Setting Priorities on the Journey Towards Publication

I’m writing this on the day of the tragic shooting in Connecticut, searching for the desire to do anything but shut off my computer and drive to my son’s house, to kiss and hug my grandbabies and never let them out of my sight. My mind is numb, my thoughts with the innocent victims and their families. I haven’t watched the news and I don’t need to; Facebook has become the new face of instant information. I know all I need to know. As a mother and grandmother, just thinking about those murdered children and the unbearable grief that the parents and grandparents will have to live with for the rest of their lives is almost too much to bear. I feel like I have a boulder in my chest.

And yet I have a job to do, one that today, requires me to write two blog posts and finish an author Q & A. With my novel coming out on Christmas Eve and a new grandson due any day now, I need to cross as many things as possible off my to-do list whenever I can.

So here I sit trying to think of something useful to say to other debut authors, to offer sage advice or a helpful tip so they will know what to expect on their journey towards publication. But words escape me. 

And yet, maybe on this day of all days, the most important lesson of all can be learned.

As authors, we’re consumed by reviews and blog posts and Amazon rankings and SALES. We give up sleep to finish copy edits. We say no to time with family so we can make our weekly word count. We stay inside on warm summer days, hunched over our computers while our children play and laugh in the backyard. We write just one more page instead of going for a walk or lingering over the newspaper and pancakes on Sunday mornings.

I once read about a famous author who said that the months leading up to the release of his first novel were the hardest of his life. I’ve heard that the stress of launching a book has been known to bring famous celebrities to their knees. I’ve been told that it will be one of the most exhausting things I’ll ever do, that it will give me more problems, not fewer.

   

And yes, waiting for my novel to drop is terrifying, all consuming, and has kept me busier than I could have ever imagined. There is so much to do: write book two on a deadline, network on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads, answer the daily landslide of emails, contact reviewers, mail out ARCs, assemble a street team, set up a website, make a book trailer, visit bookstores and libraries, write personal notes to book reviewers, sellers and readers, design postcards and business cards, write blog posts, answer interview questions, set up giveaways, schedule book club visits, and keep track of expenses. All this is to be done while keeping my house clean, doing laundry, cooking, and trying to be a good daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother. (I’m in complete awe of anyone who becomes a published author while holding down a fulltime job!) To add to my stress, my husband and I are trying to recover from near financial ruin, and I need to know if this is going be my career or if I should start applying at the nearest WalMart. I don’t need to make a lot of money, just enough to supplement my husband’s meager income. The hard reality is that the course of my life will be determined by how well my first novel does. It’s a lot of pressure.

But I’ve been through worse.

I think that’s why, overall, I’ve been handling the journey towards publication pretty well. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have days when I felt like I was going to have a meltdown, when I wondered what possessed me to pursue this career. I think that’s normal for any author.

But I’ve made a decision, and I was reminded of it today by what happened in Connecticut.

When I feel on the verge of crying or pulling out my hair in frustration, I think about my grandparents trying to keep their children fed and alive during WWII. I think about my mother watching my sister being kept alive by life support after she suffered a severe head injury in a car accident. I think about my mother taking care of my sister at home, feeding and bathing and dressing her comatose body, a body that refused to die even though my sister was long gone—for twenty-three gut-wrenching years. I think of the millions of people in this world who have it so much worse than I can even imagine.

I remind myself that my Amazon ranking or forgetting a blog post isn’t worth losing sleep over, that missing an opportunity to get the word out about my novel is not worth a panic attack, a rise in blood pressure, or an upset stomach. What matters is reading a bedtime story to my grandkids, having drinks with my friends, making love to my spouse, hugging my neighbor, or taking my elderly mother out to lunch. My book comes out on Christmas day, but I won’t let myself obsess over the fact that amid the holiday chaos, The Plum Tree might not make it onto bookstore shelves until after New Year’s, or how much better it might have done had it been released before Christmas instead of after. Instead I’ll be snuggling my new grandson and watching my granddaughters’ eyes light up when they open their presents. I’ll be cherishing their giggles, rosy cheeks, and soft, sweet voices. I’ll be sitting at the table with my family, drinking in their beautiful faces and telling them how much I care. I’ll be grateful for every moment in the kitchen with my mother and brother, talking and laughing while we cook and wash pots and pans. Those are the things that make this life worth living.

