Two weeks ago Joseph Nassise wrote me to announce the upcoming podcast of his book Heretic (which launched today—the podcast, not the book), and I, the opportunistic chick that I am, took that as an invitation to hound him about doing an author interview. Despite the fact that I have never interviewed anyone in my life, with the exception of those seeking employment with my company, I wrote up a couple of questions for my victim—er, patient author and sent them out. What I expected was a “Please don’t email me again” in response, what I got instead were several thoughtful answers to my rather scattered questions. Whether it’s his book or his podcast that interests you, take a moment to read this over.
I know I feel smarter for it.
Bookseller Chick: Okay, I haven't had a chance to pick up your book, Heretic , and give it a thorough read—which pains my little research obsessed heart—but I did get a chance to read the first couple of pages on Amazon. Did you know that the excerpt cut off after page ten? I think I screamed a little. Here I was getting an intriguing combination of death, destruction, mystery and the introduction of a (possibly) bad ass character (Cade Williams), and then nothing. It ended in the middle of a sentence! I mean, I've heard to always leave them wanting more, but that was ridiculous. Still, I got enough to know that you've created a world where the Templars are not only still active, but still working for the Vatican. My question (and I do have one) is why did you choose the Templars as the organization for your book?
Joseph Nassise: The Templars have always been fascinating to me. You've got this small, militant order that grows exponentially over time, building enormous wealth and power from practically nothing. What started out as ten guys who'd vowed to guard the route from the Holy Land to Europe balloons into this immensely powerful Order, so powerful that the King of France and the Pope conspire to destroy it. But the Order is too smart for them. They scatter, taking their treasure fleet with them, and disappear into the pages of history, leaving behind myth, legend, and rumor.
It was on that framework that I decided to play the What If? Game. What if the Order had survived intact? What if they still played a role in today's world? What would they look like? Who would they answer to? You get the idea. From there, the concept of reconciling the Order with the Vatican in the wake of WWII was born.
BSC: I found out about your book when you emailed me about the Podcasts you are doing in conjunction with the Horror Network, and when I looked up your title, I found that it was commonly listed under horror. Do you consider your book to be strictly horror?
JN: Not at all. While it certainly has horrific elements – necromancers, revenants, what may or may not be an demon – it is also much more. It's part religious suspense, part police procedural, part romance, part techno-thriller. Bram Stoker award winner Gary Braunbeck said it quite well, I think…"HERETIC is cross-genre fiction at its very best."
BSC: Most large chain bookstores (I cannot speak for the independents) have sections specifically for horror fiction. Personally I tend to stay away from horror books because I tend to equate them with horror movies (long on the slashing, short on the plot) and I'm a big ol' wimp with a very active imagination who can't read scary things and then be alone by myself. Am I selling short the horror fiction genre? What would you say to someone like me to get me to buy your book? (That would be after you slapped me for the horrific grammar of that last sentence, of course.)
JN: I would say an emphatic YES, you are selling the horror genre short. To me, horror is anything that evokes a feeling of dread or fear. This means that many books that are not marketed as horror certainly have some horrific elements to them. Conversely, it also means that horror novels have a tremendous amount of room to live and breathe in and equating them with the dull and many times plotless slasher films of the last two decades doesn't give them the credit they deserve.
Certainly horror has its share of gore and guts, but it also has the lyrical symphony that is the writings of people like Peter Straub and Caitlin Kiernan, the evocative descriptions of Glen Hirschberg and Thomas Liggotti, the action and adventure of Tim Lebbon and Chris Golden. And I could go on in this vein for hours. A few years ago Alice Seibold won the Bram Stoker Award, one of horror fictions two highest literary honors, for her novel THE LOVELY BONES, in which a dead girl narrates the disintegration of her family following her rape and murder. Aside from the fact that the book is narrated by a ghost, there isn't a single element of the supernatural in the entire work, yet it was clearly seen as horror for the feelings it evokes.
Horror is much broader than most people realize and I think it behooves horror writers everywhere to help get that message across. I usually ask people to put aside their preconceived notions and talk a walk with me down the road for a bit, just past that last stoplight, where the light dims and the shadows start to gather, to see what we might discover there for ourselves…
BSC: The phenomenon of Podcasting is relatively new to me (and a lot of others), how did you come up with the idea? What made you hook up with the Horror Network to do this Podcast? What will each podcast entail and how can people access it?
