Cover Stories: the Design Observer’s 2012 top 50 picks for Cover Design

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The Design Observer has announced the 2012 winners for Cover Design:

design observerAs someone who’s considering self-publishing a paranormal-fantasy series, I’d be interested in seeing the rubric the judges used to decide how to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the past I’ve been given all sorts of advice (solicited and unsolicited) about what makes a good cover, but if the results of this contest are any indication, the judges weren’t privy to any of it.

Apparently, simple monochromatic font covers are in vogue (How Music Works, Shoplifting From American Apparel, The Sniper’s Log, the David Foster Wallace book, Paris I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down, etc.)  as are covers that contain some sort of note (Girlchild, At Last, What to Look for in Winter, Oblivion, The Flame Alphabet, etc.). The judges also seem inordinately fond of non-head items forming heads (The Investigation, The Bug, Cascade). In most cases, the genre or subject matter of the book are not discernible from either the cover or from the title. In many instances, obscured text or tiny fonts require the reader to use a magnifying glass to deduce the title or author (Cascade, Oblivion, The Flame Alphabet, The Vanishers, Stripped, Girlchild). Courier as a font makes a surprise resurgence as a cover-design element, clearly though, like nudity, only when it’s integral to the plot (Girlchild, Butterfly in the Typewriter).

My favorite?  Far and away, its the attractive cover for The Teleportation Accident. To me, the title and the cover conspire to give an intriguing suggestion about what the book might be about that makes me want to investigate further.

The takeaway message for the self-published author is that award-winning covers can be produced using simple graphic elements and a good aesthetic sense.  Many of these winners used little or no artwork. Of course, the elements that win a design contest may not translate well to selling books. It will be interesting to see whether any also become best-sellers.

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Before and After: The San Diego Writers’ Conference

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This was my second Writers’ conference.

As we were packing up the car to make the trek to San Diego, I must confess I was wondering whether the trip was going to be worth the cost. After all, I’d just attended a conference in September, and probably not much had changed in the publishing world since then. Not only that, but by an odd twist of fate, almost all the agents there already had a copy of my manuscript, which meant I’d be going without any opportunity for a meaningful advance submission critique.

I’m probably not telling you anything you didn’t already know, but I’m going to say it anyway–I needn’t have worried.

At the last conference, I’d taken the approach that as a beginner, I should lurk to see what the conference was all about. Even when I had the opportunity to read, I passed. Such conventions develop a certain culture, and I wanted to see how things worked before I jumped in.

Not so, this time. If I wasn’t going to get an advance submission, at very least I was going to get feedback. You see, a couple weeks ago I’d gotten some valuable beta-comments that the manuscript could really benefit from an introductory chapter that put the early action into a broader context. I now had that chapter in hand, and I was proud of it. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t benefit from the attention of talented experts, and there would be talented experts aplenty in San Diego.

This time I did not lurk, I dove in. I presented my new chapter in four different workshops where it was dissected and analyzed by a host of writers and editors. As proud as I was of my chapter, I soon learned several key ways to improve it. My biggest epiphany was that I had been lazy about character introduction, leaning heavily instead on my love of snappy dialogue. The problem is, of course, that even the snappiest dialogue rings hollow without a solid mental image of the characters engaging in it. Sure, I had a clear image of those characters, but that’s no substitute for making sure the reader has the tools to ride along with me.

So, if you are wondering what the San Diego Writers’ Conference can do for you, allow me present a concrete example:  I offer the first page or so of my introductory chapter (accessible by clicking the links below) as it existed before the conference, followed by the same segment of text after applying all that conference expertise:

Before

After

I see an enormous difference, and I think you will too!

I’d like to give a special shout-out to the moderators of the various workshops, whose expertise and enthusiasm I found so inspiring:

In alphabetical order:

Marla Miller

Matt Pallamary

Laura Taylor

Bob Yehling

You’re all rock stars!

 

 

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In defense of Hilary

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Tonight I came across this item on Huffington Post-books:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/kate-middleton-attacked-hilary-mantel-plastic_n_2716137.html?utm_hp_ref=books

I confess to having been taken aback by the headline, which suggested that two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel had been less than gracious in references to Kate Middleton. The first few paragraphs of the article seemed to confirm: seemingly odious quotes and negative reactions by a number of famous persons.  Only at the very end of the article did Huff Po suggest that the initial interpretations may have been taken out of context.  To their credit, however, Huff Po included a link to the full text of Hilary’s speech. Given my current interest in authors and publishing, I was curious as to why such a respected author would go out on a limb like that, and I did what no doubt many would not have bothered to do: I clicked the link.

What I found there shocked me, even though by now, I should know better than to be taken aback by such things. Turns out that in context, Hilary’s comments do nothing of the sort. Sadly, someone who only reads the headline will undoubtedly come away with a negative opinion of the author. That unfavorable opinion will only be bolstered by scanning the first few paragraphs.  Many readers won’t get any farther than that. Even reading the entire article, although it might cast some doubt on the initial impression Huff Po worked so hard to produce in those opening lines, it won’t dispel it entirely. However, reading the entire transcript produces a vastly different impression, and instead of being offended, it made me wish I’d been in the audience!

Treat yourself: click the link.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

As a regular Huff Po reader, I’m left to question whether all their other articles are similarly reflective of the actual truth.

Is such character assassination by subtext truly worth the paltry clicks this salacious headline will generate?  How many books will Hilary fail to sell as a result of readers’ reactions to this article? Even if this misleading negative publicity generates more sales than it loses, as consumers of media, do we really prefer to be titillated rather than informed? Really, Huff Po, is this all the better you can do?

Update: Huff Po now has this subtitle linking from their books page to the article:

Booker Prize-Winner’s Speech Over-Simplified By Media.. Prime Minister Weighs In, Looks Stupid

However, the title of the article once you get there is still:

Kate Middleton Attacked? Author Hilary Mantel Calls Princess ‘Plastic,’ ‘Designed To Breed’

Hmm. One wonders where the Prime Minister might have gotten an impression so erroneous that his comments make him look stupid…

Still, nice to see the media are at least making making some progress.

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