S.M. Boyce's Blog: My Journal, page 39

The Coolest Indie Bookstores: Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.

Live in Washington D.C.? Maybe you’re visiting soon? Then I have a great bookstore for you—Politics and Prose. I borrowed the idea to spoliight indie bookstores from Robert Zimmerman’s Aged Pages series, so you should check him out.

 

Address:

5015 Connecticut Avenue Northwest  Washington, DC 20008

Phone: (202) 364-1919

P&P is a two-level, independent bookstore with live events in the back of the top level and a delicious café on the bottom floor. The café can get a little loud, but I still love it.

A friend of mine suggested this place for a meet up, and I’m happy she did. We spent most of our time in the café, which has some of the most delicious green tea (seriously, what do they add? It’s amazing) and some equally munchable hot sandwiches. They even have vegan options. That didn’t matter to me personally—I love me some meat—but I think it’s cool that you have a wide range of hand-assembled food for any time of the day. Not to mention a fresh cake sitting in a display on the counter. Yum.

Just beyond the café is a string of bookshelves filled with cartoons and kids’ books, but most of the shop is up a flight of stairs. There were only best sellers and traditionally published books as far as I could tell, but I couldn’t stay too long so I didn’t look that hard. Hopefully this independent store also stocks independent books. I’ll have to talk to a manager next time I go to see how they feel about it. I’ll keep you posted.

Politics & Prose hosts near-daily events, most of which are authors speaking or doing book signings. You can check out their full calendar here.

There are only two downsides to P&P: D.C. driving and parking. If you can walk, do. But come on, it’s D.C.—driving and parking suck here. The homes surrounding Politics & Prose are beautiful, though, which makes the stop-and-go effect less painful. There are usually spots along the backstreets, too, if you can’t get into the parking lot out back.

Parking Tip: turn into the CVS parking lot and hang a left before you get to the next street over. That’s the parking lot. I got lost the first time I went. Poltiics & Prose shares a parking lot with a strip mall, so parking in the lot can be a beast, especially in the evening.

So if you’re ever in D.C., give this shop a go. Try a biscotti and some iced green tea if you want something light. Pretty much everything on their menu is delicious, so you can’t really go wrong, and the people are incredibly friendly.

If this helps ONE indie, I’ve done my job: Introducing the Indie Author How-To Index

This is a part of the Indie-Pendence Blog Hop, which celebrates the exciting new world of indie and self-publishing. In lieu of throwing confetti in the air to celebrate with them, I’m offering an autographed copy of my novel, The Grimoire: Lichgates, to one lucky winner. Check out the rafflecopter at the bottom of the post for details.

But first, I want to tell you about a fun new project I started. Enjoy!

 

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When I started researching self-publishing last year, I had no idea what I was doing. I was like that meme with the scientist dog. Yes, even with the glasses.

All my research at the time focused on blog hopping and learning bits here and there. I spent hours debating as to whether indie was better than traditional. I hung out on J. A. Konrath’s blog a lot, visited various independent publishers, and watched forums. I was a lurker, but I didn’t feel I could contribute to the conversation.

There wasn’t a guide—well, not a free one anyway. I could pay for tons of them, sure, but how did I know they would help at all? I had to guess, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I made a lot of friends, too. Combined, my friends and mistakes taught me a lot, but I hit a lot of roadblocks to get where I am.

I’m not alone, either—that’s how most authors learn. Egregious mistakes. Some can’t recover from their mistakes,either…they say something stupid that blows up in their face or they publish a book before it’s ready because they don’t know better.

I decided I wanted to help out, to share what I’ve learned so far, but I wanted to do it in a free environment to help authors jump over those roadblocks. That way, everyone can just focus on writing better. Authors can produce better work and learn how to properly interact with readers on forums and in the comments on review threads so PR disasters don’t happen.

To make life easier for authors—and to help writers determine if they even want to get into the indie business—I came up with the Indie Author How-To Index. This is a step-by-step index with posts I’ve created in the past and a list of scheduled posts to help indies learn about the process, from writing to publication to PR.

Of course, I’m always looking for new posts to add. If you have suggestions, let me know. Feel free to add to the discussions, too, because I’m constantly updating the posts with new information people mention in the comments.

I hope this helps at least one indie out there. If this makes at least one person’s life easier, it was worth every hour I spent writing and researching the posts.

Happy writing, all.