JN: I had been listening to a number of technology related podcasts in my spare time and thought it might be interesting to listen to some fiction in the same format. Much to my surprise, there was very little to be had. I saw that as a window of opportunity, not only to fill that gap but also to reach a much wider potential audience than I could through the usual publicity methods.
Once I decided to do the podcast, I thought the impact would be much more significant if I had a corporate sponsor or two. I approached The Podcast Network as I knew they were the first commercial network for podcast content and had been listening to several of their shows on a regular basis. I knew their quality was excellent and that they would have the technical know-how I would need to bring my show to the public. I then needed a sponsor associated with the horror genre and the Horror Channel simply made perfect sense in that regard. Of course none of this would have been possible without the help of my publisher, Pocket Books.
Each podcast will consist of a fifteen to twenty minute show. We'll be doing a chapter a week from HERETIC, book one of the Templar Chronicles, so thirty weeks in all. Each and every show will also be archived on the official site (http://www.thetemplarchronicles.com/) so if you start listening to us partway through the project you can get caught up without any difficult. The site will also feature interactive message boards, contests, behind-the-scenes features and the like.
In order to listen to the show, you can either simply download each episode onto your computer, iPod, or portable media device manually or you can sign up for the podcast feed, which will automatically download each episode as it becomes available.
BSC: In a way, podcasting your book seems like a revival of the radio shows of old albeit in this new medium. Did you ever listen to radio shows? (If you did) Did that influence your reading of your book for the Podcast?
JN: I've listened to a number of old radio programs over the years, from The Shadow to others I think it's a tremendous shame that radio programs of this type have gone the way of the Dodo and I truly hope that podcasting will help revive this terrific medium.
BSC: In the comments you left on my post about your Podcast, you mentioned that you will be doing the reading. That takes some serious guts. How does it feel to hear your own voice reading something you put so much time and effort into creating?
JN: I've been involved in public speaking for years so recording my voice was no more difficult for me in that regard than getting up in front of a room full of people and giving a presentation. And thanks to editing software, I didn't really have to worry too much about any mistakes I made, as it was simple to go back through the recording afterward and clean up the errors. I've tried to make each show lively and interesting, and hope that I've succeeded. If not, I hope listeners will tell me about it so that I can make any necessary changes as we go along.
BSC: The Templar Chronicles are an ongoing series with Heretic as the first book. If your podcast is successful do you plan to do them for the rest of the books?
JN: Yes, I'd certainly like to do so. Books two and three, A SCREAM OF ANGELS and THE OTHER SIDE OF DARKNESS, will both be completed this year and I'd like to start podcasting them a few months after we finish up with HERETIC.
BSC: As a bookseller I'm always getting recommendations from people, besides your book (obviously) what are two books I should give a try, or at least recommend to my customers?
JN: There are literally hundreds of books I could recommend. I'll simply mention two that are being released this week - DUSK by Tim Lebbon and THE MYTH HUNTERS by Christopher Golden. Both are the start of new dark fantasy series, but very different from each other, and both authors are among my favorites.
That's it for my first author interview. If there is anyone else out there with some interesting marketing technique or just looking for some free publicity, let me know at bookseller.chick@gmail.com. I'd like to get a cross section of the genres if that's possible, and I love hearing about what's new and interesting in the book world.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Doing My Homework #2: Gift Book Craziness
I’m getting ready to go to the gym, but before I commit to this ultimate insanity (and oh, how it is so very insane), I thought I would try to squeeze in answering another question. This one is brought to us by JMC (and seconded by anonymous), who asks:
Ah yes, the ol’ buying books as gifts ploy because books are the “safe” gift. Pfft. Safe for some maybe, or at least the giver, but they don’t have to contend with the eight million returns after Christmas that I get from people who received a book they would never consider reading in their lifetime. The art of choosing the right book for the right person is damn hard, and requires you to have long, long discussions with said person about their reading habits. Sure you can get them a cookbook or fact book—both safe, buy it for your grandma/pa gifts—or you can really put some thought into.
For most people this year, putting some thought into it meant buying Marley & Me. Sure dog stories are all well and fuzzy, but let’s pause for a second and consider how all—yes, all—dog stories end. I’m not sure that I would give that book to someone looking for a “happy” ending is all I’m sayin’.
Gift cards are a perfectly safe and respectable alternative to buying someone something they don’t like. Depending on what bookstore you buy the card from, a person can get anything from coffee to a DVD with it—look, Ma, no books!—which makes it great for even those people who don’t read (heathens).
