My massive cover reveal proves once more that I know nothing about hype

I seem to have been editing and re-editing my latest book for a lifetime. But in keeping with the tech idea that she who ships, wins—I’m going to stop striving for perfection and just get the book done. After all, it’s a trilogy, and I thought that the first book would be the easiest. But judging from my process so far, they’re all going to be hard, and the third one will be brutal.

But, I am getting stuff done. Today, I did the covers. If you couldn’t tell already, I do all my own covers. Yeah, I knew you could tell. But my zero-cost cover budgets work for me. I never have to stress out about sales, because one sale and I’m already making money. As long as you don’t count all the hours I spend on my books. Then I’m probably making less than the babysitter of a sweatshop worker.

At first, I did my covers to Kindle specifications, but then I noticed that my covers were all long and thin. As much as it may be my dream to be tall and thin, I think shorter, fatter book covers look better. Oh sorry, that should be height-challenged covers with a healthy BMI. Anyway, I changed the size this time out.

I am very interested in what makes good cover art. In my post on self-publishing, I think I mentioned this monthly e-book cover awards contest. While I would never have the guts to enter my covers in the contest, I learn a ton by reading the comments and using my own judgement.

One area I identified as a weakness was my fonts. I have a big ole crush on Georgia, and I use it all the time when I blog. So when it came time to for a title fonts, I turned to Georgia. It looks contemporary and fresh to me. But I've since learnt that you should not use any of the normal fonts on your computer for book titles. So, I searched around for a font I liked (free of course, since you know my zero budget) and I found a couple of great ones on FontSquirrel. The main title is in a sans serif that looks contemporary and it’s a lot fatter—I mean healthy-weighted—than Georgia, so more legible to readers when in a tiny thumbnail. Then for the subtitle, I chose a font that’s fun and light, which is what my books are. The font's name is Lobster! I love that.

For this project, I had to make three covers at once, so I needed a common theme for the visuals. I decided on flowers, for a few reasons. First off, I’ve seen some really nice flower book covers lately; they look intriguing and compelling to me. Secondly, flowers figure into my trilogy. My heroine, Kelly Tanaka, has a father who is a florist, she gets flowers at various points from various suitors, and someone even compares her to a flower. (Unless I edit that part out in my relentless process.) And thirdly, I love colour and flowers are tops in that department.

So, I started searching for flower images. I had a few ideas in mind, but what is available in my price range and what my imagination wants never match up. Eventually I found a few suitable images and starting applying my Photoshop skills to make them useable for my cover design. I like to maintain a look for my books, and that includes a hockey stick background, colourful titles, and an image suitable to the book. Again, the main intention is communication. I view my books as a little romance, a little chick lit, and a little hockey. Hopefully, that is what the covers communicate. Also, I wanted to point out that my cover backgrounds are white, but when I put them on Blogger, they turn grey. Not fifty shades, though. 

I experimented a lot with the covers. One great thing is that I can fool around with title names, since I'm the writer and the cover designer. I determined that a shorter title looked better with this font, so I tried some alternate titles and settled on this one. Photoshop is an unending source of frustration for me, but I’m improving all the time. I had someone helping me for a while, but he got fed up and pointed out that he was Googling the answers to all my dumb questions. So that’s what I do now. And I feel like I’m gaining a useful skill. (Photoshop, not Googling.) The real test will be when I can do something like Lift Cat.

Anyway I ended up with four covers. The first three are the ones I picked and the alternate one is the cake.  You can decide if you like the alternate better. Or you can tell me that I’m an idiot and my covers looked better before. But I don’t think so, if I were judging the e-book cover contest, I’d choose me. I may be a little biased though. And I do realize that I'm supposed to tease and reveal my covers when the books are launching, but I was so excited, I wanted to share them right away!

Coming up next, I’ll discuss what’s behind those covers.

Should romance readers rule the world?

Are romance readers the nicest people in the world? Or the smartest?

Lately the subject of book reviews has come up a lot in writing world. The online writing board I visit has writers agonizing over getting more reviews. They buy ads, beg family, offer trades, whine, and cajole. One blog has writers complaining about bad reviews, while another has readers complaining about writers complaining about bad reviews. Is your head spinning yet? Mine is.

On the other hand, a writer friend is worrying about her lack of reviews, but her sales are sky high. She wonders how she can tell if people are enjoying the book or not. I wonder how I get sales like hers.

So what is going on? Are reviews important or not?

I have a theory. (I always have a theory, because I have an out-of-control imagination.) When I used to work in advertising, we had focus groups of consumers to try out product marketing ideas. There were certain consumers who were called heavy users. For example, the beer focus group was shown a new beer, and the guys (yes, they were always guys) said, “I’d try a case of that.” A case meant 24 beers, which they were going to drink over a weekend. By themselves. I leave it to your own out-of-control imagination to visualize what these guys looked like.

Romance is a huge category. In fact, many romance readers may not even consider themselves that since the genre is sometimes belittled. So most readers have subcategory preferences, ones that fit their interests, like suspense, historical, chick lit, vampires, young adult, on and on. I read a lot of hockey romances, because I’m interested in hockey and relationships. And I can usually tell from the sample if I’m going to like it or not. If the sample is not enough, I might look at the reviews, but I usually look at the bad ones first. To paraphrase Tolstoy: all good reviews are alike, but bad reviews are interesting in their own ways. In fact, a bad review may tip me off to something I may like in a book. Like reviews that complain about bad language or an unhappy ending, which are not things that bother me at all. Therefore, the good reviews are not necessary for me to make a purchase.

