QUICK! DON'T BLINK!

by Peg Brantley




Out of the fifteen books on the New York Times Best Seller List for June 4, 1961, eleven of them had been on the list for ten weeks or more. One had been on the list for forty-four weeks, another for eight-one weeks, and a third for ninety-five weeks.

-->Fast-forward--> to the list for January 1, 2012. Out of the fifteen books, only two of them had been on the list for ten weeks or more. One for ten weeks and one for twenty-two.

Seth Godin wrote on his blog recently, It's not unusual for a movie or a book or even a TV series to come and go before most people notice it. Neophilia has fundamentally changed our culture. He goes on to say, The result is that there's an increasing desire, almost a panic, for something new. Yesterday was a million years ago, and tomorrow is already here. The rush for new continues to increase, and it is now surpassing our ability to satisfy it.

In 1961 both novels and their authors could actually have a run. Runs that could last for months and even years. Today? Not so much.

Seth concluded his post with this: The real opportunity, I think, is in trying to build longer arcs. Now that the cycle of new is eating itself in a race to ever-faster, there's a bigger chance to make long term change by consistently focusing on what works (and what's important), not what's new and merely shiny….What's important, what's always important, is useful change.

The application of this interesting observation is the trick. How can we extend whatever arc we have?

I see two things for authors today. One is to reflect social issues or difficult topics in our books. Not necessarily in a direct or preachy way, but in a way that matters to people. In a way that gets them to nod their head and consider their reaction. The second is to consistently deliver quality stories. An author who made the best seller list in 1961 may have been able to wait three or four years between books because their name wouldn't have been lost and forgotten after a couple of months.

What do you think would build a longer arc?

(And for those of you who are curious, the books in 1961 I highlighted above were at forty-four weeks, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee in the number 2 slot; at eighty-one weeks, Hawaii by James Michener as number 5; and at a whopping ninety-five weeks, Advise and Consent by Allen Drury as number 11. The 2012 snapshot in time had The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks in the number 6 position after being on the list for ten weeks, and A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin as number 14 having been on the list for twenty-two weeks.)

Curation Not Selection is the Future

By C.J. West
Suspense. Creativity. Action.

I read a great article by Seth Godin this week talking about the changes in what we read. before the digital revolution much of what we read was published by a select group of companies. Those publications (books, magazines, and newspapers) were read primarily because they were scarce resources.

Only so many books and newspapers were published. So, even if your local newspaper offended your political sensibilities, you had no choice but to read it if you wanted to get the weather and sports scores.  Scarcity meant that our individual preferences took a back seat to what publishers decided to produce.

It’s no wonder that when we were freed to choose a news outlet that appealed to what WE wanted, those newspapers died.

Enter the digital revolution and the long tail. Now if you want to read historical fiction about George Washington being attacked by vampires and you know where to look, it exists.

Note: while writing this blog, I made up the idea of George Washington being attacked by vampires. I searched and found two books on the subject. The first is George Washington and Werewolves. Not far off!

My point here is that we have moved into an age where curation is far more important than selection.

What’s the difference?

In a nutshell, selection is choosing what is available. The big publishers controlled selection for years by choosing which books were published. Control of selection sailed when Amazon allowed authors to publish anything they liked. Pandora’s Box is open and there is no pressing the lid back on.

You can argue that some limits on selection might be good, and you might be right, but now we have entered the age of curation or guiding consumers through the maze of what is available to find something enjoyable and meaningful to them.

The key here is finding work that is meaningful to the person searching. Millions of blogs attempt to do this by providing reviews of books in a genre or topic area. You’ve all been on Goodreads, Shelfari and Library Thing.

In the last two weeks I’ve discovered Pinterest and created boards of my favorite novels, indie novels, movies, and poker books. The great thing for me is that Pinterest takes me seconds to bookmark something of interest and my followers can come and see the things I like in a visual pin board format that works for those of us who are visually oriented.

My prediction is that digital curators will become more and more important to authors and I suspect an explosion of digital curation will be fueled by the ingenuity of digital entrepreneurs.

Cover Design Calypso, Part II

by:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced books for over 500 authors and imprints. 

Some months back—heavens, in April—I wrote a post on my own website (www.booknook.biz) entitled “Cover Design Calypso,” in which I discussed “what makes a great book cover?” 

At the time, I likened it both to pornography (“I can’t define a great cover but I know it when I see it”) and to frozen dinners (“People buy frozen dinners based not upon the actual content of the bag or box or TV-Dinner-Tray, but, rather, based upon which company has put the best picture on the cover of the box.”)  In other words, as painful as it is to those of us who believe that the words rule the book and its world, the truth is that covers, absolutely, irrefutably and indisputably, sell books--particularly eBooks. 

So, having accepted that shocking truth, how do we mine for great cover design? 

It’s been my experience that authors, in general, envision their book covers as if they are watching a movie in an IMAX™ theater…a grand rolling epic, sprawled across a massive screen, with THX sound, telling the awesomeness contained within.  Or, even when considering space, thinking of it on an 8½x11” sheet of paper.  But the reality is that 99% of the viewing (and buying!) public will only see your book cover the same size that it is displayed on Amazon.com, (or Barnes & Noble) which is a whopping 88x135px (1.2 inches by 1.88 inches), or on the book page itself, a whopping 160x240px (1.75 inches by 2.5 inches).  That’s not a lot of real estate in which to grab someone’s attention and hold it. 

So, what to do?  Remember THIS:  one, single, strong central element.  Don’t make a cover too busy, and don’t try to tell your entire story on its tiny little face—that’s what the book is for, to tell the tale.  When you find yourself thinking, “I want a vampire and a heroine with a bloody neck and a knife and the magic cup and an amulet and a wolfpack in the background and…” JUST SAY NO.   A cover is supposed to catch the eye; to pique curiosity; to impart a feeling.  It needs to reach out to people and make them want to pick up that book (literally or metaphysically) and read it.  If you need to remind yourself what BAD cover design is, roll on over to Fixabook and check out both good and bad covers.  If that doesn’t convince you, simply tootle around Amazon.com, and find one—just ONE—busy cover that you love.  Can’t do it?  Remember that when your next cover comes around. 

Seth Godin, chatting it up at The Domino Project, has issuedbooks that have no title text whatsoever on the covers—neither title nor author name, although the spines have both—and argues that there are compelling reasons not to have either.  Of course, not everyone has the clout—or the hubris—to simply put their last name on the spine as a tell-all/signature/branding.  I don’t love his cover, myself; but Godin’s a guru, and what he says does carry weight.  Will your next book have text on its cover?

Lastly, on the topic of covers, just for fun:  this is a hoot.  I laughed my patooties off.    That's it for today, gang!