story lines and stay with a story the length of David Copperfield. To much TV, too many video games.

They rot your brain, you know.

To which I reply: Really? Have you ever seen a Harry Potter novel?

I'm going to give Ms Tomalin a pass on this one since she went on to say that the last time a truly Dickensian character caught the limelight was Basil Fawlty, bought memorably to life by John Cleese back in 1975. I think it's safe to assume that's when she stopped paying attention to such things because quite frankly, Harry Potter is David Copperfield with a magic wand.

But let's leave Harry and Ms Tomalin alone for a moment. Let's just talk about attention span and the ability to follow complex story lines.

There's a generational disconnect displayed here between people who see video games and TV as methods of storytelling and those who paint it with the same broad brush as brainless entertainment.

Tomalin's comments remind me of when movie critic Roger Ebert decided he needed to tell us all how he's not only never played a video game in his life, but also knew everything about them and could confidently predict their future development, I picked apart his argument on the basis of 'What constitutes art?' instead of 'What constitutes storytelling?' but he loses on both counts and so, I think, does Ms Tomalin.

Rather like dance has always freaked out the older generation who have conveniently forgotten how freaked out their parents were at the way that they danced, new avenues of storytelling continue to befuddle the generation whose preferred meme is getting replaced. Television has been doing this since its inception and video games have picked up where TV left off.

Video games are reaching a point where they are a storytelling medium in and of themselves. With plot twists and puzzles that would befuddle the likes of Ms. Tomalin or Mr. Ebert. The Uncharted series is interactive Indiana Jones. HALO is to Star Wars what Star Wars was to Flash Gordon. Each is the next iteration of our society's urge to tell stories and to immerse the listener/viewer in our tale.




These video games average more than 20 hours of focused gameplay. And they are played over and over again by their adherents.  Games like Skyrim are effectively infinite once you take into account all of the add-on quests and downloadable additional content.

Tell me again how people raised in the internet age cannot focus on an engaging story line for more than a few pages.

But what about books?

If I sat down and paged through the contact lists on my cell phone, I reckon that I could come up with a baker's dozen young ladies who have read every book Jane Austen ever wrote. In fact, if I got every daughter of every friend I have and forced them to confess to every book they've ever read, I would further propose that the pile would include (but not be limited to) the complete works of not only Austen, but also Louisa May Alcott, L.M. Montgomery, JK Rowling, John Green, and yes, Stephenie Meyer.

Every copy would be well-thumbed. E-readers would have fingerprints on the screens, I suppose, but it amounts to the same thing.

Yes, Virginia, kids these days can concentrate long enough to endure longform fiction.

The real question is how do you choose to engage them in it?  By saying they're incapable and writing them off because their modes of storytelling are not the ones we're most comfortable with?  Or by engaging them in the stories that these authors have to tell?

One more quote from Ms Tomalin and I'll get back to what I really should be doing (writing a book).

"You only have to look around our society and everything he wrote about in the 1840s is still relevant - the great gulf between the rich and poor, corrupt financiers, corrupt MPs, how the country is run by old Etonians, you name it, he said it."

Yes indeed. And don't you think that's a better approach than This is too complex for your minds, so pitifully addled as they are by modern culture? 


---


Other Posts you might like:
The Thing About Charlie: Is Dickens Still Relevant?: (Spoiler: Yes. He is.)
Video Games and the State of the Arts: Yes, Mr Ebert, video games do have the potential to be art.

Inspirations for Book Design: A Followup

Unless I start getting more book design gigs, I doubt I'll talk much more about the nuts and bolts of the thing*. If you have questions, post them in the comments thread on this post or the previous one and I'll try my best to answer them or send you someplace that can.

Please Note: The guidelines I jotted down yesterday are neither absolute nor inviolate (except the part about legibility. If I can't read your title, I probably won't read your book.)  Professional designers break the rules all the time. Design rules are like grammar rules: in order to break them, you really need to know what they are first.

That post is purposely incomplete; it's just meant to get you started and keep your cover from getting in your way. It's a starting point; as always, the rest of the journey is up to you.

For Further Reading: Inspirational Links and Places to Get Ideas

• The Casual Optimist:  Dan Wagstaff's beautiful and minimalist blog about books, book design, and the culture of bookstores and book people. Celebrates book design in a way you don't often see, especially the minimalist, retro, and vintage stuff. My advice: Start here.
• The Book Cover Archive: Exactly what it says in the title.  Great stuff. The best of the best. Lots of images and inspiration. (Every image displays first as a thumbnail: proving my point that great design is scalable design.)
• Chronicle Books: Some small publishers get it exactly right. IMO: Chronicle is at the head of that particular pack.
• The Book Designer: a blog about books and design and how they interact. Lots of great stuff.
• Melissa Evans: For those who are wondering "Yeah, but if I do buy that copy of Photoshop, what do I do with it?" I suggest this blog. Melissa is a graphic artist with a boatload of great, easy-to-follow Photoshop tutorials. 