So I guess my advice to debut authors is this: If you want to stay sane through this journey and survive it without any regrets, your priority has to be family and life. Getting a novel published is pretty amazing and I plan to celebrate my accomplishment. But life is too short to be consumed by reviews and rankings and sales. The unthinkable can happen. To any of us. I think if the children and parents of Newtown could tell us one thing, it would be this: Live life to the fullest.

You can make that decision now.

A cover story, part two!

By Julie Kibler

I posted about seeing my cover for Calling Me Home a few months ago. Then the unexpected happened, which, it turns out, isn't so uncommon in the midst of book pregnancy!

Shortly before I went to New York to meet my agent and editor for the first time in person, I learned my cover art was going to change. At first I was shocked, to be honest. "How can this be happening?" I thought. "Everyone's already seen it. It's plastered everywhere." And, as I mentioned in the original post, even if it takes you a few minutes to decide you love something, it eventually wiggles into your heart and brain. It becomes the book, in a way. It becomes part of who your book baby is. And when you learn it's going to change pretty dramatically, it's almost like discovering that your baby, the one you thought had curly red hair and fiery green eyes, is really a silky blonde with eyes like chocolate drops.

I needed some time to take it in. But soon, I remembered that the cover is packaging. It's not the book. It's not the story. And the packaging may change numerous times as various editions of the book release. And in the end, even if the packaging looks a little or a lot different on the outside, the story is still the story. With that realization, I trusted the professionals (in this case, the sales and marketing departments and booksellers) to know better than I do what will allow the story to sell the very best it can.

My old cover art was anchored in metaphor, in symbolism, in nuance. The new cover art tells a story. Some people have commented that since they've seen the new cover, they understand the old one. That was interesting to me and made me realize that sometimes you just need to be blunt. I know exactly what my story is about. I understand perfectly what the gold and silver leaves in the old art represented, but to the reader browsing a bookstore shelf or website, a mysterious cover may just be too mysterious. The new art doesn't necessarily touch on everything the old art did, but it gives the reader a point of reference. 

One of my critique partners showed the new cover art to her 13-year-old son, who knows nothing about the story. He said, "Ohhh, a love story. They are probably driven apart by prejudice." He thought in the end, they would probably be together. I won't spoil the story here, but I can say that this young man made some fairly accurate predictions based simply on the cover art. He knew what he might get it if he picked up Calling Me Home, more or less.

I think this is going to be a good thing. And after wrapping my brain around the change for a few weeks while the art department at my publishing house tweaked and finessed the new cover, I became quite enamored of it. I also had a good reminder of old adage: It's what's on the inside that really counts. I hope you'll be drawn in by this cover, too, enough to discover what's hidden within.

Calling Me Home is available for pre-order now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, Books-a-Million, and other online retailers! The new cover is trickling in at these sites little by little.

You Can't Trust Me, I'm the Marketing Man

by Mindy McGinnis

Too many authors think of self-promotion as the equivalent of a used car salesman. I can't tell you how often I've heard writers say they just don't feel comfortable pushing themselves - or their book - at people.

There's a neat little trick to get around that feeling of icky - give people something they already want and make the fact that it has your book, your links, or even your face on it just a useful sidebar. They get something free, you're giving away yourself without feeling pushy.

That sounds totally easy, right?

Ugh.

NOT A DROP TO DRINK is fast approaching cover time, which is exciting and intimidating at the same time. I need to start thinking about innovative ways to get my book out there, without rehashing the same stuff that everyone has seen a thousand times over. In my opinion the exception to that is the business card, which I don't think will ever cease to be a staple. I'm talking about that particular piece of swag over on From the Write Angle today.

There are options, sure. Pens, pencils, band-aid dispensers, t-shirts, personalized mints, postcards, bookmarks... and everything else you've seen a dozen times and conditioned your mind to stop noticing. DRINK is a genre-buster; I want something new and fresh for my debut baby.