The only people that gift cards hurt are the bookstore themselves. Not because they must return the money on the gift card (they can’t and won’t so don’t try), but because the money doesn’t “count” until the gift card is used. Let me give you an example. Let’s say I sell a gift card to some woman for fifty dollars.
Fifty dollars for my store, right?
No. That money goes into limbo and is marked as an EGC (electronic gift card) sale.
Now say this woman sends the card to her son in Phoenix and he uses it there at some store. That store is going to get the money. That store is going to show the sale. The only thing that my store did was take the cash. Last Christmas I did several thousand dollars worth of EGC sales a day, far more than most small stores my size, but I’m not seeing them return because most people sent them out of state or go to a bigger store. Our size and locations mark us as a convenience location instead of a destination, and as such we don’t see the returning EGC like other stores do.
Which sucks, let me tell you.
So while I love, adore, and become overwhelmingly ecstatic when I receive gift cards, and I’m always quick to point them out to a customer as an option (I would rather have them buy an EGC and guarantee the company money then have them walk out of the store empty-handed), I would really like it if they would buy a book so I could get the money for my store. Maybe because I’m around books all day, the idea of buying a book for one of my friends isn’t all that shocking. I know what they read. I know what they don’t have. These are the things I take a look at if I’m thinking someone obviously needs to add to their library. Unfortunately I don’t think most people do this.
Basically, if you don’t have an exact list of what the person wants book-wise, or at least a strong working knowledge of their likes and dislikes, I’d go the gift card route. They can always be prettied up with a cute bookmark or some additional reading gift (book light, wine glasses to help relax, candles, bubble bath, Moleskine notebooks for the writer, and so on) if you want to put in a little extra thought.
Please e-splain the concept of buying books as gifts. Unless the intended recipient has expressed a desire for a specific book, that seems kind of dangerous (in the sense of risking giving an unappreciated gift) to me. For instance, I love my sister and b-i-l, both bibliophiles, but I would never buy them a particular book unless given an author and title. They have such catholic tastes, that a gift card is much the better gift. That way they can buy exactly what they want, or spend it at random. What they choose at random is going to be more to their tastes than what I select at random.
Ah yes, the ol’ buying books as gifts ploy because books are the “safe” gift. Pfft. Safe for some maybe, or at least the giver, but they don’t have to contend with the eight million returns after Christmas that I get from people who received a book they would never consider reading in their lifetime. The art of choosing the right book for the right person is damn hard, and requires you to have long, long discussions with said person about their reading habits. Sure you can get them a cookbook or fact book—both safe, buy it for your grandma/pa gifts—or you can really put some thought into.
For most people this year, putting some thought into it meant buying Marley & Me. Sure dog stories are all well and fuzzy, but let’s pause for a second and consider how all—yes, all—dog stories end. I’m not sure that I would give that book to someone looking for a “happy” ending is all I’m sayin’.
Gift cards are a perfectly safe and respectable alternative to buying someone something they don’t like. Depending on what bookstore you buy the card from, a person can get anything from coffee to a DVD with it—look, Ma, no books!—which makes it great for even those people who don’t read (heathens).
The only people that gift cards hurt are the bookstore themselves. Not because they must return the money on the gift card (they can’t and won’t so don’t try), but because the money doesn’t “count” until the gift card is used. Let me give you an example. Let’s say I sell a gift card to some woman for fifty dollars.
Fifty dollars for my store, right?
No. That money goes into limbo and is marked as an EGC (electronic gift card) sale.
Now say this woman sends the card to her son in Phoenix and he uses it there at some store. That store is going to get the money. That store is going to show the sale. The only thing that my store did was take the cash. Last Christmas I did several thousand dollars worth of EGC sales a day, far more than most small stores my size, but I’m not seeing them return because most people sent them out of state or go to a bigger store. Our size and locations mark us as a convenience location instead of a destination, and as such we don’t see the returning EGC like other stores do.
Which sucks, let me tell you.
So while I love, adore, and become overwhelmingly ecstatic when I receive gift cards, and I’m always quick to point them out to a customer as an option (I would rather have them buy an EGC and guarantee the company money then have them walk out of the store empty-handed), I would really like it if they would buy a book so I could get the money for my store. Maybe because I’m around books all day, the idea of buying a book for one of my friends isn’t all that shocking. I know what they read. I know what they don’t have. These are the things I take a look at if I’m thinking someone obviously needs to add to their library. Unfortunately I don’t think most people do this.