—Boyce

 

The Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Absolution Tour Guest Post

Hey gang! Today we have a guest post from  Louis Corsair, author of the paranormal mystery novel Absolution. He’s here on his Absolution Tour and wanted to pop in and say hello. What’s more, Absolution is only $0.99/£0.77 for the duration of the tour, so grab your eBook copy now! Enjoy!

 

Recently, I had the opportunity to read “The Sense of Audience,” an essay by Eleanor Cameron, about authors who write children’s fiction and their views on this subject. The essayist argued that authors who write children’s books are very much aware of their audience, even while they claim they write for themselves. This was such an interesting topic that I read further into the subject. What I walked away with was that writers prefer to “write for myself” or themselves before writing for an audience.

I had to admit that at the time, I leaned towards the “I write for myself” position. But that’s a horribly vague thing to say. See, no matter how many articles I read that emphasized “writing for yourself,” I never got a sense for what they meant. What does it mean to “write for yourself”? What does it mean to “write for an audience”? Why do writers, like me, prefer one and shun the other?

I had to figure out what it meant to write for yourself. Do you mean that you write so that your fiction benefits you first and then society? Financially or as an addition to the literary make-up of the country you live in? Or do you mean that you write to please your own artistic needs before the expectations of the reader? Or do you mean that your first task as a writer is self-expression before crowd pleasing?

It dawned on me that this is all vanity. Writing is a complex process made up of smaller processes. After careful analysis, I came to the conclusion that a writer always writes for an audience. To go further, there is no distinction between what you write for yourself and what you write for an audience.

When you decide that you’re going to attempt a career as an author of fiction, you automatically gravitate towards your tastes. A person who hates the Romance genre won’t attempt to write a Romance novel. If you can’t stomach Science Fiction, I doubt you’ll be the next Orson Scott Card. And if you love Science Fiction and want to write Science Fiction stories, I seriously doubt you’ll exclude the science and put romance in its place.

Do you see how the lines blur?

Are you including the scientific elements because it’s expected in a Science Fiction story or are you including them because you want to emulate the wonderful Science Fiction stories you read as a child/young adult/adult geek? Both are correct. If you want your story published by a Science Fiction publishing house, then you will have those scientific elements in the story or you won’t have a hope in Hell. This is non-negotiable. You may consider yourself an artist who is above entertaining with your fiction, but that doesn’t mean that your publisher will agree.

 

This applies to all genres, even literary fiction. You dare not submit your earth-shattering masterpiece about the power of friendship and love in times of peril to your literary publishing house if it doesn’t meet their submission requirements. Most literary publishing houses will ask for an agent to walk you in. To impress an agent you will have to do more than assert yourself as an artist. The fiction has to speak for you. The writer must know how to tell a story.

This doesn’t apply to you because you self-publish? Think again. The moment you decide to publish, self-published or traditional, you assume (and hope for) an audience. That’s when you stop writing for yourself, when you make that decision. That’s when you start to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

I know. It doesn’t sound as sexy as, “I write for myself.” But this is what storytelling is all about. You can’t have storytelling without a “story” and a “telling.” It defeats the purpose. It is inescapable. The writer always has to deal with the audience. And the writer always has to deal with their respective genre restrictions. Or what you would call audience expectations.

A detective story has to have a detective. A mystery has to have a mystery. An urban fantasy has to have an urban setting and fantasy elements. A romance has to have a man and a woman falling in love (or man on man and woman on woman if it’s meant for LGBT). Etc. Etc.

Right about now, the artist in you is saying, “This is all horribly restrictive.”

George Orwell, Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury, and Cormac McCarthy would disagree with you. Is the novel, 1984, not dystopian fiction? Is the novel, The Road, not post-apocalyptic fiction? How about Fahrenheit 451? Or The Big Sleep? Don’t they all have elements of genre and aren’t they SO much more than that?

The writers I mentioned above were well aware of audience expectations in their fiction, but they did something unique. They used those expectations to tell a better story. It adds that special element that I look for in the novels I read. Some attempt to do more than what’s expected. Not all writers do this.

While writing Absolution, I was all too aware of the audience. This is because I am also a lover of mystery and urban fantasy novels. My novel involves a murder mystery and has a detective, so it fits into the Mystery genre. But it has fantastical elements, like magic and otherworldly beings, in an urban setting, so it also fits into the Urban Fantasy genre. It seems as though I couldn’t budge anything. But this is not the case. I steer the reader into the familiar and then take them into a dark alley where they encounter unfamiliar subject matter.

Knowing what the audience expects allows you to surprise them. It makes a paradigm shift so much more potent.