Unfortunately the rest of the world has already discovered what I had originally wanted to do for DRINK - customized water bottle labels. How perfect is that for a book built around the idea that the world has run out of fresh water? However,  I recently took an author branding class that addressed swag. One of the big rules for swag is that in order for it to be cost-effective it should be something that the recipient will use more than once, not toss away.

I don't know many people that use a water bottle more than once, but I think the simple idea of tying my book to the idea of a water bottle could have a heck of an impact. The obvious water message is an easy association, and even if they throw away the bottle I put my cover on, the next time they take a drink out of a bottle they might think... "Oh hey! That book looked pretty cool. Too bad I threw the bottle away..." But with a name like NOT A DROP TO DRINK they might be able to remember it in connection with water, and a Goodreads or Amazon search might just land them in my lap.

I don't see this working for bookmarks in the same way. Someone might think, upon seeing another bookmark, "Gee I wish I hadn't thrown away that other bookmark..." but unless the name of the advertised book was NOT A BOOKMARK LEFT I doubt their brain will be able to make the association leap for a good Google result.

And giving away water would hardly make me feel smarmy. Everyone needs it. Most people like it. It's very useful, and I have yet to meet someone allergic to it.

What do my fellow readers and writers think? Is there a magic swag item out there that you've always wished someone would put your brand on or that you've wanted to see handed out?
________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut NOT A DROP TO DRINK - a post apocalyptic survival tale will be available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins Fall, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Cover Story: Calling Me Home

By JulieKibler

Certain days in an Book Pregnant author's life are just a little more special than others. Obviously, there's the day you get "the call" from your dream agent. Then there's the day you make your first sale (and every sale thereafter!). The day you see your manuscript typeset in first pass pages is pretty thrilling, too.

But it's possible one of the most exciting days after you have your book contract in hand is the day you first see your cover. I experienced this once before when I received the file of my German cover art (seen to the left here) and that was pretty mind-boggling. I loved it so much I plastered it all over the place. "Zu zweit tut das Herz nur halb so weh" (Pendo's title for Calling Me Home) released there August 20!

I was on vacation the last few weeks of July. First, we spent several days in Illinois for a family celebration, where I also had the pleasure of meeting fellow Book Pregnant author Amy Sue Nathan (The Glass Wives, Spring 2013).

In the midst of the driving and switching hotel rooms every night or so, my St. Martin's Press editor emailed to request an address where they could overnight something--something NOT work. I knew immediately what it would be! Lydia Netzer, another St. Martin's author and Book Pregnant friend who shares the same fantastic editor, experienced this months earlier when she received her cover for SHINE SHINE SHINE. It would be several days before I could get an overnight delivery without the risk we'd have already moved on, so I gave my editor our upcoming address in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, though I knew I'd go crazy waiting in the four or five days before I'd receive the delivery.

Once we arrived, the rental office promised to call when they received my package. The next day, around 4 p.m. (a day or so sooner than expected!), I got a call. Everyone had just settled in for a late sandwich or nap after our first fun day at the beach. We were sunburned, sandy, unshowered, and exhausted. And yet, my husband, the official driver on the rental car contract, graciously dragged himself up from his comfy spot in front of the television and chauffeured me the ten miles to the office. We arrived with about 15 minutes to spare before they closed.

Design by my now-favorite book cover designer,
Olga Grlic

I carried the book-shaped package to the car, handling it as though I carried an incendiary device. I knew its contents had the potential to create any number of emotions in me. Would I cry when I saw it? From joy? From disappointment? From devastation? Would I clap my hands and scream because I loved it so much? Or would I be angry because the designer and my editor had so utterly ruined the vision my story had conjured in my mind for so many years?

I will tell you this: It was one of the most loaded moments along my journey to publication.

But I also knew this: My editor loves my story. I knew, from previous conversations, she had turned down other prototypes she wasn't pleased with. I trusted she would know the right one when it came along.

So I peeked into the package, just for the littlest glance. Then I read the note my editor had included with her thoughts on why this one worked so well and how in love the staff at St. Martin's was with it. How they literally gasped when they saw it the first time. Then I pulled the cover, which she had carefully wrapped and taped around another hardcover book so I could get the full effect, from the envelope.

