Self-Publishing: Judge Me By My Cover, Do You?

We've all heard that old idiom. You know the one. The fact is that books are judged by their covers, and now, with bookselling happening online, books are judged by thumbnail-sized digital images representing what may or may not be an actual cover. 

You need a great cover. You can't just skate by on your superior writing skills. No one is going to click on your link if your cover doesn't catch their attention. Ideally, you'll hire a professional cover designer. (Might I suggest my friend Kelsey and her company?) But what if you can't afford them? What if you decide to DIY your book cover? I have some tips for you. 

Look at covers for similar books. 

Go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and check out the top ten best-selling books in whatever genre your book is. Look at the book covers as thumbnails and as full-size images. What do you like? What grabs you? What don't you like? I recently spent some time on Harlequin's website looking at Blaze book covers, since the story I'm currently working on has the same sort of feel as those books. You can do the same at other publishers' websites.

Read graphic design and book cover review blogs. 

If you're not visually inclined, reading graphic design blogs can be daunting. Those wacky artists talk about all sorts of things I don't really understand. Read them anyway. It's the same as any other research; Google any terms you don't understand. You will eventually absorb some information and figure out how to use what you learn. As for book cover review blogs, I like Your Cover Uncovered, even though it's relatively new. 

How-to guides on graphic design are good for you.

Read about things like how color affects people and which fonts are a bad idea. Watch things like how to design a book cover. I'm not saying be a copycat. I'm saying learn something. 

Download free photo editing software.

I use Photoscape. It's not as sophisticated as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, but it's pretty good. I've heard good things about Picasa, too. (My father is a photographer and he uses Picasa when he's away from Photoshop.) After you download it, play with it. A lot. Watch tutorials. Share what you create with people who will give you their opinions, and listen to those opinions. Get better.

Use royalty-free images.

Back when I was designing the cover for Cass, I Googled "free royalty free images." (I ended up creating the neon heart shape on my own. Please don't ask me how, it was a fluke and I doubt I could ever recreate it.) I ended up finding Dreamstime, a website with an enormous free stock image library. Their prices are reasonable ($10 per image seems to be industry standard); I may actually end up buying an image for the next book cover. Just be sure you read the terms of service. At Dreamstime, you can use free images for up to 10,000 sales, and paid images for 500,000 sales; online use is unlimited. Don't forget to give credit where credit is due on your copyright page.

On Writing: When You Can't Call Everyone "Darling"

I hate naming my characters. There. I said it. For many years, I refused to name them, and I stuck with the pronouns only. Then I started writing homoerotica, and names became necessary because more than one "he" and if you're not careful, you have one guy doing all sorts of dirty things to himself. Some of those things are physically impossible.

But I digress.

Now that I name my characters regularly, I still hate it, but I have a few ways of going about it that make the process easier. I believe you should give thought to your character names, but I also believe--especially in fiction based in the real world--that the names should make sense. Conservative, wealthy parents from New England aren't going to name their daughter Rainbow Moonbeam, and die-hard Secessionists from the South aren't going to name their oldest son after the bastard who burned Atlanta to the ground. There are, of course, always exceptions to the rule, and true life is much stranger than fiction, but I think you get my point.

So here's what I do.

Visit the Social Security Administration website.
The SSA has a site dedicated to baby names. What I do is determine the year my character was born, and then I search "popular names by birth year." I try to pick a name from the top 1000. By doing this, I give my character an extra dimension of realism. Her parents were fully grounded in reality. Plus, it makes naming characters so much easier.

Let the characters name themselves.
It's a bit like letting a child name itself, but sometimes, it works. In Strawberry Moon, the main characters were originally named Lydia and Elaine, but it just wasn't working. When I sort of gave over to the muse and just started typing, they named themselves Jessica and Amy. I wouldn't have chosen these names on my own because of real-world connections to a Jessica and an Amy, but the names work, it's unlikely the women my husband knows will ever read the book, and so I'm going with it.

Consider the character's parents.
I mentioned the conservative New England parents and the die-hard Southern parents. Think about the character's origins, where she came from, who would have named her. What were her parents thinking? What did they hope to accomplish with her name? Parents generally put a lot of thought into their child's name. And some don't, which says something about their character.