But let’s get back to those heavy users, but not beer drinkers—romance readers. (Although they may well be doing both at the same time. Personally, I visualize reading a romance with wine and chocolate.) If you’re reading three or more books a week, you are already an expert. You can probably scan a sample in two minutes and decide yay or nay. You have a list of authors whose books you like, and you pick a new one up automatically. You may even download books based on the cover, the subject only (like a hockey romance, pretty please) or because a friend recommended it. Reviews may not be important to those readers.

Really, it’s like anything. If you know about wines, you can pick out a good, low-priced wine by tasting it or even from the label. Similarly, heavy-user romance readers know what they enjoy and can pick out books accordingly. If the books are good, they’ll pick up all the author’s other books as well. They are smart that way, they don’t need reviews, good or bad, because they have self-knowledge.

In addition, romance readers seem to be a lot more tolerant than normal people. I’ve read reviews where readers complained a lot about the book, but then turned around and said they’d read the sequel. It’s the equivalent of having bad service at a restaurant, but being willing to give the place another try, something that nice people do. (Or people who live in a place where there aren’t a lot of restaurants.) And nice readers are also willing to give new/indie authors a chance. They don’t know the writer, but the synopsis looks intriguing enough, so one-click and the book is bought.

So why are all these writers worrying about reviews? I suspect that they write books in other categories where the readers are not so smart or so nice.

A Crisis of Confidence

Who hasn’t had a collapse of confidence? Just at that moment that you need your flirty, witty self, she disappears and leaves you a stuttering, sweating blob. Or maybe you lose your confidence when it comes to taking risks: like applying for a dream job or going on that blind date. Why are we never as spectacular in public as we are in private?

Although I have never had sex with an NHL player, I do have a lot in common with the heroines of my books. We all enjoy hockey, own cats and live in beautiful Vancouver. And we all have confidence in many areas, but not all. Like Frankie Taylor, who feels confident at school, in the kitchen, and when fully-dressed in a swishy fifties frock. But getting naked in a brightly-lit room worries her. Or like Kelly Tanaka, from my upcoming book, who feels completely confident in any athletic situation, but not when navigating relationships.

I have no self-confidence when it comes to sports and I have to be dragged to big parties. However, I feel confident at work, in any mall anywhere (because I am an Olympic shopper) and in normal social situations. And I feel pretty confident about my writing—except lately.

I try to welcome criticism. Of course—like any writer—it’s painful, but I have my own way to handle things. I generally step back for 24 hours to make sure I’m not being all stupidly emotional, and try to react positively. I understand that my books are not for everyone, and I think I can learn from negative feedback.

However three negative critiques from three unrelated sources in the past three weeks left me reeling. I completely lost confidence and started to wonder if I should even bother writing anymore. I decided to take a short break from writing, and do some exciting things I had neglected—like housework and laundry. After a week, with the floors clean and everything ironed while watching NHL Revealed, I decided it was time to go back to writing. I opened my laptop, and … nothing. I was too discouraged to write, feeling like there was no point in writing because nobody liked my writing anyway. Yeah, I knew it was a pity party, but that didn’t make it any less real. And I also realized that although I had tons of positive feedback in the past, now I could only see the negatives. Confidence crises have a way of spiralling.

Writing seemed like a monumental task that gloomy me just didn’t have the energy for. I had a whole book completed, but I didn’t want to bother implementing any of the edits I had planned and I didn’t want to start something new. So I closed the laptop and started watching episodes of True Detective. (Don’t tell me the ending because I’m not done yet.)

Then after a hockey-related conversation on twitter about our respective losing teams, I was asked how my writing was going. Boom! Something clicked in my head. Myan likes my writing! She wants to read the next book! And then she tweeted she would be the first one to read the new book when it came out! Wow, magically I was motivated again, I opened up the laptop and started editing. It’s slow going right now, but like any sport (or so I assume since I’ve never excelled at one) it’s tough when you begin after a setback and gets easier as you go along.

So all I can say is, thank you, Myan! You inspired me. I’m off to write some reviews myself, to say thanks to writers whose work I’ve enjoyed. And I encourage everyone to electronically hug your favourite writer today, whether it be with a good review, a recommendation to a friend, or a cheerful tweet. Because physically stalking and hugging that writer would be too creepy, and I have the restraining order to prove it. Kidding. 

What’s Revealed

After PVR’ing every episode of NHL Revealed so far, I finally started watching it during the little hiatus after Olympic hockey (farewell to watching hockey at 4:00 AM in the morning, thank God!) and before the regular season started again.

I’ve only watched two episodes so far—the Olympic ones, but I have to say that I love it. It’s so interesting and the cameramen seem to have a ton of access. You get to see the personal and personable side of many different hockey players. Frankly, everyone seems to act exactly how I’d expect them to: intense or goofy, boyish or mature, intelligent or clueless.

The show is not as intense or thematic as 24/7, but it’s a lot more fun. This season’s 24/7 was kind of disappointing, for a couple of reasons. First off, I don’t think that there’s a real, exciting rivalry between Detroit and Toronto. But more importantly, everyone seems to be savvy to the issues resulting from previous shows, and they were being extra careful not to reveal anything negative about themselves. Other than someone’s huge, perfectly organized closet, which was a negative for me. But then, I’m kind of a slob.

It makes me feel a little sorry for players though. People want to know so much about them, and the truth may not be as exciting as we think. To be good at something—like playing hockey—doesn’t necessarily translate into being an intriguing or inspiring person. But it’s all a part of being a celebrity, and I’m sure that being in the limelight is better than being ignored.

Anyone else watching this show? What do you think?