In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson hooks the reader with fantastic characters (especially Salander) but also with the traditional whodunit. The reader expects to discover the murderer in the end, but the author steals that away from them. I won’t spoil that surprise if you haven’t read the novel, but it’s worth seeing how Larsson uses the elements of the traditional mystery story in a modernized way.

And knowing audience expectations has the added effect of pushing the boundaries of the genre you write in. If you’re writing a detective story, why can’t it be a female detective? A blind detective? A paraplegic detective? A gay detective? A transgendered detective?

In literary fiction, the writer also pushes the boundaries of what’s expected. Why can’t you tell that life-altering story from the point of view of the modern technology we use in life, like the television set and the automobile? Or maybe you use a collective voice instead of a singular voice.

The possibilities are endless. No writer is a bottled thing. So why are there negative connotations associated with the idea of writing for an audience?

I’ve come across writers in workshops who are so mesmerized by what they do that they reject any notion that belittles their writing. This led me to single out two very different kinds of writers in the world: Storytellers; artists.

The artist aspires to push the boundaries of the aesthetic side of writing, not caring so much for genre audience expectations because they don’t write genre and when they do, they do not call it genre. They are highly experimental authors who are willing to part with the traditional form of the novel. They explore the mundane nature of life with such a lens that it makes unexciting things seem profound. They usually win Pulitzers.

The storyteller just wants to tell a story. Maybe their prose is not as refined as the prose of the artist, but they get more pleasure from seeing their fans enjoy a good yarn. While many storytellers produce escapist works, theirs is a greater charge. They carry the stories of our era and the eras that are no more like a time capsule. They reinvent those old tales that are timeless. They are the historians of human dramas, but collect few facts. They are timeless. I am one these writers. We will always be here to tell you a story.

 

How to Hire an Editor, Part III: How to Approach Editors

Now that you understand the basics on finding editors and the various types of editing services, let’s talk about how you communicate with editors.

 

Every editor will want a little something different in their query, but most will want a synopsis and the first few pages to give you that sample edit. Make sure you read their site and follow their requests for contacting them. Some will have a “contact me” box, but most will want to be emailed.

 

Good editors will reply in a few days to a week. If it takes longer than that, move on—they’re too busy for you. You need an editor who can reply to you when you need them, not someone who might eventually get around to responding to you.

 

After they send you their sample, they’ll also send you a quote. For some, this price will come with sticker shock because you weren’t sure what to expect. I personally like to be up-front with my prices because I hated the not knowing that came with editing queries. So with me, you see my prices on my site—and they’re very competitive.

 

Once you get the sample back, take a look at the editor’s comments. Sometimes, you can use these bits of advice even without hiring them, but if they have solid advice across the board, you should really consider hiring them. An editor never gives you everything in the sample, and part of that is because they just can’t yet. They read a few pages, and need to read the rest of the book to give you the full picture. But if they give you solid advice that you’re nodding along to, you may have found a winner.

 

What happens when you hate everything they tell you? You disagree with the changes they made, dislike their suggestions, and all around think they’re wrong?

 

My advice? Delete the email and cross them off your list. Don’t reply. You don’t have to. In this industry, no response is synonymous with rejection.

 

If you feel they are scamming people out of their money, you can go over to Predators & Editors and comment on their thread. But I honestly just recommend not doing anything. People know a bad editor when they see one, and they won’t hire the person. They’ll be weeded out eventually, and you won’t taint your karma record with the negativity associated with an unnecessary nasty email.

 

Here’s a good example of what not to do:

I had one potential client ask for my opinion on his book. He didn’t specify what type of editing service he wanted—he just asked me for my opinion.

 

He sent me the first ten pages and I spent close to 5 hours on just the sample because I honestly didn’t think it was very good. I wanted to make sure I phrased my words politely, suggest changes rather than demand them, and come up with good suggestions that would help him improve. I recommended a critique because, in my opinion, his work needed to be shaken out and air-dried so that we could tweak it together and give him something he would truly like.

 

He wasn’t…well…happy with what I sent back. I’m not sure if he wanted me to just tell him I thought it was dandy or what, but he was very much displeased with my response.

 

His reply was a tirade about how disappointed he was in me—though I still haven’t met the guy in my life, in any sense—and how I was a terrible editor…yada yada. He is the only unhappy person I have ever dealt with, and I’m booked for the next three months solid. So I (and my clients) obviously disagree with him.