Use what sounds good.
I confess: Cass got her name because it sounded good. It's a good sex name: one syllable, easy to say in the heat of passion. It sort of embodies the character and her story. Her name is short, it sounds like "sassy," it even has the vulgar word for buttocks in it, and if you've read the book, you know that kind of figures into her thinking. The current character I'm writing, Lilah, got her name in a similar fashion. It just sounds good. I like the way it rises and falls, I like that it flows nicely with her middle name and her last name, and I like that her parents chose an old-fashioned, Biblical name for her but shortened it to something more modern and flower-like.

Monday Miscellany: Why I'll Be MIA Tomorrow

First, I'm a thousand words into the second chapter of The Cowboy Next Door. The first chapter has been drafted and comes in at just over 4,000 words, so I think the chances are good that this story will be about 15,000 words. Not bad.

I also did a very rough action-draft of the first part of the book on self-publishing I plan to work on next. I wouldn't normally start a second project like that, but it was nagging me, so I gave in.

Tomorrow, my daughter turns a year old. I know, right? I can't believe it has already been a year. This morning, we took her out so she could pick out gifts with the birthday money her great-grandmother sent her (she chose a toy espresso machine, a toy laptop, and a plastic foam dinosaur) and it was only when she laid down for a nap that I realized I haven't done anything that I normally do today. You know. Blogging, tweeting, checking Smashwords and Amazon... So it occurs to me that I will probably be MIA from social networking for the next day, maybe even two. We have a lot of playing to do.

With the weather here in Germany being so, um, unpredictable, I'm not ruling out much of the next few days being spent at the pool. We went all summer with relatively cool days and lots of rain, but the last few days have been hot and icky. I'm so glad the pool in Kaiserslautern is so nice.

Blog Roundup: August 15 - 21, 2011

I love this post from Amanda Hocking. I think it's important to have these sort of re-realizations sometimes. I also love this post, because it's such a totally exciting thing that her books are getting new covers.

I am not exactly sure what Ms. Charbonneau is getting at in this post. Not only did I not notice Amazon doing the rounding-up (which I guess is the point), but I also can't find evidence of it on the site (but maybe I just am not looking in the correct place). I understand her skepticism, but I'm just not that skeptical.

James Killick blogged on why you should give up writing right now. I'm still not deterred.

Keystrokes & Word Counts came through yet again with two great posts this week. One on social networking and not over-extending yourself and one on not feeding the trolls. If you click on no other links, click on that one.

Don't be a douche. Listen to Sirra.

Stella Deleuze blogged about creating believable scenes. Think about what you write. Even if a scene is science fiction or fantasy, I don't think it hurts to act it out and make sure that it makes sense.

The Bookshelf Muse has a post on impulsive as a character trait this week. I think I'm writing a character who could be described as impulsive...

Your Cover Uncovered took on a new book cover. I love this blog for the explanations behind the writer's opinion. I wish it was updated more frequently simply because I'm not very graphically inclined and this is such a great blog. (Yes, I'm being selfish.)

Chuck Wendig posted about the bare-bones secret menu of writing advice. I think all of his advice is pretty sound (or it makes me laugh, whatever), but this really strips it down. Also, I think I want animal fries now.

Wow. It looks like it was kind of a light week for blogging.

SitRep Saturday: Cass Gets Her Kicks and Announcing The Cowboy Next Door

Cass Gets Her Kicks is for sale at Smashwords and at Amazon. It has been accepted into the premium catalog for distribution at Smashwords, so it'll be available at B&N, Sony, and Apple in the next two weeks or so. The first story, "Galena, KS," is available on the website as a sneak peek and the first 35% of the book is free to preview at Smashwords.

This week, I outlined and action-drafted the next project, a romance novella set in a fictional town in Colorado, starring a Navy widow and a cowboy. The working title is currently The Cowboy Next Door. I'm shooting for a wordcount of 15,000 - 20,000 and I think I can make it, but we'll see how it goes. My hope is to have the whole thing drafted by the end of this week. I started the first chapter last night and got about 200 words in before I decided that I should go to bed early.

I've already been looking at possible cover images, but I haven't found anything that just calls to me the way Cass's pink-and-black image did.

Science Fiction Books Worth Reading Right Now

If you've read my blog or Twitter, you probably realize that I like science fiction. Star Wars. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I may even have mentioned Star Trek, I'm not sure. So today, I'm going to share a list of some of my favorite science fiction books.

1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe, and Everything, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless are the five books that make up Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide "trilogy." I read these books for the first time when I was about twelve, and I nearly died laughing. I own so many copies of these books, and I have owned even more since I first read them. These books. They are so funny. Seriously. If you haven't read the, go pick them up at the library or buy them or something and read them immediately. Go on. I'll wait. Then come back here and tell me how you died laughing.

2. Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

These two go together because they tell the same story from two different points of view with two different backstories. In Ender's Game, we meet and follow Ender Wiggin, the hero of the war against the Formics. He's a child selected for military training and, in the end, proves to be the military genius the international fleet was hoping for. In Ender's Shadow, we meet Bean, a street urchin from Rotterdam who is recruited into the Battle School and basically becomes Ender's right hand man. Each book stands alone as a brilliant piece of hard military science fiction, but the fact that they star children makes them, I think, far more thought-provoking than they would be if Ender and Bean were a couple of twenty-something Navy officers. We think of war as an adult thing, but here the Battle School exists to train very young children to do adult work. If you read none of the other books in the Ender series, these two are must-reads.

3. Heris Serrano trilogy by Elizabeth Moon

Heris Serrano probably deserves a post all to herself. At the very least, I should have included her in my Heroines post. She's strong, brave, competent, and a total badass. I discovered Elizabeth Moon's work when I was seriously considering joining the Navy, and I admired Captain Serrano for her leadership skills. She stars in Hunting Party, Sporting Chance, and Winning Colors, first as a disgraced officer from the Regular Space Service of the Familias Regnant hired on to command a rich old lady's personal yacht, then continuing in that role as she and Lady Cecelia foil various political plots, and finally as a restored commanding officer in the Fleet. The books are full of military action, political action, and fabulous character development.

4. Esmay Suiza trilogy by Elizabeth Moon

Once a Hero slightly overlaps Winning Colors, but focuses on Esmay Suiza, a junior officer in the RSS. Whereas Heris is an established adult, we actually get to watch Esmay grow up. Esmay's books--Once a Hero, Rules of Engagement, Change of Command--focus more on RSS military action, on the development of Esmay as a command officer, and on her character development. There aren't a lot of horses in this trilogy. I loved watching Esmay come into her own, and, of course, Elizabeth Moon's space navy action is second to none. As a bonus, check out Against the Odds, which is the seventh book in the Familias Regnant series.

5. Star Wars: X-Wing books by Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston

I still remember the exact moment I became a Star Wars fan. We rented the first movie in the summer of 1997 because my dad wanted me to see the original films before he took me to see the re-release. It was the Battle of Yavin, and Garven Dreis (Red Leader) said, "Lock S-foils in attack position." The X-wings opened up and I was hooked. The series contains nine books and a tenth one is due out next year. Rogue Squadron, Wedge's Gamble, The Krytos Trap, The Bacta War, and Isard's Revenge (book eight, not five) were all written by Mike Stackpole, an astonishingly talented technical writer. Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, Solo Command, and Starfighters of Adumar were all written by Aaron Allston, a writer I always imagine to be the bastard child of Mike Stackpole and Douglas Adams. They're a fantastic introduction to the Star Wars expanded universe even though they don't focus on the main characters of Luke, Leia, and Han. They're technically sound, full of compelling characters, and even if none of that is worth checking them out to you, Aaron Allston's humor should be.

6. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Jules Verne is probably my favorite science fiction author. Journey to the Center of the Earth is a prime example of why. It's fun, it's adventurous, it's interesting, it's everything I like my science fiction to be and it places an emphasis on science. The thing about his books, though, is that you have to be careful. There are some crappy translated versions out there, and a bad translation can ruin your whole read.

7. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

At one point, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I loved Journey to the Center of the Earth, so I figured that a book about a submarine should be right up my alley. I didn't know the narwhal existed before I read this Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo is one of my favorite sci-fi characters of all time, so complex and compelling. What is most interesting, I think, about Verne's writing is how far ahead of its time it is. This book was written in the 1860s, and it stars a submarine. How cool is that?!

8. Shade's Children by Garth Nix


This is one of those books that haunts me. I read it twice in the late 1990s and I haven't touched it since, but I remember it, and thinking about it still creeps me out. Shade's Children is about an uploaded brain and personality and renegade teenagers in a post-apocalyptic world run by Big Baddies. Ella in particular caught my attention (I guess it's obvious that I have a type) and the Drum/Ella non-relationship has stuck with me. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under about twelve or thirteen, but I bet if I were to go back and read it now, I would notice a ton of new things. This is a thoroughly creepy, fascinating novel.

On Writing: Beating Writer's Block

Writer's block is a horrible, nasty, terrible thing that plagues every writer at some point or another. It's awful. But here are some tips that I use to get through it without, you know, resorting to drastic measures.