Strangely, my reaction was not unlike my reaction 15, 18, and 23 years ago, each time I saw one of my beautiful children for the first time. I am not a screamer. I am not a clapper. I am not one to cry at expected times. When I held and studied each of my babies the very first time, I felt strangely awed. Reverent. Quiet. I simply stared at their faces, then studied each limb, each tiny fingernail, so surprised to see how different they looked than I'd ever imaged, yet somehow so perfect. On an intellectual level, I knew I already loved them more than I ever dreamed I was capable of doing, but on a human level, I wasn't quite able to grasp that just yet. With each child, it was hours before the emotions really began to flow, before I was finally able to wrap my brain around their arrivals, their surprising perfection, their little bits of me and their characteristics I never, ever, imagined. And then, I was carrying them around, showing them off, placing them here and there for photos--which light, which background, which setting could possibly show the world what I was seeing through my eyes?

And that Monday in July, before long, I was carrying my "book" around my vacation home, placing it on the hammock in the ocean breeze for a shot here, propping it in the port hole window with a view of the Outer Banks there, stacking it with a book about the Outer Banks so I'd never forget where I saw it the first time.

And I loved it. 

Five weeks later, I love it even more. Yesterday, I received my advance reader editions, and seeing the cover attached to my "real" book, though shiny where it will be matte, and paperback where it will eventually be a slipcover around a hardbound book, my affection simply continues to grow, just as it has every day and every year  for my amazing human babies.

Calling Me Home is available for pre-order now at Amazon and BN.com and many other sites. More info about the book is available at my website. Pre-orders are really important in the lead-up to publication, so all of us at Book Pregnant truly appreciate those who take the time to order one of our books in advance. You are guaranteed the lowest price up to the shipping date once you place your order on many sites. 

A version of this post first appeared on my group blog, What Women Write. 

Why Does It Take So Long To Publish A Book, Anyway?

by Mindy McGinnis

Delivering that first book into the world is a lot like waiting for the baby to drop. You're tired, you're stressed out, and you're really, really sick of people asking you when it's going to happen.

Unfortunately, the gestational period for a book tends to be longer than nine months for most of us. In my case, NOT A DROP TO DRINK won't be released until nearly two years after I signed my contract. Why?

Good question. There's actually a good answer.

Large houses plan their publishing lists far in advance. Smaller houses have a quicker turnaround time, so the gestational period of a book can vary widely house to house. Beyond that factor though, there's the step-by-step process that the author and editor go through, typically about a year in advance of publication date.

Revisions: This is a large-scale, big-picture, here-are-some-things-to-think-about letter from your editor, typically called the "edit letter." In my experience the revision involved a hard look at the timeline of the plot, getting certain plot-accelerating events to occur earlier in the narrative, and a restructuring of the first fifty or so pages came hand in hand with that. Other considerations at this stage are overall theme, narrative style, character development, etc. Your edit letter can be anywhere from 4 - 20 pages long, and the editor usually gives the author a fairly large time frame to work in, sometimes as long as six months. Also, once you do one revision, you're not necessarily done. Sometimes the author will go through several revisions.

Line Edits: Once the big picture is in a place the editor and author are both happy with, you move on to line edits. This is where the editor looks hard at details like lines of dialogue that don't necessarily ring true, little inconsistencies that weren't necessarily caught when doing revisions, and maybe even looking at scene and chapter breaks for better locations. Again, authors and editors usually go through more than one line edit, with a nice window of a few weeks.

Copy Edits: Now the book moves into the hands of the copyeditor, who checks for continuity - was your character wearing a red shirt at the beginning of the scene, but walked out of it wearing a blue one? - punctuation, spelling errors that slip by (a "he" when it needs to be "the"), sneaky homonyms (their, there, they're), and other little things that smart readers are going to catch. Copy editors are angels with red pens and sharp minds.

(Keep in mind not all houses go through the editing process in the same way. Some editors like to do line edits hand-in-hand with revisions. It varies.)

At this point the author might feel very much like a soon-to-be-mother hauling ass towards the finish line. We're ready for this to happen. We're ready to make the delivery. Please, I'm quite sick of gestating this thing in my (mind / uterus).

