Meg Benjamin's Blog, page 6
August 2, 2017
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August 24, 2016
August 18, 2016
Running On Empty: We Have a Cover!
Getting a cover is one of the most exciting and nerve-racking parts of the indie publishing process. You have to find an artist, then you have to explain what you want (assuming you know), then you and the artist have to work through a series of rough drafts before you finally arrive at the cover that best expresses the feeling behind your story.
When it came to covers I was very lucky, much luckier than a lot of other authors. Because Running On Empty is the third book in a trilogy, I had two other covers to draw upon, those for Finding Mr. Right Now and Love in the Morning. I also knew the wonderful artist who’d done those covers: Angela Waters. And like lots of cover artists, Angela works freelance.
I knew pretty much what I wanted on the cover—Angela had set up a gorgeous background that was either a sunrise or a sunset, depending on your point of view. I wanted that background again, with new figures in the foreground, figures that looked like my hero and heroine.
Those of you who have read the first two books will recognize my heroine: the one and only Ronnie Ventura, the bachelorette of Finding Mr. Right Now and one of Lizzy’s saviors in Love in the Morning. My hero may also be familiar, although he’s been more or less in the background up until now—Ted Saltzman, owner and bartender at the Blarney Stone Bar and Grill. In Running On Empty, Ronnie is training for a “triathlon” being run by her old nemesis Fairstein Productions, and Ted is her running coach. I wanted the two of them to look athletic, although I wasn’t sure exactly what that would mean. So I did what authors frequently do when they’re looking for cover inspiration—I visited a stock photo site.
There were lots of pictures of couples in track suits and swimsuits and variations thereof, but somehow none of them seemed quite right. Then I stumbled on one where the couple were standing back-to-back. The man looked faintly miffed. The woman looked radiant. Perfect!
You see, Ted is far from convinced that this triathlon is a good idea. In fact, he can’t see why Ronnie would want to have anything more to do with Fairstein, given their lousy track record where she’s concerned. But Ronnie has her reasons, even if Ted doesn’t entirely understand them. The expressions of the two people in the photo really represented just what the characters were feeling in the book.
I’m taking a bit of a risk here since both people in the picture are looking directly at you (we called that a demand image, back when I was teaching visual communication). Some people are very much against having the cover image address the audience since it may seem too challenging. Then too, some readers don’t like having recognizable faces on a cover since that might interfere with their own mental image of the characters.
Still, I was so taken by the pic, that I decided to go with it. So here it is, the cover for Running on Empty. Hope you like it!
July 12, 2016
Running On Empty: Editing
There are two main expenses for self-publishing—covers (about which, more later) and editing. Of the two, beginning writers are more likely to spend on the former than the latter. They’re making a big mistake.
I come to this conclusion from a somewhat unique perspective—I was a freelance copy editor myself for several years. At one time I had large chunks of the Chicago Manual of Style memorized (note to fellow copy editors—it goes away with time). I even taught courses in copy editing.
And there’s no way I would edit my own stuff.
On the simplest mechanical level, you tend to read through your own errors, even your own typos. You know what’s supposed to be there, and your brain will supply it even when it’s missing. But a good editor will do a lot more than just catch your mistakes. A good editor will tell you where you’re going wrong in your story and your characters. Editors come to the book cold, without any information about your struggles to get it finished (unlike, say, critique partners). Also, they’re not being paid to be your friend. The editor is there to provide you with a flat assessment of the weak spots in your work, along with some hints about how to fix them.
And that’s what you want.
My editor was brutally frank about the highs and lows of Running On Empty. I won’t kid you—some of it hurt. But all of it was necessary, and I was able to produce a much better work thanks to her appraisal.
I remember years ago being part of a critique group that was led by a well-known author. The members of the group ranged from rank beginners to seasoned, multi-published writers. A couple of the rank beginners had never been critiqued before and they both had very public meltdowns in response to criticism. Eventually they both withdrew from the group after a loud denunciation of all of us for our lack of sympathy and understanding regarding the two wonderful works of fiction we’d been tasked with reading. Do I have to tell you that neither of those writers ever made it into print (at least so far as I know)?
Criticism hurts. And criticism is necessary because it hurts, since the pain is frequently based on your realization that your work wasn’t as perfect as you thought it was.
Editing does cost a lot. Many editors charge by the word, and most of us write books in the fifty-thousand to ninety-thousand-word range. But the investment pays off. When readers complain about indie books as “unreadable”, my guess is they’re referring to works that weren’t edited. There may be unlikeable things about an edited book, but they’ll usually be things the author knowingly chose to do.
For better or worse.
June 17, 2016
Running On Empty: First, Write the Book
There are several steps in self-publishing, but there’s a first one that’s absolutely fundamental.
