Sunday, April 22, 2012
Working on the Book Cover
Over the past couple weeks, I've been working on getting everything set for the book cover. Because I'm a complete amateur when it comes to design, and because I had a very specific image in mind for the front of Indian Summer, I've decided to use an artist to put it together.
Luckily, I knew of an artist who does good work (he did the cover for a friend's book which will be coming out within the next couple months) and I contacted him. The first step, of course, was to explain to him what I wanted the cover to look like. This was where it started to be tricky. Basically, I wanted the cover of the book to represent the scene where the main character goes a little wacky and begins running across a field lined with wind turbines. It's a very Don Quixote moment, but since my character thinks of himself as a Bollywood superstar as opposed to a knight errant, he is singing and dancing in front of these modern-day windmills. His exasperated best friend Shayla is chasing him across the field.
To come up with a solid cover, in particular the image that was in my head, I needed to give the artist some visual references, which I happily did. The background comes from shots of wind turbines I took while driving across the United States soon after finishing the first draft of the novel (the cover concept was already in my head then.) The characters were a little bit different. One is based on a real person that I know; the other is a mix of five or six photos I found online that were then put together into a brand new "face." The poses for the front cover being a little difficult to explain, I asked a couple of friends to help me simulate, and then we took a ton of photos trying to get it right. In addition to this, I had a specific title logo concept, and specific requests for how the characters would be clothed. Finally, a very generous friend, and a great photographer and visual artist, created a number of mock ups for me so that I could send the artist an image that strongly showed what I wanted. (Forgive me for not mentioning names and giving credit where it is due--at least not yet; all the names will be credited in the book when it comes out in July, so be patient.)
I sent about fifty different reference photos to the cover artist, and within 48 hours, he had sent me this mock up image:
This is only a mock up at this point; the artist will be painting it within the next week or two, and I will share the final product with you then. Before I go that final step and have him start creating the painted cover, I would love to hear your opinions.
What do you think about this cover for Indian Summer? Does it intrigue you? Would you want to pick up the book from just this cover itself? What are your thoughts, people? I can't wait to hear them!
Luckily, I knew of an artist who does good work (he did the cover for a friend's book which will be coming out within the next couple months) and I contacted him. The first step, of course, was to explain to him what I wanted the cover to look like. This was where it started to be tricky. Basically, I wanted the cover of the book to represent the scene where the main character goes a little wacky and begins running across a field lined with wind turbines. It's a very Don Quixote moment, but since my character thinks of himself as a Bollywood superstar as opposed to a knight errant, he is singing and dancing in front of these modern-day windmills. His exasperated best friend Shayla is chasing him across the field.
To come up with a solid cover, in particular the image that was in my head, I needed to give the artist some visual references, which I happily did. The background comes from shots of wind turbines I took while driving across the United States soon after finishing the first draft of the novel (the cover concept was already in my head then.) The characters were a little bit different. One is based on a real person that I know; the other is a mix of five or six photos I found online that were then put together into a brand new "face." The poses for the front cover being a little difficult to explain, I asked a couple of friends to help me simulate, and then we took a ton of photos trying to get it right. In addition to this, I had a specific title logo concept, and specific requests for how the characters would be clothed. Finally, a very generous friend, and a great photographer and visual artist, created a number of mock ups for me so that I could send the artist an image that strongly showed what I wanted. (Forgive me for not mentioning names and giving credit where it is due--at least not yet; all the names will be credited in the book when it comes out in July, so be patient.)
I sent about fifty different reference photos to the cover artist, and within 48 hours, he had sent me this mock up image:
This is only a mock up at this point; the artist will be painting it within the next week or two, and I will share the final product with you then. Before I go that final step and have him start creating the painted cover, I would love to hear your opinions.