 

My advice: don’t degrade an editor if they say you need work beyond what you were expecting. You asked them for their opinion, and they gave it. To reply in a rude way just makes everyone’s day worse.

 

If you don’t like what a potential editor sends you, decline their suggestions—you don’t even have to respond—and move on to the next editor. What he did was wall-of-shame worthy, but I replied with a polite rebuke of his comments and moved on with my life. I only mention it here as an example of what not to do.

 

Whatever you do, your goal is to find someone who will help make you better. Look for someone who will preserve your voice and offer reasoning behind their suggested changes—anyone who changes your word structure without an explanation isn’t going to help you learn; they’re going to control your book. It’s still your book, so remember that.

 

What experiences have you had with the editing process that you think will help others here? Feel free to share your experiences as an author or editor. Readers, do you think knowing more about the editing process will help you better enjoy a book, or does it matter to you at all?

 

This is the end of a three-part how-to series, so the rest of the posts will be going up in the next few days. Here’s the schedule:

The Basics
Types of Editing Services
How to Approach Editors

Image Source

How to Hire an Editor, Part II: Types of Editing Services

There’s a difference between knowing what you need and keeping an open mind to what the professionals tell you.

 

When an editor comes back with their quote, they’re going to tell you if they really think your manuscript needs just that proofread you asked for, or if it needs an overhaul.

 

This is hard to digest for several reasons:

We don’t want to think our books aren’t ready to be polished and published. So we might just not want to think we need more work.
It’s possible that the editor is upselling you to get more out of you. It’s not ethical, but it happens. So how do we know they’re telling us what really needs to happen, rather than trying to get more money out of us?
The book might just not work for them. They might just not like it, so they offer you changes to make it more their style. After all, that’s what you’re paying them for—to make you better. But you need to think long and hard about whether their changes are beneficial for you or if their changes would change your work into something totally different.

 

The most important thing for you to remember is this: stay true to your voice and keep an open mind. It might not happen the first time you get a quote back, but you will find an editor who meshes with your style. Just keep looking, querying, and asking around. Once you find them, treat them right and you will forever have a good editor.

 

Proofreading

Most proofreaders charge around $300 to read a 100,000 word manuscript. This is the cheapest service you’ll find because it involves the least work—a proofread is a once-over that catches typos and grammatical errors. That’s it. Don’t expect them to tell you about plot holes or inconsistencies in character action. That’s deeper editing that requires more focus and takes longer, so it’ll be more expensive.

 

The Copy-Edit, or Line-Editing

Copy-editing is the “moderate” level of editing. It’s time-intensive and involves what’s called a line-level focus, or a look at each detail in the manuscript. This is your chance to catch both big and small errors. A copy-edit analyzes for plot holes and for minor oddities, like if someone is wearing a blue shirt in the beginning of a scene and a yellow one at the end—all without a costume change.

 

A copy-edit is the error hunt.

 

I charge $0.008/word for copy-editing, but I know a lot of editors charge more than that. I also offer a free proofread with my copy-edit, so technically it’s even cheaper than that.

 

Every editor has a different setup, but I think the industry average for copy-editing is from $0.01 – $0.05 per word, depending on your editor. Those with decades of experience and hundreds of clients will obviously be more expensive.

 

What you need to expect out of a copyedit is a detailed analysis (with notes and comments) that dissects the details of your story. Your editor should look at character motivations, description and setting, writing style, and more to give you a full snapshot of your novel’s strengths and weaknesses.

 

Copy-editing is my personal favorite because I love the level of detail it requires.

 

Critiquing

This is your high-level revision process, where you’re discovering plot holes and reworking large chunks of the text.

 

Usually, you critique with your writing circle and not with an editor. There are a few great sites set up for this specifically, including Critique Circle and my personal favorite, Scribophile. These sites allow others to critique your work and give you feedback on a points system—you can’t upload your own work without points, so it creates a strong give-and-take community. I love the people on Scribophile—I have gotten great feedback there on my short stories.

 

I also recommend you find a group of writers in your genre with whom you can swamp manuscripts for a critique. Point is, you don’t really need to hire an editor for a critique, though it’s usually offered.

 

What’s your personal favorite part of editing? Which of these three areas would you say you need the most help in developing?

 

This is a three-part how-to series, so the rest of the posts will be going up in the next few days. Here’s the schedule:

The Basics
Types of Editing Services
How to Approach Editors

Image Source

Get Vaempires: Revolution for FREE

So Thomas Winship is awesome. I hosted him recently for a blog tour and fell in love with his Vaempires series, which is the coolest blend of the paranormal/scifi/vampire genres I think I’ve ever seen. Plus, he’s a freaking awesome person. That never hurts.