1. Read.

Re-read one of your favorite books. Read an article. Read a magazine. Read a newspaper. Read some fanfiction. Read a new book. Just read something. Reading the written word will remind you that, hey, you can do that!

2. See a movie/watch TV.

Seeing a movie puts you in a dark theater free from distraction. You can lose yourself completely in the story, shut out everything else, and just focus on enjoying that movie. It's harder to shut out distractions when you watch TV--what with all those commercials--but watching TV on DVD can help. Pick a show and get into it. Focus on the story, the characters, the dialogue.

3. Listen to music/go to a concert.

Shut off everything else, put on music, and just listen. Really listen. Identify each instrument, each beat, each rhythm, each melody. Think about the singer's voice, or imagine the musician's fingers working the instrument. Think about the lyrics, what they mean, what they might mean, how the lyricist wrote, what she was thinking or feeling when she did.

4. Go for a walk.

Never underestimate the stimulating power of fresh air, sunshine, and unplugging. Take at least half an hour, more is better. Of course, if you live somewhere that is super ridiculously hot, change this to going to the pool, going to the gym, something. Do something physical and don't think about your writing.

5. Have a drink.

Obviously, this is only an option if you are legally allowed to drink or have your parents' or spouse's permission to legally be allowed to drink. Alcohol loosens your inhibitions and, in my experience, can loosen the gunk clogging up your brain and loosen your fingers. There's a good reason a number of famous writers are also alcoholics. I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just saying it makes sense.

6. Take a shower.

I do my best thinking in the shower. I'm not alone. I've seen and heard many other writers claim to have solved problems and broken through writer's block during a long, hot shower. There's something about the steam and the mundane, automatic act of scrubbing down that gives you time to think free from pressure.

7. Write meta.

If you can't bring yourself to work on your work-in-progress, try writing about it. Write about your protagonist. Tell how she got her name, a painful childhood memory, her first romantic experience. Write about his relationship with his father, his political ideals. Explore what you hope to show over the course of the story, how you hope to develop her character, and where you want her to be at the end compared to the beginning. No one has to see this; this is just for you.

8. Write anyway, edit later.

Some would argue that this is the number one tip. Writing anyway, forcing those creative muscles to work and those juices to flow, secure in the knowledge that you can come back to what you're writing and rewrite, revise, and edit, can be good for your block. Once the block is gone, you can fix what you've done.

9. Take a break.

There are times when a work-in-progress is like a fight and you just have to walk away. Walk away for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days. I don't suggest any longer than three days, because after that, if you're still blocked, you may not want to come back to it.

10. Talk to someone.


Ideally, you're already a member of some writer's forums, or you've made friends on Twitter, or you have some non-writer friends who don't mind listening to you and letting you bounce ideas off of them. If you don't do or have any of these, get some. Sometimes, talking about your block can help you get past it faster than anything else.

Ten Great Heroines

Inspired by this post at Amy Lunderman's blog, I'm going to share with you my favorite heroines from some of my favorite books. These are the women and girls I grew up with, looked up to, admired, questioned, respected, and loved.

1. Nancy Drew from the Nancy Drew mysteries

Nancy has been around since 1930. My mother had a bunch of the original books, given to her by her mother, and gave them to me when I was in third grade. I like the original Nancy Drew, the badass young woman who drove a blue convertible, kept her boyfriend at arm's length, and solved all the mysteries on her own or with the help of Bess and George. I like her outspoken, willful, fearless, and determined. I also like the old, unedited versions of the original stories. Those are the copies I will be giving to my daughter. I did, however, like the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys super mysteries that were available in the late 1980s through the 1990s, but that was mostly because I shipped Frank Hardy and Nancy something fierce.

2. Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind

Scarlett is a selfish, self-centered, entitled, spoiled, bratty little bitch. And I love her. Gone With the Wind is my favorite romantic novel, and I try to re-read it every summer. Scarlett is my favorite character. Despite all of her flaws, she is determined, strong, a hard worker, and a fantastic role model. She's shrewd. She knows exactly what she wants. She's manipulative. She's willful. The part about her that I most identified with, however, is her inability to fit in. Scarlett tried to be a good southern belle, but she just wasn't cut out for it.

3. Tricia McMillan/Trillian Astra from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Is there any surprise that Douglas Adams' brilliant astrophysicist-turned-space traveler is on my list? She's just a little bit odd, wildly intelligent, and one of the only two humans left in the galaxy. She stands alone, beautifully, and does not need Arthur, or Zaphod, or any of the men in her life. I used to want to be like Trillian when I grew up. I considered even trying to make myself smart enough to be an astrophysicist, but I just didn't have the attention span for the textbooks I checked out of the library.