What do you think about this cover for Indian Summer? Does it intrigue you? Would you want to pick up the book from just this cover itself? What are your thoughts, people? I can't wait to hear them!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sample of Indian Summer
Just for fun, here's a quick sample of Indian Summer. This is the scene where Don goes all Bolly-mad at a truck stop in California.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/118983676/?key=OGRhNjlkZmIt&pass=M2FjYS00YjI1
To read the beginning chapters, go to http://authonomy.com/books/43028/indian-summer/, and make sure to comment, give a star rating, and if you like (and this would be truly helpful to me), click on "Back the Book."
Thanks,
Daniel
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/118983676/?key=OGRhNjlkZmIt&pass=M2FjYS00YjI1
To read the beginning chapters, go to http://authonomy.com/books/43028/indian-summer/, and make sure to comment, give a star rating, and if you like (and this would be truly helpful to me), click on "Back the Book."
Thanks,
Daniel
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Putting the "Networking" into Social Networking
Twitter.
LinkedIn.
MySpace.
Authonomy. Digg.com. Luscious.com. Facebook pages galore. Yahoo Alerts... etc, etc, etc.
Here's the deal, folks. In order to sell a book, one must have a platform. This means, basically, that one must go about getting an audience BEFORE the book goes out, not afterward. Agents and publishers like authors that already have interested readers because that means the book will sell. For this reason, college professors who have an interesting subject matter, and politicians running for office, have a great chance of getting published.
This is not the case for someone like me who writes fiction, especially when I'm writing something that isn't a particular genre like Indian Summer. In my case, I need to go about building up reader interest, and the most basic tool for this is social networking. Now, rather than just looking at the social side of things, I need to look at social networking as a business and advertising tool, something that is a huge paradigm shift for me, since I usually just have fun on Facebook catching up with friends.
Here's a few tips for good social networking:
1) Let the base you already have know what you're doing. I'm pretty sure that not everybody on Facebook knows I've got a book coming out in July, but in the next several weeks, particularly after I get a cover, that will change. I'll still do the fun posts, but I'll also be making my book be known.
2) Join several social networking sites.
3) Get your own blog and Webpage and create links/badges to your major social networking sites.
4) Comment on other blogs and forums that seem to have a lot to do with your topic. For example, my novel's got a Bollywood theme but in an American context, so I'm going to make a lot of posts on bollywhat.com, which is run by Meredith McGuire, an American who loves Bollywood, and also has her own book out called Bollywood Becomes Her. (I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't been searching out sites!)
5) Search out the books that are like yours in theme, tone, and genre. Look at the big ones and small ones. Make friends with the authors if you can because you share a base, and if you talk each other up, it's definitely a mutually beneficial arrangement.
6) "Make three intelligent blog comments a day." In other words, read blogs that deal with your subject matter, or writing in general, and make comments on them that are helpful, interesting, and/or move the conversation forward. Don't just blog little meaningless comments. This idea comes from Jason Matthews' excellent book How to Make, Market, and Sell Ebooks, which has been a godsend to me. In fact, many of the ideas I have here come from him, so please buy his book. I'll be blogging more about how awesome he is later.
7) Include a link (or at least paste the URL) to your Website or blog or whatever represents you on the Web when you post a comment anywhere. (Note: People will only click on the link if you've said something that shows you're worthwhile. If your comment is something like "Yeah! Me, too!!!" nobody will take you seriously, and worse, they'll think you're just trying to sell them something.)
8) Always be polite and professional. Not everybody will be. There will be those who are rude to you. There will also be those who are trying to be helpful, but whose advice rankles. Be the rock in the river. Let the water flow around you. Never respond with an angry, rude comment.
There you go. Eight ideas on using social networking. I'm just getting started with all this myself and finding it difficult to balance everything. However, once you've checked everything out, you can choose a few social networking and blog sites that you really like and focus in on them. You don't have to be going to a hundred different networking sites a day, just three or so. My suggestion: Jump fully into the social networking scene and then find out which places are best for you.
LinkedIn.
MySpace.