But... too bad. You still have to go through first pass pages, the awesome fun of cover art (a process in and of itself) and marketing, finding authors (hopefully of your dreams) to blurb your book. The good news is that you're not in it alone. Much like giving birth, there are plenty of people who have been doing this for a long time, and they're here to walk you through this intimidating process.

I've only highlighted the first three phases of the editing process here, as I'm only that far myself. I don't feel qualified to speak further. But, as you can see my book is still only on the beginning of the road to publication, and I'm a year out.

I'm looking forward to the next year, the next phase. Seeing my cover develop through the fantastic art department over at Katherine Tegen is going to be a thrill, and all my debut author friends say holding their first pass pages in their hands and seeing their book - looking like a book! - is the WHAM! moment for them that really punches home that they're going to be an author.

I can't wait to feel like one too. :)
__________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut dystopian, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, will be available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins Fall, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

The Edit Cave

by Mindy McGinnis

I've heard a lot of people talk about the Edit Cave, as if it were some secret hideout that writers can go to with fancy butlers who bring us our soup and neat gadgets to distract us with when we need it.

I wish.

Well, besides the fancy gadgets (can you hear me, Twitter?) I totally want a dark cave I can crawl into, dragging my edit letter and brick of an ms with me. It'd be lit only by my laptop screen, and I'd have lidless eyes and extra appendages when I crawled back out. But I'd have my solitude, I'd hit my deadline, and there would be nothing from reality to slide into my time and demand my attention.

But... just try going to Google Maps and typing in "Edit Cave." It doesn't exist. Unfortunately there isn't anyplace we can go for this magical dark place of alone time where our brains are free to exist only in the worlds we've created. Reality is a bitch, and a really high-maintenance one that demands a lot of face-time.

If I had my way I'd eat MRE's and not bathe while in the metaphorical edit cave, but that's not the case. The real world needs me to be responsible and be a good citizen, go to the pool and the ice cream festival, the student graduations and family birthday parties. Instead of the blank "I left the stove on" stare, I tend to have the "I left that character mid-scene" look. It's pretty hard to spot unless you're another writer.

So what do I do? My edit cave is only open during the hours of 10 PM to However-Long-I-Choose-To-Punish-Myself AM. In a way, it really is a dark fortress of solitude, as you tend to loose daylight during that time. While at first I thought I would hate only allowing myself these stolen hours, I soon figured out it's what works for me, and my brain has adjusted.

Yes, I'm sleep deprived. Yes, I'm not the earliest riser. Yes, I tend to be a bit grumpy anytime before noon on the days following Edit-Cave-Isolation. But the revision is going well - ahead of schedule, in fact - and I'm well on my way to becoming one of those people who thanks their editor for making their story stronger in the acknowledgements.

I still wouldn't mind a butler.

Mindy McGinnis is the author of NOT A DROP TO DRINK, a YA dystopian coming from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins Fall, 2013. You can find her at her blog, Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire, Twitter and Facebook.

Still a writer

Photo credit: Dori Young Photography

By Julie Kibler

As Calling Me Home pushes its way through the birth canal of the publishing process, I'm finding that certain things never change. In fact, I just remembered I referred to this phenomenon in my last post, but I'll go into a little more depth this time. 

Even with the pregnancy test in hand, the plus sign glowing, the book contract that says I have a book, I've noticed that four things in particular are still burrs under my saddle—in addition to the compulsion to use really goofy literary devices and mixed metaphors. (In blog posts, I often allow them to stand, just for kicks.)  

1. I'm afraid nobody will like what I wrote.

Just because one editor, or in fact, many more, liked my manuscript—enough to pay actual, spendable money for it!—I still quake at the thought of someone flipping to the first page, reading a few paragraphs, then tossing it away as dreck. Rejection, in fact, still hurts. And there are plenty of opportunities for rejection even after your beloved appears for pre-order on Amazon. The somewhat humiliating quest to convince published authors to read and blurb the book comes to mind. It reminds me to be gentle when I am in that position. Or, not that I'm there yet, but the inevitable bad review looms like a B1-bomber on the horizon, ready to plunge from the sky and obliterate me with one little push of a button. I'm already practicing in my mind, visualizing swatting it away like an annoying little gnat. 