Write the book.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the other things that are involved in publishing, but without a book you’ve got nowhere to go. Fortunately, in this case I had a completed MS. In fact that MS had already been accepted by a publisher, which meant it was in close-to-final form. My stalwart critique partner had gone over it and I’d gone over it myself numerous times.
I’d known the third book would be about Ronnie, the “contagonist” of Finding Mr. Right Now, pretty much since I’d finished that book. Originally, I’d figured on making Ronnie the villainess, but the more I wrote her character, the fonder of her I became.
She was an important supporting character in Love In the Morning, someone who helped Lizzie find justice. I’m not sure when I decided Ronnie would be an athlete, but once I’d made that leap, it seemed natural too, and it led me to her character in Running On Empty. For the first time, though, I didn’t have an existing reality show I could draw on, so I made one up. Writers can do that, fortunately.
I also had a spare hero I could use, Ted Saltzman, the owner of the Blarney Stone, the favorite bar of Salt Box locals. Since Ronnie was working for Ted, it made sense that the two of them might get together. As for the rest of the cast, I brought in the heroines of the first two books—Monica and Lizzy—along with limited appearances by Clark Denham and Paul DeWitt, the heroes. And I brought back two of my favorite supporting characters, Dick Sonnenfeld, renegade Hollywood producer/director, and his significant other, Nona Monteith. As for other characters, a few familiar faces put in appearances, along with some newbies.
As I’ve said before, I hate writing blurbs. Like most fiction writers, I find promotional copy isn’t my forte. The blurb for Running On Empty was a little easier than some, but I’m guessing it will probably undergo some more revisions before it’s final (I’m still not happy with my tagline—suggestions, anyone?). Here’s the current draft:
She’s running her heart out just to stay in the same place.
Ronnie Ventura has every reason to distrust Fairstein Productions: she’s had run-ins with their reality shows before. But Fairstein’s newest reality show offers Ronnie a chance to redeem herself from looking like a blonde bimbo. All she has to do is win a modified triathlon. Simple, right?
Ronnie’s boss at the Blarney Stone bar and café, owner Ted Saltzman, is a lot less convinced that another Fairstein show is just what Ronnie needs, particularly when he’s head over heels about Ronnie himself. But she’s determined, and he’s a man in love.
Ted becomes her running coach, which fans their budding romance to a fever, while her other citizens of Salt Box pitch in with support. But can Ronnie’s newfound confidence stand up to the usual Fairstein plots? And can Ted find a way to keep his true love in Salt Box if Hollywood tries to steal her away again?
June 3, 2016
Running On Empty: Going For It
Last year at this time I was a happy camper. The first book in the Salt Box Trilogy, Finding Mr. Right Now, had just been published. The second, Love In the Morning, had a publication date, and the third, Running On Empty, had been contracted. My first books set in Colorado had become a reality. In January 2016, Love In the Morning was published with good reviews (currently it has a 4.6 star average on Amazon), and I signed the contract for Running On Empty. Everything was looking rosy.
Of course, that was then.
Earlier this year, Samhain Publishing, which bought my very first book, Venus In Blue Jeans, and kept me going with the entire Konigsburg saga, announced that they were closing down. Like most of Samhain’s authors I was upset by the news. I knew many of the people who worked for Samhain, as well as many of its authors—they were a very talented bunch, and I was sad to see them go.
But Samhain’s closure also had a more immediate effect for me personally. It meant that Running On Empty was no longer scheduled for publication since it hadn’t been edited or given a cover at the time the closure was announced. I had a few choices for the future of Running On Empty. First, I could have tried to find another publisher, but the chances of anyone wanting to take on the third book in a trilogy where the other two books belonged to Samhain were slim at best. I could have let it go, leaving the last book of the trilogy up in the air, but I didn’t want to do that.
My third choice—and the one I decided to go with—was publishing the book myself. Gleep!
Self publishing (the industry term is “indie” publishing) is an increasingly widespread phenomenon. An entire industry has sprung up over the last five years for authors who want to bring out their own, professionally produced books, including cover artists, editors, and formatters. I’d already had a little experience in self publishing when I took part in the Sapphire Falls Kindle World series with Going Up In Flames.
I needed to get my publication rights back from Samhain, but that didn’t prove to be a problem. Since they wouldn’t be publishing the book themselves, they were perfectly willing to give me back the contract. Rights in hand, I was ready to pursue an indie published version of Salt Box Trilogy, Book 3.
How hard could it be?
I’ll be pursuing the answer to that question over the rest of the summer, and talking about my experiences in this blog as I do it. All I can say for sure is this: Running On Empty will be coming out, probably in late August.
Stay tuned, gentle reader. Stay tuned.