4. Bronwyn Lewis from How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn't Called You Back?

I've posted about this book before. Bron is the quintessential teenager: sullen, sulky, having an identity crisis, and self-centered. But she's also brilliantly talented (with the piano and with cars), smart, and thoughtful. She makes a lot of mistakes along the way, but she owns up to them. In the end, though it does take a tragedy to shock her, she does the right thing. She grows up. She realizes how important family is. She finds herself.

5. Josephine Alibrandi from Looking For Alibrandi

Josephine is graceful and compassionate. She has her typical teenager moments, but she's a good girl, trying to do the right thing, and in the end, I think she succeeds. Her story is very much a "caught between two worlds" story. She shows compassion for her grandmother when the family secret is finally revealed, compassion for her friend when he kills himself, and compassion for herself. Her grace, especially when the secret is revealed and in the aftermath of her friend's suicide, and her grace in dealing with the "bad boy," are something I admired quite a bit.

6. Vicky Austin from The Austin Family Chronicles

My first experience with Vicky was in A Ring of Endless Light. Like most of Madeleine L'Engle's heroines, she has a quiet strength. She has her awkward adolescent moments, but she also has her family, and herself, and she knows that. I like the way she handled the boys after her, and I like the way she handled the death of the child. Vicky is thoughtful and intelligent, and she sorts through her feelings in a way that made a lot of sense to me.

7. Meg Murry from the Time Quartet and The Arm of the Starfish

Meg is really hard on herself, something I think most young women can identify with, but she--like Vicky--has a quiet strength. She's good at math, something unique for a female character in the 1960s and something I really admired. As I read through the Time books, and The Arm of the Starfish, I got to see her grow from the awkward teenager who was too critical of herself to a confident mother of seven. It was encouraging.

8. Polly O'Keefe from A House Like a Lotus, An Acceptable Time, and Dragons in the Waters

What can I say? Madeleine L'Engle wrote a fantastic heroine. Compared to Vicky and her mother, Meg, Polly is a modern young woman. She's feisty, self-conscious, compassionate, and determined. I liked Polly's strength of character. She's the oldest of seven children, so I think I identified with her oldest-child status. I was in awe of her language skills and how well-traveled she was. I think, of the three, Polly has the most self-confidence.

9. Jaina Solo from the Star Wars Expanded Universe books

I grew up with Jaina. I mean this quite seriously, as I started reading about her when I was about 12 and she was about 13, and now that she's in her mid-thirties, I'm still reading about her. She's the oldest of three, she's tough, she doesn't rely on her emotions as much as her logic and her skills, she has a bit of darkness in her. Jaina is probably my best friend from a book, as cheesy as that may sound.

10. Kristy Thomas from The Babysitter's Club series

The Babysitter's Club was Kristy's idea! She, like Jaina, is tough, resourceful, and practical. Kristy, actually, was my Jaina before I started reading the Star Wars books. She's business-minded and still a fantastic friend. Her moral compass is pretty much impeccable. She quietly dealt with her own pain, much as Jaina did. I would have liked to read more about Kristy as she grew up. What kind of adult did she turn into? I bet she ran a Fortune 500 company after she overachieved in college.

Quick Giveaway!

The first five people to comment on this post with their email address get a coupon code to download Cass Gets Her Kicks for free!

Over 18 only, please!

Monday Miscellany

Last week, I mentioned splashes of color for my living room. I never made it to IKEA, but I did make it to a local furniture store here in Kaiserslautern that had curtains in the clearance bin. So I bought them. Several panels. I only hung up two panels, but I just love the color and how they make the living space look!

 

Chuck Wendig is running another promotion. Check it out! I bought his "250 Things" book and loved it. I'm going to have to download COAFPM soon. Maybe I can use that as a reward for getting the action draft of my next project done.

Because, yes, once I finish formatting Cass and getting it up for sale on Amazon, I am diving straight into the next project: a romance novella. I have a rough outline worked up, and I think I have a title for it. I know the characters, I started identifying conflict peaks last night, and I am pretty sure I can finish it in just a couple of weeks since I'm shooting for about 15,000 words.

For my last bit of miscellany, I'd like to share that my website has been updated with links to Smashwords and one of the stories in the anthology as a sample of the writing. Let me know what you think!