2. Procrastination is the best way to get things done.

I have always worked better under pressure. I assigned myself deadlines before I answered to anyone else on this writing stuff. Then, even with my own deadlines, I waited until the last possible moment, then rushed in and gave it my everything. I'm trying to change my stripes a bit—after all, I'm not the only one I would disappoint now if I missed an important deadline—but I still find this to be true. This week, my first pass pages, sometimes called page proofs, wait in a nice stack on my table for me to begin reading through them, checking for errors I missed or mistakes created inadvertently in the typesetting stage. Okay, that's not completely true. I already began working through them because I have a vacation to attend to in a few weeks and I don't want to be spending the week proofreading while the rest of my family cavorts on the sandy shores of the Outer Banks. Yet, every day, I search for any task I can logically claim as a higher priority before I get started on the day's chapters . 

Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps it could be referenced back to number one. Perhaps I'm terrified I'm the one who won't like it. Perhaps I will be forced to admit I'm not the writer I hoped to be. Perhaps, even, it feels like a real job now, and wasn't I always great at procrastinating, even when I sat in an office and yawned at the orders that emerged from the fax machine like baby rabbits? 

Or perhaps … I work best under pressure. Maybe we're back to that. I am one of the crazy souls who actually enjoys participating in NaNoWriMo and other schemes to get massive portions of the crappy first draft written in a month. The last thirty thousand words of Calling Me Home were the product of one marathon. The first thirty thousand words appeared during another. They may not look exactly the same, but the essence of what I wrote under pressure is most definitely there. And I sold the book.

3. I'm convinced I'll never be able to do it again.

So I've written three full manuscripts, two now under the bed. So I've sold a book. So what? Just like a few years ago, I'm not convinced I'll ever be able to take the plot fragments, the voices of half-formed characters, the setting notes that drift in my mind like memories of things that haven't happened yet, and set them down on paper in a coherent story, with proper conflicts and character arcs, three acts and probably a poem. Those other three manuscripts? They were flukes. I don't have the skills (refer to number one), the discipline (refer to number two), or … maybe even the desire to do it again. 

For now, I'm just trying to go with this, and surprisingly, the process is coming back to me little by little. I have a semi-decent synopsis going, from which I believe I might be able to conjure an outline, from which I might just write another book. I tell myself, Peace, be still. It will happen. Then  I panic.

Image credit: Peter Vidrine's Flickr photostream

4. I'm still trying to be someone else some days.

I read some books and fling them away in disgust because I feel like the author wasted my time—and I'm one of those people who is compelled to finish reading things. 

But more often, I drop my head in shame, comparing myself and my writing to someone else's masterpiece. I think, I should be more gritty, or edgy, or lyrical, or detailed, or succinct, or serious, or funny, or luminous, or blunt, or … whatever I happen to think I'm not that particular day. 

I try to change from an owl to a lark. I try to visualize myself as a booster parent and not a slacker parent. I try to incorporate whole wheat flour and fresh peppers into homemade things instead of buying frozen prepared meals to heat up and serve to my family. Okay, some of these things are good things, and I should strive to do them and will, but some of them … are just not me. (I'll leave you to figure out which ones.) But it boils down to this: The approval of a domestic editor and fourteen foreign editors has still not convinced me that just being ME is enough. One day, it's going to click. But probably not today.

But there's one thing that's still the same. There is one thing that is not a burr under my saddle:

5. I still love this life.

In spite of my fear of rejection, in spite of my procrastinating, night owl, never-good-enough ways, I still love this life. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do or be. I am a writer.

Julie's first novel, Calling Me Home, will be published by St. Martin's Press February 19, 2013, only five days late for Valentine's Day. You may find her on Facebook, Twitter, or her website.

Cover Story: How My Book Got Its Face

by Melanie Thorne

I'm a sucker for pretty book covers. I always have been. As a kid in libraries, I’d scan the shelves for anything that caught my eye. I picked up Twilight in a bookstore knowing nothing about it other than it was a vampire story—I fell in love with vampires in 6th grade—and that the cover was beautiful. The striking red of the apple against the stark white of the cupped hands and angled forearms, the black background and silver title sold me in about two seconds. I didn’t love the book and didn’t read any of the sequels, but every time I pull Twilight out to get rid of it, I end up admiring the cover like a work of art and put it back on my shelf. 