Check out my reviews on the books:

Vaempires: Revolution

Vaempires: A White Christmas (novella)

He’s letting my followers in on some secret codes that will give you his books for free. I have no idea when it will end, so you should probably hop on this now. If you feel up for it, leave a review for him when you’re done. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.

Happy reading!

Get your FREE copy of Vaempires: Revolution

Smashwords

Code: KT25P

Get your FREE copy of Vaempires: A White Christmas (novella)

Smashwords

Code: TE58Z

Or grab your copy:

Vaempires: Revolution

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | B&N

Vaempires: A White Christmas (novella)

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | B&N

Get Vaepimres: Revolution for FREE

So Thomas Winship is awesome. I hosted him recently for a blog tour and fell in love with his Vaempires series, which is the coolest blend of the paranormal/scifi/vampire genres I think I’ve ever seen. Plus, he’s a freaking awesome person. That never hurts.

Check out my reviews on the books:

Vaempires: Revolution

Vaempires: A White Christmas (novella)

He’s letting my followers in on some secret codes that will give you his books for free. I have no idea when it will end, so you should probably hop on this now. If you feel up for it, leave a review for him when you’re done. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.

Happy reading!

Get your FREE copy of Vaempires: Revolution

Smashwords

Code: KT25P

Get your FREE copy of Vaempires: A White Christmas (novella)

Smashwords

Code: TE58Z

Or grab your copy:

Vaempires: Revolution

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | B&N

Vaempires: A White Christmas (novella)

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | B&N

How to Hire an Editor, Part I: The Basics

Hire an editor. Do it.

 

No, don’t tell me you don’t have to. Everyone—me included!—needs an editor.

 

I don’t care if you’re an editor yourself or know the dictionary backwards. When we write, we get too close to the work to fully appreciate the reader’s perspective. There are details in your story that you fully understand, but which need greater detail for a third party to comprehend.

 

So pull together a writing circle who can truthfully tell you if something sucks. AND, save up and hire an editor! It doesn’t have to be me. It doesn’t have to be anyone I know or vaguely recognize. Just please hire an editor. The more indies we have who hire editors, the faster the stigma of “crap indie writing” will disappear.

 

A good editor has a list of clients already and fills up quickly, so don’t go to them with a month left before your release and expect them to be able to help you. The best way to approach an editor is to find one four months early at least. Depending on their schedule, this will be way too early or just right. Either way, you’re in the clear. Even if you don’t have your full manuscript finished, it’s best to make the contact and see how they want to do things. If anything, have your first ten pages ready for them to give you a free sample (I’ll get to that in a minute).

 

To find a good editor, you have a couple of options:

Ask your other author friends for recommendations. Word of mouth is the best way to find a great editor because you hear the honest truth about what the author thought of the editor.
Google. Most of the referral sites you see here, though, send you to copy-editors and critiquers who want thousands of dollars for their time. That wasn’t what I wanted, so I went on to option three:
Stalk Twitter. Look for editors there. Much of the time, the people you find here are smaller editors who edit on a part-time basis. Their quality is still good, and their prices are more affordable because they often have secondary sources of income. Just make sure you check their testimonials and get that free sample to make sure they work for you.

 

The Free Sample

Any editor should offer you a free sample of their work. Sometimes it’s just five pages, sometimes fifteen, but the point is they are letting you see the quality of their work first. Remember—you’re hiring them. You’re paying them a lot of money, so they have to do a good job. Make sure they give you your money’s worth.

 

If an editor ever charges you for a sample or says they don’t do samples, run away screaming. That is not an editor you want to work with and might very well be a scam.

 

Editors will often ask you to submit a deposit and then ask for the final sum before they send you the final payment. That’s normal. Just make sure you do your research to ensure they’re going to take care of you. Look for testimonials and talk to people who have worked with them to make sure they’re both good and for real.

 

Pricing

When I was hunting for an editor for my first novel, The Grimoire: Lichgates, I as so disappointed in what I found. I tried googling “fiction editors” (and “fiction novel editors” and “novel editors“) and came up with lists of editors, all of which had great bios and no pricing. So I queried them, asking for a sample and their prices.

 

The response? On average, they wanted $2,000. One wanted $5,000.