Basically, if you don’t have an exact list of what the person wants book-wise, or at least a strong working knowledge of their likes and dislikes, I’d go the gift card route. They can always be prettied up with a cute bookmark or some additional reading gift (book light, wine glasses to help relax, candles, bubble bath, Moleskine notebooks for the writer, and so on) if you want to put in a little extra thought.
Monday, January 30, 2006
SB Day: A Series of Series Romances
It’s Smart Bitches Day! Only it’s been awhile since I contributed to a Smart Bitches Day, and there are a lot more people (supposedly) coming here now, so perhaps I should explain. SB Day was started by Beth many, many moons ago as away to promote open and honest dialogue about the Romance genre, or as she puts it in this latest installment:
If this very idea fills with you revulsion and disgust, then don’t read on. Romance isn’t for everyone, and I’m cool with that as long as you are cool with the idea that some people like it. If we were all the same the world would be a really boring place and there would be fewer books in my store.
What I’m saying is that if you don’t want to read rants and raves about the Romance genre go here and read yesterday’s post or wait a few hours and I’ll get something else up. For those of you still here, let’s begin:
First of all, today is not a rant, or at least not much of a rant on the grand scale of ranting about birth control and penis size. Today is all about the romance novel series with a little bit of informal reviewing thrown in for flavor.
In the Romance genre the romance novel series seems to be a staple. You know what I’m talking about, when the secondary character from one novel gets his/her own book as the next one, and then a secondary character in that one gets his/her own book, and so on and so, until an author has five bagillion books about one group of friends and you’re thinking to yourself, “Shouldn’t someone die already? Doesn’t she know the divorce rate in this country? How is this possible?” Only recently has the Romance genre been more accepting of the other series format, one in which one character drives the entire series; the Romance equivalent of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, if you will.
Many find the first series type nice because it allows a reader to revisit the old characters from book one in later books, but does not jeopardize their happy ending. Others like the second type because it allows the characters to grow, develop and mature (ideally Stephanie Plum should not be exactly the same character in book eleven as she was in book one). In the romance set-up this allows readers to follow the evolution of a relationship and maybe, just maybe, get to see the couple work out some actual issues. In theory this should allow you to really believe the “Happily Ever After” when the series ends because, wow, look at all they’ve been through.
It’s that ending thing that writers seem to have a problem with. You know, saying good-bye to the characters they’ve labored over for years and years must be hard…which is why it doesn’t seem to happen. I stopped reading Evanovich’s Plum series because Stephanie seemed to be making the same mistakes time and again. I stopped reading the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton because, well, it became one big orgy where I was left wondering where to find the plot. I was disappointed when Sarah Strohmeyer’s Bubbles books went from a trilogy to an ongoing series. It wasn’t that I didn’t love the character anymore, but simply that I was afraid that she was going to fall into the same trap as those before her: the inability to move on when it was necessary.
This same problem infects most series based on the secondary characters. When the series gets popular suddenly there are more friends, and then more books of those friends and then even more books, and geez, they’re all starting to sound the same! Sometimes I wonder if it’s a trap that writers fall into, if they do plan to get out of writing the series only to have their editor, agent, or readers tell them, “You can’t stop now. Your readers love these people!”
So they spend the rest of their lives writing for their readers instead of themselves.
Yikes.
It was with these qualms in mind that I read two books in the last couple of weeks: Shadow Touch by Marjorie M. Liu, and Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow.
Shadow Touch is the second installment of Liu’s ongoing Dirk & Steele series, an example of the chain-linked through secondary characters series done right. The primary characters of this book own the book, and the primary characters of the last book are mentioned only in passing and even then only when the plot allows. While reading this I knew that secondary characters in this book would eventually have their own story, but none of them made it obvious in a “hey, pay attention to me” way that sometimes happens. This was Artur and Elena’s book and any help they received by secondary characters like Dean, Amiri, or Rictor served only to help forward the plot and Artur and Elena’s adventure.
Much of this can be attributed to Liu’s writing style. What could have been an okay suspense/paranormal is elevated by her lyricism and empathy with her characters. She doesn’t try to make them black and white as many writers do, but instead embraces their shades of gray. Artur used to work for the mafia, Elena kills with the very powers she heals with. These are not perfect people and they know that they are not perfect people.
We know that they are not perfect people.
Also Liu isn’t writing a series for series sake. Each book reveals a tiny glimpse at an overarching plot, a thread that ties all the books together. Yes, they might share characters, but they also share clues to a later plot. Something is not right with Liu’s imaginary world and it’s the job of the Dirk & Steele characters to discover how to fix it; something that cannot be done in just one book.