My bookcases are filled with pretty books. I mean, all books are beautiful, but those with pretty faces as well as words are likely to go far in our visual culture. It may not be fair, but it’s true: people judge books by their covers all the time. So we authors cross our fingers that we’ll get a good one, because the thing is, we don’t have much control over the cover.

When I sold my novel, it was a Word document on my computer; a manuscript I hadn’t printed out in its entirety for years. It wasn’t yet a physical object, or rather its physicality was blank. When I pictured my book as a thing, it looked like a pile of papers, a faceless body of words.

Then one day, an image magically appeared in my email inbox. No one had told me exactly when I’d see my cover, or what it might look like. No one had asked me for any ideas or input, though I suppose, if I’d had strong opinions about my vision, I would have said so. I know other authors who sent photos or drawings, or other covers they loved. I did none of that and yet there it was as an attachment from my editor. I held my breath as I waited for it to load. Suddenly, my book was looking back at me.

I didn’t immediately fall in love. At first, I didn’t know what I thought. How do you react to finally seeing the face of a being you know so intimately? My book and I were like one of those couples who meet online or through the paper and write to each other and talk on the phone for months, revealing every detail about themselves without having seen any photos, the internal so familiar and the external only imagined. A face-to-face encounter changes the whole relationship in a second.

Generally, an author is shown a cover from the designer. She then has three options: reject, accept, or request changes. Of course, there are always those horror stories of authors who had no say at all and hated their covers, but I have also heard of authors going through three or five versions to find one that’s exactly right. For good reason—a book’s cover is how it presents itself to the world. It’s important. Like you’d choose an outfit based on your activity, your cover should fit your audience, should give a sense of the book’s mood, should make people want to pick it up and hold it in their hands.

It’s a partnership, working with a publisher, so you may not get exactly what you envisioned all those years as you built a relationship with your book. And some authors have told me that was a good thing: that the design their publisher presented was so much better that what they’d asked for; better than they’d imagined. The designers are, after all, designers. Try to be open-minded.

When you do see her face for the first time, it’s less complicated than meeting your internet boyfriend in person because, unlike his, the book's face isn't permanent. You can change it. If you hate your cover or you really feel that something isn’t working, speak up! Be polite and respectful, but say something. Your cover is what everyone will see, what your book will wear out in the world, her shining face. It should be something that feels right for her, and for you.

Isn't she pretty?

I know I was lucky with my cover. After the initial shock wore off, I decided I liked it. I really liked it. I asked for a few changes—small adjustments to colors, lightening the girls’ hair which was originally black and my characters are blond—and now I’m head over heels in love with it. I love the colors and the font and the ragged edges. I love the interesting composition, eye-catching photo, the feeling of protectiveness between the two girls, and their vulnerability. It captures the "tough and tender" tone of Hand Me Down perfectly. Now, I can’t imagine my book without this beautiful face.

Find out more about Hand Me Down at www.melaniethorne.com

The Importance of a Great Editor

by Erin Cashman

            I began my writing career in elementary school, always jotting down stories and poems. It has always been my dream to be a published author, but my father encouraged me to go to law school, so I could support myself. I took his advice, and stopped writing anything except legal briefs and memos for several years. And then one night I had the strangest dream, and a story popped into my head.  I just hadto write it down. I finished it a year later, and sent it off to agents and publishers, convinced I would realize my dream. Three years and thirty rejections later, I put it aside and started fresh.  I wrote a middle grade adventure novel, certain that this one would be published. Wrong again. And then I wrote The Exceptionals. I sent it out to only ten people; pretty sure it would notbe published. About a month later I got a call from my fabulous agent, Erica Silverman of Trident Media. She was so enthusiastic about the book and she offered to represent me. I was absolutely thrilled! I was so excited to finally have an agent, especially one as talented as Erica, and to be at Trident. The very next day, Pam Glauber, an editor from Holiday House called, and said she read The Exceptionals and loved it, and Holiday House wanted to publish it. I couldn’t believe it! As Erica and I discussed whether to take Holiday House’s offer, or to submit it to other publishers, I kept thinking about how much I liked Pam when we spoke and communicated through email.  This was one of the major reasons we went with Holiday House. 