 

When I queried, I asked for a proofread when I probably did need a copy-edit. I grant that. However, no one was convincing with their reasoning why I needed a copy edit. Everyone who replied simply ignored what I asked for and quoted the price for copy editing or critiquing. No one listened to what I wanted or tried to convince me I needed something else.

 

While I did end up doing another line-edit and improving the novel, it has gotten excellent reviews off of what is mostly the original content I sent them. No one was convincing in their responses, and I couldn’t believe the quotes I was getting. I wasn’t prepared for that at all.

 

I took this into account when I became an editor. If someone wants a proofread when they need a copy-edit, I do a copy-edit in the sample. I explain why they could use a copy edit, but will of course work with them on whatever level they like. If they really just want a proofread, that is what I’ll do for them.

 

So when it comes to pricing an editor, you really have to shop around. You can find an excellent editor for a fair price, but you have to make sure they work on your level and give you what you want.

 

This is a three-part how-to series, so the rest of the posts will be going up in the next few days. Here’s the schedule:

The Basics
Types of Editing Services
How to Approach Editors

Image Source

How to Choose a Cover Artist

Cover artists vary in their styles and mediums, but the basic requirement is that they know how to make the formats you need for your print and eBook editions. When hunting for a cover artist, your main goal should be to find someone whose style matches the voice, tone, and genre of your book. There are quite a few places to find cover artists, actually.

 

Where to Look
Referrals

The best place to find a vendor is through your friends. See a cover you just love? Ask the author who they use! You don’t even have to know them. Contact them through their website or their Goodreads page. Most authors are more than happy to share secrets if you’re nice about it and say please.

 

OMG I hate it when people don’t say please.

 

Anyway, referrals are a great place to start. You can also send out a tweet asking for someone. Sometimes, artists themselves will contact you. This is a great chance to have a mini-interview! Look at their site and ask them some questions about how long it takes to get the cover back, what they charge, how much input they want from you, who to talk to for a testimonial, etc.

 

Deviant Art

DeviantArt. Is. Amazing.

 

The site is a cacophony of artists and artwork, all laid out in an easy-to-browse website. You can look for artwork in your genre, peruse the artist’s bio and gallery, and jump to their site.

 

Look for the artist’s total followers—I’ve noticed the more followers they have, the more expensive they tend to be. Sometimes, these artists are so popular they forget when you query them. I was ready to buy from one person, but they just never got back to me. I dropped them because I’m not about to hound my vendors to take my money and give me the work they promised.

 

Still, DeviantArt is a great place to find amazing artists, many of whom are professional and prompt in their replies. My advice is don’t message them on DA unless there is no other way to get in touch with them—the D.A. notification system, in my opinion, isn’t that great. You’re better off going to their sites and using whatever method of communication they post there.

 

Twitter

Okay, okay, okay. So I tend to recommend Twitter on a near-daily basis. But seriously, have you seen its networking capability? It’s incredible! When I first started into this business, before I knew how to market books, I sold most of my  books just by meeting people on Twitter. Not even pushing my book—just talking to people. Creating a report. Twitter just connects people in the easiest way.

 

So how do you use it to find a cover artist? It’s as easy as searching for one.

 

A list pops up when you search “book cover artist.” Now, each results list will differ depending on your connections and recent activity, so I can’t tell you what you’ll see. But start by clicking on a few profiles. Read a few of their tweets. Do they seem nice? Responsive? If they haven’t tweeted in a year, you can probably pass over them. After you give their profile the thumbs up, check out their site.

 

Important Steps to Remember

So you found a name. Now what?

 

Their website—whether it’s their own site or a gallery blog—is a crucial way to tell if the artist is going to mesh with your style.

 

Look at their gallery. Have they done book covers in your genre? Does their work look like something you’d be proud to have on your cover? If so, you might have a winner. Still, even if you love their work, get testimonials.

 

Do not give someone your money unless you know they already have happy customers. They might be slow or unresponsive, or they might ignore your ideas and do their own thing. Until you find your golden artist, it’s hit-or-miss. Doing your research can save you a lot of hassle.

 

When you look at a site, look for the answers to these key questions:

How long does it take to get the cover back?
What do they charge?
How much input they want from you?
Do they have testimonials?

 

All of the answers to these questions are important. You want someone who listens to you but still offers their own professional advice. You want someone who is prompt, professional, affordable, and polite. You want someone who already has happy clients.

 

Pricing – A Firsthand Experience from Nikki Jefford

Use the artist’s site to look for their pricing or look for a way to get in touch with them for a quote. A lot of artists are in the niche market of book covers and already have pricing plans laid out.