*Yes, I am for available to hire on a freelance basis. If you want to enquire about prices, email me and I'll try my best not to shock you with my quote.

Judged By Its Cover: An Introduction to Book Design

Fact: 31% of book purchases are impulse purchases[1].

I haven't talked much recently about the business of publishing because I've been focusing on writing.  Recently, I put on my graphic designer hat to design the cover of an upcoming novel, and before I take it off, I wanted to talk about that a bit.

While I was researching the design, I trawled through the dusty remainder bins of the internet and what I found indicates a disconnect between the burgeoning independent book industry... and its cover.

I spent years working in bookstores, watching patrons peruse the shelves, picking up book after book and putting it back without so much as glancing at the jacket copy.  What were they looking at?  Title? Cover art? What was it about the books they put back that didn't appeal to them?

I posit that in many of those cases it was the cover. Something about the cover got in the way of them opening the book and reading the words.

I admit the possibility of bias, but I've watched it happen too often to discount it. Publishers agree with me.

In fact, in "ye olde days" (which was actually about six years ago) the best thing a publisher could do to get a book in a customer's hands was to make a deal with a bookstore to put it on a table, an endcap, or on the shelf with the cover facing out. This is called a "Co-op" and it's been the way of things for decades in both the book and music businesses. Heck, they do it in grocery stores too.

Why does it work? Because publishers know that a decent cover can get you to pick up a book. And if you pick it up, you're significantly more likely to form a bond with it, and ultimately buy it. [2]

Here in the future (cue beepy futuristic Star Trek noises) where we buy most of our books online, all book covers get the full-face treatment (which is awesome) but they're shown the size of your thumb print (which is not).

On the screen of the laptop I'm using to type this, Amazon displays thumbnails at about 100 pixels by 140 pixels, or approximately 1/3 inch wide by about a half inch tall.

That's about this big:

Consumers do indeed judge a book by its cover. Is it logical or fair? No. Does it happen? Constantly. Do I judge a book by its cover? No, but I do judge publishers by them. . . or rather I take it as a measure of their faith and how devoted they are to marketing the book.

As both a reader and as a designer, the cover art tells me how seriously the publisher takes the book. It tells me that they invested the time, energy, and money in getting a designer and a book packager in a room together to give the book a visual identity and that ineffable thing we used to call "shelf presence" but I suppose we should start calling "thumbnail presence"  that gets people to pick it up and give the words a chance to seal the deal.

At best, a book cover will make the buyer click on it (or pick it up) but really the best you can hope for in the thumbnail age is for it not to get in the way.

The fake cover shown above is frankly a bit pedestrian, but it works.  It's imperfect to say the least, but it's still perfectly adequate cover for a science fiction book about melty buildings. I cobbled it together from a picture my wife took of the Experience Music Project which, frankly, looks a bit like Tupperware that melted in the dishwasher.  (I felt bad doing this to a perfectly good photo. Behold the majesty of my lens flares!)

If nothing else, it proves that you don't have to be Saul Bass to make a workable book cover or poster. This isn't great, but it wouldn't hurt your book sales. Even with all the stops pulled, it still works as a cover.

Why?  Because it adheres to some basics of proportion and composition (more on that in a minute). It uses a clean font that has been optimized for contrast with its background. There is nothing about this image that would make you skip clicking on it.

Let's look at a different picture that gathers together many of the most frequent cover design errors that I see as I trawl through Amazon's lists:

This is illegible. I see it all the time and it doesn't work on any level. A loopy handwriting font is bad enough, but it's in a color that isn't a sufficient contrast to the underlying image -- even in white against a black background as with the author's name you can't read it.

Note that this one barely works at a larger image size or higher resolution.  Even blown-up, the red subtitle is gone.

Graphic designers are so touchy about handwriting fonts that it's nearly legendary. (Type "Comic Sans" into a search engine sometime.)  In fact, I'm just shy of saying that all handwriting fonts should be banned from book covers entirely.  Except that I've seen them work, but only in very select circumstances and in the hands of a trained professional.

Sometimes it's easy to see why one things works and the other doesn't. Even with all the silly Photoshoppery, When the Buildings Melt "works" not because it's brilliantly executed -- it isn't -- but on simplicity alone. Just being legibile will get you a long way. The curly font murders Swear Not by the Moon in its bed before we ever get to the contrast and composition problems.

This isn't my best work, but it is a bit better.  At least you can read it.

The tapes and off-kilter type is very much a trend right now and it does look funky and youthful (I'm imagining this is a YA book). The font could be even clearer but I don't want to spend a lot of time on an example piece.

Note that I de-emphasized the author on this version just to make a point. Despite what our egos tell us, the least important part of a cover is the author's name. If you're not James Patterson or Steven King, your name isn't the prime selling point. It's a choice that not many are willing to take.

These aren't even extreme examples. Go through the lists of e-books uploaded by hopeful authors at any book site you care to name. You'll see every one of these problems and more that I haven't thought of.

