What's missing

I think e-books are terrific. Because they're cheap to create, they're enabling a revolution of authors who can now take control of their own writing careers without jumping through hoops at a publishing house. And e-books have made readers out of a few people who weren't big readers before--my husband, for instance. He would never have bothered to lug a book around the airport on his business trips, but he loves to take his e-reader and download whatever he wants on the fly.

Now personally, I have my own e-reader. I have purchased lots of e-books for it. But I only do that if I need the book instantly or it isn't available in print. See, I hate that page-turny thing. HATE. I don't notice turning pages in a print book, but pressing a button to turn a page in an e-book yanks me out of the story once a minute. HATE DESPISE. Hey, at least I know I'm weird. I'm also afraid of mushrooms, and I thought Colin Firth made a terrible Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen ftw!).

I don't want to talk you out of buying e-books. I actually make more money from an e-book sale than a print book sale because the royalty percentage is higher. But I just received my author copies of the finished version of Such a Rush last week, and y'all, they are so pretty.



I feel bad for anybody who gets the electronic version, even on a color e-reader with the color front cover, and misses the rest of it. Let me take you on a tour.



Here's the front. You've seen this all over the internet already. What you haven't seen is that the title and my byline have EMBOSSING! The words are shiny and raised. This is expensive for the publisher to do. I've never had embossing before. It's hard to photograph but look, when I hold it a certain way in the light you can kind of see it shining on the e.



STOP MAKING FUN OF ME.



Here is the back. It has an airplane. It is even the right kind of airplane. Actually, my son says it is a Piper Cub rather than a Piper SuperCub, but originally the planes in the book were Cubs and I only changed them to SuperCubs later. I think. When I say it is the right kind of airplane I mean it is not a 747. Further, the landscape looks exactly like the one in my head. EXACTLY.

Also my name has more embossing. Stop laughing at me. I CAN HEAR YOU THROUGH THE INTERNET.



Here is spine. My name is in cute swirly font in white. EMBOSSING. The title is in cute swirly font in pink. EMBOSSING. There is also some of the chick's wild hair.



Here is the spine of the actual book. Two words: SWIRLY FONT. The swirly font continues on every page inside the book. I would take pictures of that too but I realize I have already lost you.

Here's my point. Remember this?



No. My 11-year-old doesn't either. "Mom! Where did you GET that? I didn't know we had any 45s!" This, son, is a 33. And if you bought it when it came out, you knew that there was going to be an EVENT when you took off the cellophane.



The back. As a former newspaper designer, I would say it has some readability issues, but if you were 14 when it came out, believe me, you would squint at purple and yellow print on a Prince album.



The sleeve. I never understood what this lady had to do with anything but there she was.



And look. Right down to the label on the record, we have a different font for every song title, and we have flowers.

You know what else? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I think this album came with one of these.



Oooh, a poster for your room, folded up next to the record!!! What has happened to my Prince & The Revolution poster? I can hear the epsiode of Antiques Roadshow now: "Your Prince album is worth $5, but with the poster, it would have been worth, in a well-advertised auction, to the right bidder, $5 million."

Okay, so nobody's buying records anymore. The CD retained some of that idea of beautiful packaging by transforming it into endless booklets with the song lyrics and lots of weird illustrations and photos. But really, I think the hardcover book is the last holdout in the idea that the packaging advertises and even enhances what's inside. I don't know if print books will be around forever--maybe I'll learn to love the page-turning button eventually--but some authors have been lucky enough to get a beautiful book design in support of what they have written, and I am glad to be one of them.

If you're in the market for a signed copy of SUCH A RUSH, I'll be at Barnes & Noble Patton Creek (behind the Galleria) in Birmingham on release day, July 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. Hope to see you there!