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A book cover shouldn’t be more than a few hundred dollars. Nikki Jefford, author of the Spellbound Trilogy, found a cover artist who would only charge $85 a cover. That’s crazy good. There was a catch with that one, though, and that’s what I want to talk about here.

 

When you see pricing, you need to look deeper. What does it include? For Nikki, the $85 price was for photo manipulation only.

 

What you see to the right was a result of hours and hours of Nikki working extra to help her artist come up with the perfect image. This lasted a full week and many hours scouring royalty free stock sites for an image that grabbed her. In fact, she only did this because she really didn’t like the first version (which she won’t let me see, haha!).

 

“You can’t expect your designer to put in this amount of hours. It wouldn’t be cost effective, not to mention what one person adores, another might despise, and it’s very difficult for a designer to guess your taste,” Nikki said. “Having an image that grabbed readers was important enough to me to put in the time, although I was going cross-eyed by the end.”

 

Once she found her frozen fairy nymph girl, she shrunk the image to a thumbnail to see how it would look when pictured at online book retailers like Amazon. (And checked how it would stand out among other titles in the same genre.)

 

In the meantime, her designer came up with a second cover manipulating stock images Nikki sent earlier. Nikki liked it enough to do a poll on her blog. The fairy nymph, what her husband calls The Lady Gaga Cover, received an overwhelming response from people who read and or write YA. It was the clear choice.

 

From there Nikki asked that the title font be something cursive (tangled in a sense) then put in a final request for extra swirls similar to the ones in Unearthly by Cynthia Hand. That’s another good tip, guys, and one I didn’t think of–send your artist pictures to give them an idea of what you want. They can compile it if they have the proper images to go off of.

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To the left is Duplicity, the sequel to Entangled. This and the final cover for the Spellbound Trilogy were much easier for Nikki to finish. For one thing, there weren’t many of the same stock model to choose from. After that it was just a matter of changing the color and flower. Book three had some hiccups, but they were worked out.

 

Nikki had the additional benefit of getting directional help on all three books in the series from Bob Friel, author of the bestselling travel and crime adventure The Barefoot Bandit: The True Tale of Colton Harris-Moore, New American Outlaw.

 

“I was Bob’s research assistant and I’m so grateful for the time he took out of his tour schedule, which included national radio and television interviews with NPR and Fox, to go back and forth with me and my designer tweaking all three Spellbound covers until they were just right. Seriously, what a nice guy!”

 

Everyone is going to have different preferences when looking for an artist. I was an attention to detail and the willingness to tweak, while I’m less stringent about deadlines. Nikki wanted a fun designer who was willing to redo the cover as many times as it took.

 

She had some amazing advice I have to share: “whichever way you go, don’t hesitate to ask for what you want. An author should love her cover.”

 

The Bottom Line

Hunting for a cover is fun, if daunting. As long as you know what you want going in, it can be a fun experience for everyone involved. Who knows? You might even find the artist you use for the rest of your books!

 

What other methods have you used to find your cover artists? I’d love to know! Get the discussion going below. If you have a great idea, I’ll add it to the list!

 

Little Girl Image Source

Midsummer’s Eve Blog Hop Character Interview (what a mouthful!)

Hey gang! Today we have a very unique treat for you on the Midsummer’s Night Blog Hop. It looks like Shayla Dormyr—a sassy warrioress from Raven Bower’s  Weeping Dark: Bleeding Edge—has stumbled into Ourea through a hidden lichgate. I guess not all lichgates lead to Earth! She’s just run into Kara Magari, a character from my novel The Grimoire: Lichgates, so let’s listen in and see how this conversation goes. This should be interesting.

Oh! Before I forget, there’s a giveaway at the bottom of the page. Enter for a chance to win an eBook copy of both Lichgates and Primal. Okay, back to Kara and Shayla!

 

Kara is sitting on a log, writing in a magical leather book called the Grimoire. She looks up as Shayla crashes through a few low-hanging branches. Both stop when they see each other, pausing long enough to gauge whether the other is a threat.

Kara: Who the hell are you?

Shayla: [cocks an eyebrow] Captain Third Flame of the Ires Guard. [frowns] Dame too now, I suppose.

Kara: That’s…that’s nice. I’m Kara. So wait, how did you even get here? You shouldn’t have even—

Shayla: If I only went were I was supposed to go, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?

Kara: [laughs] I’m sorry, I guess that was kind of rude. I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone out here. It’s….well let’s just say it’s secluded.