The aesthetics of design are the work of a college degree and several library's worth of books.  Which is to say that they cannot be adequately encapsulated in a single blog post. So why bring it up at all? Because it's the place where so many small publishers and self-publishers fall short.

Book selling used to be all about getting booksellers to lay your book flat on a table or turned face out on a shelf. Give the book prominence of placement and the chance for the cover to work its wiles and you're halfway to a sale.  These days, it's all about clickable thumbnails.

A very basic understanding of graphic design is mandatory in that marketplace, but independent authors and small publishers the world over fail to fully appreciate the power of a thumbnail. If you don't believe me, go through the lists at your favorite online bookstore and pay attention to how many thumbnails are completely indiscernible.

Scott's First Rule of Design: "Possessing a copy of Photoshop does not make you a graphic designer any more than owning a stove makes me a chef."

I may be a foodie, I may even be an excellent cook, but it takes years of training, tasting, and all around hard work to become a chef. The best I can hope for is to be an enthusiastic amateur. And that's fine, but it doesn't mean I should open a restaurant. Technique is the product of training, taste is the product of training combined with experience. You cannot claim the funny hat without liberal helpings of both.

What you're going to turn out will be amateur work. That's okay. Make it the best amateur work you can. Honestly, you're ahead of the pack if your cover just doesn't actually deter sales.

Here are some very basic rules and/or guidelines:

1. Don't use Microsoft Word or Paint: MS Word & Paint are not adequate to the task. Your image will bust into pixels as you re-size it and you will be sad. Happily, you don't need the full Adobe Creative Suite. Photoshop "Elements" contains all the tools you're likely to need and only costs about $80.00. This is a business you're engaged in. Invest in your business.
2. Pixelation is bad. Work large and shrink it, don't work small and try to blow it up. While you're working, constantly apraise your image at every size it's likely to be viewed at. At art school, we were taught to think of every image as a postage stamp.
   
   
3. Use clear, strong, fonts in colors that contrast with their background. Keep it simple. Ornate fonts are your enemy and have to be applied very carefully if at all. If I can't read your title, the odds of me reading your book are diminished.
4. Learn the "Rule of Thirds" and stick to it. The Rule of Thirds is a quick way to attaining a decent level of composition and after awhile it becomes second nature -- without meaning to, I adhered to it even in the Swear Not By the Moon cover I posted above. The Wikipedia article on this topic really is pretty good. Click the link. Even professional designers and photographers only break the rule of thirds on purpose.
5. You do not have to use a photo. I see so may photos on book covers that I feel like someone, somewhere thinks it's a rule. It's not. Also, as we've seen, photos can complicate the legibility of your text. If you do want to use a photo, use your own if you can. Take the picture in the best possible lighting and at the largest format your camera allows.  Do not use a flash. Most bad digital photos can be made better simply by turning off the flash.
   
   If you feel you need to use someone else's photo, you need to familiarize yourself with licensing a fair use.  CreativeCommons.org is an excellent resource.  I urge you to use a photo that is in the Public Domain (the Library of Congress or Wikimedia Commons are excellent sources) or a Creative Commons image that the photographer licensed for commercial use.  If you don't, the image owner has every right to sue you.
6. Fonts belong to their designers. The same rules of photo and image licensing apply to fonts. When you choose a font, you must be sure you have permission to use it commercially. There are a lot of free fonts available. Shop around.  (Once again, the Creative Commons folks can help you out there. See above.)
   
   
7. The Three C's" Contrast, Clarity, and Composition. These are the three concerns you must always keep in mind as you're choosing every element of your design. As in storytelling, the parts are in service to the whole, not the other way around. I don't care how much you love the photo of the kids playing in the mud puddle, if it doesn't work, chuck it.
8. Go to a book store or a website that sells books and LOOK at the covers. Take note of what makes you want to click to see more and what doesn't. Go thou and do likewise.

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[1] Source: Bowker: Making Information Pay 2009 -- GALLAGHER, KELLY (Bowker)

[2] “Why We Buy: the Science of Shopping” by Paco Underhill

Downhill Without Brakes: Lessons from Calvin & Hobbes

Contrary to earlier claims by a certain rabbit, everything I needed to know in life, I learned from Calvin & Hobbes.

• All you really need is someone who can actually see you.
• Relationships don't care whether anyone else can understand them.
• Make every day an adventure.
• Two words: "Rocketship Underpants."
• Subvert the paradigm; that's what it's there for.
• Your imagination is a tool that should not be allowed to rust.
• It's always more fun to get dirty than it is to clean up afterward.
• Adults don't know what they're doing either. (Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone.)
• There are very few situations in which a space helmet and cape aren't appropriate attire.
• You craft your own reality; don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
• All the preparation in the world doesn't guarantee success.
• "You might get hurt" is a lousy reason not to try.
• Life is a downhill ride in a wagon with no brakes. The best you can hope for is to make as big an impact as you can at the end.