I really had no idea how important an editor is to an author, or to a novel. I thought they crossed some things out, and wrote in the margins – like a graded paper in college. Although an editor does do that, a good one does so much more. Pam really helped shape the book. In her first editorial letter to me, she pointed out that I had too many characters. A couple would have to go. I thought it over, and she was absolutely right. Since each of the characters had a purpose in furthering the plot, I had to do quite a bit of re-writing! I painstakingly went through her letter, edited, edited and edited some more, and sent it back to her.  Surely I was almost done, right? Wrong. Pam went through the manuscript again, in detail. She pointed out parts where the plot dragged and secondary characters that were not memorable enough. During one conversation Pam told me that one of my characters, Billy, needed to be more than just a good big brother, and suggested that he play a sport. I mulled that over for a couple of hours, trying to decide what sport fit his personality. And then it occurred to me – since The Exceptionals is about a school for students who have “special” abilities, shouldn’t his sport involve that?  I came up with the idea of the Telekinesis Tournament, or the TT, which many readers have said is one of their favorite parts.  

With each draft, the novel improved. I would often call and run an idea by Pam, or send her two versions of a scene and ask her advice. When the line edit came (which is the novel with the editor’s notes written on it), she not only corrected or crossed things out, but she also jotted things in the margin, like: “I loved this part”, or “this was so suspenseful”, or “I couldn’t stop laughing”.  She was always very kind and encouraging. I learned so much from Pam, and I know my writing improved through the editing and re-write process. I was very fortunate to have such a great editor for my first novel.

Blurbs - What are they good for?

(Apologies to Edwin Starr)

A few months ago, my publisher asked me to supply a list of authors who might want to provide a blurb for my book, The Midwife’s Tale: A Mystery. After a few missteps (“Oh, she’s dead? That complicates things.”), I submitted my list, but I began to wonder:

Do cover blurbs sell books?

I have to admit that I began life as a blurb skeptic. In my experience (sample size 1), if I’m not already inclined to buy a book, no blurb is going to make a difference. Moses could come down from the mountain and tell me he liked Twilight, and I’m still not going to read it. And I’m going to read David Abrams’s Fobbit, whether or not there’s a blurb on the front from Joseph Heller. (He is alive, isn’t he?)

So, what good are blurbs?

It turns out the blurbs are for an audience beyond the book-buying public. (Oh, I said. I had no idea.) These people include:

Reviewers and Bloggers. Unless your publisher is going to pay for a national media buy, some of the responsibility for finding reviewers is going to land in your lap. But it’s a competitive world out there, and you are going to have to sell your book to someone before they’ll take the time and energy to review it. This is where the blurbs come into play. As fellow BPer Sophie Perinot put it, “A couple of bloggers I pitched to review my book (and I mentioned endorsements in my pitch) said, ‘you had me at Michelle Moran.’” In this case, you’re not convincing readers to buy the book, but you’re convincing someone else who might convince the readers.

Librarians and other Book Buyers. These folks are overworked and underpaid, and are having to make a ton of decisions in an increasingly-crowded marketplace. Blurbs situate a book among its peers, and will help librarians and other buyers know what kind of book it is, and to whom it might appeal. If a library’s clientele is primarily old, conservative, and devoutly religious, a blurb from Chuck Palahniuk won’t do you much good. But if you have one from Pat Robertson you might be in better shape. In this case the blurb keeps the buyers from having to buy a book sight unseen.

Another BPer, Amy Franklin-Willis, made the excellent point that a blurb can help if you have a book that straddles genres. Nancy Bilyeau’s book, The Crown, is both a thriller and historical fiction, and she was able to land blurbs from writers as diverse as Deborah Harkness (Discovery of Witches), M.J. Rose (Book of Lost Fragrances), and Katherine Neville (The Eight). It’s not going to pull a reader or buyer all the way over the fence, but it can demonstrate that you book has broader appeal than might appear on the surface, and once again this is something that the buyers will want to know.

So while I started the day as a blurb skeptic, I walked away convinced that they do make a difference, just not in the way I expected.