Authonomy. Digg.com. Luscious.com. Facebook pages galore. Yahoo Alerts... etc, etc, etc.
Here's the deal, folks. In order to sell a book, one must have a platform. This means, basically, that one must go about getting an audience BEFORE the book goes out, not afterward. Agents and publishers like authors that already have interested readers because that means the book will sell. For this reason, college professors who have an interesting subject matter, and politicians running for office, have a great chance of getting published.
This is not the case for someone like me who writes fiction, especially when I'm writing something that isn't a particular genre like Indian Summer. In my case, I need to go about building up reader interest, and the most basic tool for this is social networking. Now, rather than just looking at the social side of things, I need to look at social networking as a business and advertising tool, something that is a huge paradigm shift for me, since I usually just have fun on Facebook catching up with friends.
Here's a few tips for good social networking:
1) Let the base you already have know what you're doing. I'm pretty sure that not everybody on Facebook knows I've got a book coming out in July, but in the next several weeks, particularly after I get a cover, that will change. I'll still do the fun posts, but I'll also be making my book be known.
2) Join several social networking sites.
3) Get your own blog and Webpage and create links/badges to your major social networking sites.
4) Comment on other blogs and forums that seem to have a lot to do with your topic. For example, my novel's got a Bollywood theme but in an American context, so I'm going to make a lot of posts on bollywhat.com, which is run by Meredith McGuire, an American who loves Bollywood, and also has her own book out called Bollywood Becomes Her. (I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't been searching out sites!)
5) Search out the books that are like yours in theme, tone, and genre. Look at the big ones and small ones. Make friends with the authors if you can because you share a base, and if you talk each other up, it's definitely a mutually beneficial arrangement.
6) "Make three intelligent blog comments a day." In other words, read blogs that deal with your subject matter, or writing in general, and make comments on them that are helpful, interesting, and/or move the conversation forward. Don't just blog little meaningless comments. This idea comes from Jason Matthews' excellent book How to Make, Market, and Sell Ebooks, which has been a godsend to me. In fact, many of the ideas I have here come from him, so please buy his book. I'll be blogging more about how awesome he is later.
7) Include a link (or at least paste the URL) to your Website or blog or whatever represents you on the Web when you post a comment anywhere. (Note: People will only click on the link if you've said something that shows you're worthwhile. If your comment is something like "Yeah! Me, too!!!" nobody will take you seriously, and worse, they'll think you're just trying to sell them something.)
8) Always be polite and professional. Not everybody will be. There will be those who are rude to you. There will also be those who are trying to be helpful, but whose advice rankles. Be the rock in the river. Let the water flow around you. Never respond with an angry, rude comment.
There you go. Eight ideas on using social networking. I'm just getting started with all this myself and finding it difficult to balance everything. However, once you've checked everything out, you can choose a few social networking and blog sites that you really like and focus in on them. You don't have to be going to a hundred different networking sites a day, just three or so. My suggestion: Jump fully into the social networking scene and then find out which places are best for you.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Read the Beginning of Indian Summer
Hi all,
This is just a note to say that the first four chapters of my novel Indian Summer are up for preview at authonomy.com. The book will be making its premiere in July, but this is a great chance to look at it early, and to give me some feedback.
So please-- check out Indian Summer on authonomy.com right here. You'll have to register to get started, but after you do, I'd be really grateful if you would click on "Back the Book" for my novel (which puts it on your bookshelf and raises the book in the rankings), and also give a comment and a star rating.
Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing some early reviews!
This is just a note to say that the first four chapters of my novel Indian Summer are up for preview at authonomy.com. The book will be making its premiere in July, but this is a great chance to look at it early, and to give me some feedback.
So please-- check out Indian Summer on authonomy.com right here. You'll have to register to get started, but after you do, I'd be really grateful if you would click on "Back the Book" for my novel (which puts it on your bookshelf and raises the book in the rankings), and also give a comment and a star rating.
Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing some early reviews!
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