Shayla: [looks around] Where is “here” anyway?

Kara: Well, that portal you came through is called a lichgate. Everything you see here is a pocket of the world—well, my world, Earth—and it’s separate from everything else. These pockets are collectively called Ourea, and there’s all sorts of magic and crazy creatures here. I still can’t believe everything I come across. You can only access Ourea via those lichgates. And, well, I thought there was only one way in to this particular area. I guess that’s not the case.

Shayla: [gives Kara a wry smile] Assuming that you’re safe is a good way to get yourself killed. Might want to set some wards or get some guards. The next thing through the gate might not be sweet little me. [grins]

Kara: Apparently so. Well, you’re not trying to kill me, so have a seat. You said you’re a Captain? What’s your world like?

Shayla: [her battered armor creaks as she sits] Filled with darkness. Smoke. Death. [green eyes glimmer in sorrow as she nods] Third Flame, by default – the others are dead. [sorrow turns to an icy green chill] They’ll be avenged and darkness broken.

Kara: Whoa, that’s intense. I thought things were bad here, but your world doesn’t sound much better.

Shayla: Why? What’s wrong with being here? It’s stunning!

Kara: [sighs] This world is beautiful, sure, but it’s full of terrifying things. Politically, it’s pretty broken. There’s a race here called the yakona, who are divided into six kingdoms. Well, five—one died out eons ago. They lived peacefully a long ways back, but one of them betrayed the others’ trust and they’ve basically been fighting ever since. You know, the usual.

Shayla: Beasts to slay, liars to overthrow – what’s wrong with that?

Kara: Sounds fun, right? But it’s not that simple. This book I’m holding is called the Grimoire. It’s a thousand years old and filled with everything I could ever want to know, but it’ll only answer me if I ask the right question. It was written by a man who called himself the Vagabond. He tried to restore the world back to the peaceful way it once was, but he was killed for trying.

I grew up without knowing Ourea even existed, so I didn’t know what this book was when I came across it on a hike. When I opened it, I became the next Vagabond and only I can read the Grimoire. Now, I have to finish where the last Vagabond left off and hope I don’t die in the process, too. I tried running away from it for a while, but that always ended disastrously.

[Both women are quiet for a moment. Shayla shifts in her seat as Kara stares into the grass, eyes out of focus.]

Shayla: [gives Kara a sideward glance] Do you want to talk about it?

Kara: Not really. Let’s just say I have a poor track record of protecting those I care about.

Shayla: [winces] We all lose people, our fault or otherwise. [absently taps the hilt of her sword] It’s what we then choose to do about it to right our mistakes that will etch our success—or failure.

Kara: That’s a good way to put it, actually. It sounds like you lost someone, too.

Shayla: I should go.

Kara: I enjoyed talking to you. Are you sure you have to go so soon?

Shayla: [nods] I must free my people and there are many miles yet to travel to gain help. [her eyes glitter] Raise an army, bring the Gryphon Riders and knights in a swarm bloody beaks and swords. Teach those wretched Blood Mages and Vearra to prey on the innocent.

Kara: Oh. Sounds fun. Well, come back anytime. You’re always welcome here.

Shayla: Hey, maybe I’ll bring you one of their heads when we win and you can show me your trophies from your triumphs.

Kara: [laughs] I don’t get to keep trophies, as—uh—as exciting as that sounds. Maybe next time, I’ll turn you into a vagabond instead. I could use a person like you here.

Shayla: [chuckles] Not a bad idea, once my people are safe and free again. Take care, Kara, and remember—your spirit is tested in the fire of darkness and war, not peace. Get back out there and kick arse.

Kara: Haha! Yes, ma’am.

 
 
Check out the rest of the interviews on this blog hop!

Gregor Caine + Circe

(Christine Ashworth & Claire Gillian)

Sydney + Poseidon

(Cindy Young-Turner & Sasha Summers)

Caleb + Arland and Kate

(Kinley Baker & Krystal Wade)

Leigh Baxton + Micah Fuller

(Lindsay Loucks & Diane M. Haynes)

Shayla Dormyr + Kara Magari

(Raven Bower & S.M. Boyce)

Kellyn O’Brien + Julianna

(Louann Carroll & Siobhan Muir)

Ivory + Sara Wiley

(Rebecca Hamilton & Sandra Bunino)

Xylia and Landon + Avant

(Avery Olive & Kary Rader)

Asar + Matty Ducayn

(Jean Murray & Wendy Russo)