As far as books go, this is one of the best paranormal romances that I’ve read in quite some time. The plotting, characterizations, and writing were so strong that they got me to read right through the dinner hour and straight on until the end. When I finished, I finished satisfied with Elena and Artur’s ending, but still intrigued enough by the plot thread suggested throughout the series to want to pick up the next novel.
Actually there were only two times when I was pulled out of the book, which is a small number for me. The first was when Artur and Elena met, which bordered a bit closely on deus ex machina, but I decided to go with it and was glad I did (although one would argue that deus ex machina was the point given the players involved). The second took place when they were freed from the facility and discovered where they were. It really had nothing to do with Liu’s writing and everything to do with my own mind making a connection to an old Dean Koontz’s novel, House of Thunder. Intertextual allusion? Probably not, but my mind went there anyway and it pulled me (briefly) out of the story, mostly because I kept trying to remember the name of the novel.
Why yes, I do look for connections where none exist, thank you very much, I find it fun.
Quit looking at me like that. It is.
Lilith Saintcrow’s Working for the Devil differs from Liu’s book in a number of ways. First of all it’s the first of a series that follows Dante (Danny) Valentine, and it will always follow Dante—none of those secondary character stories here, at least not unless Dante is involved. Secondly I cut it a lot more slack plot-wise than I did Liu’s book. I knew it was the first of the series involving one character and therefore I expected some ground work to be done to get me to know that character. Danny’s billed as a dynamic, foul-mouthed necromancer, and that’s what she is: a foul-mouthed, issue-carrying, raiser of the dead.
Many of the reviews of this book that I read took to task the fact that it takes Danny awhile to get around to the plot point involving her deal with the Devil, but I think that’s wise. By the end of the book it’s obvious that we haven’t seen the end of the Devil or this plot, but what we do have is a pretty good understanding of what makes Danny tick. It’s that understanding that gives us the knowledge that she’s not going to let this one go. It also hints that all is not what it seems (or so I tell myself because I’m convinced that since the Devil is the Prince of Lies then seeing shouldn’t be believing and therefore what we think happened to someone might not have happened…vague enough for you? I thought so. I’m not going to spoil it so you don’t have to read the book).
I accepted all of the action taking place in the last third of the book and the various side jaunts that Danny took throughout the story because they allowed me to get to know the character…a character I had to know if I planned to continue on with a series based around her adventures (which I do). Where Artur and Elena’s story was self contained for Artur and Elena, Danny’s story is an ongoing exploration of her life, future, gifts and how they affect the world around her. Where Liu gave us a touch of Artur in Tiger’s Eye and then gave us the full story in Shadow Touch, Saintcrow is laying the groundwork for the mystery that is Danny and Danny’s past and future. This requires more time spent on Danny than the plot on this first outing.
This is not to say that the plot is left in the ditch while Danny frolics with the readers and other characters. No, Saintcrow simply allows Danny to take a few side trips to show us her network and give us a glimpse at some of her characteristics.
Does this detract from the story? I didn’t think so.
Would it appeal to anyone looking for a novel with a kick-ass heroine? I think it would.
It should be noted that the romance element in Working for the Devil is just that, an element, and not a plot-driving force. In fact, the way the “romance” plays out is not traditional in any sense of the word as it is in Liu’s book. Like Hamilton’s books, or Armstrong’s various series, this is a book focused on one character—Dante—and her story, not Dante and Jaf, or Dante and her former boyfriend. From the research I’ve done, it looks like Barnes & Noble can’t decide whether they want to shelve it in the Fantasy or in the Thriller sections, while Borders is calling it Romance (I was reading an ARC, the book has a March 2006 release date). Given the world building and character elements that Saintcrow develops, I would guess that Fantasy and Romance would be your best bets.
What I’m trying to say with these two books is that here are two authors who’ve seem to have this whole series thing down. I don’t foresee any cookie-cutter plots in their immediate futures and they both seem to have a long-term game plan. There’s a goal, a deeper plot-line with an ending, that they are trying to reach, and each book is to help forward that even as it tells its own unique story. When the time comes I would like to believe that both Liu and Saintcrow will know when to say goodbye to these characters and move on to the next story, the next plot, and the next world.
Or at least that’s what I believe with all the optimism of the newly converted reader to their books. I’ve been disappointed before.
Now, think of something romance-related about which you feel compelled to speak the unadulterated truth. Lemme tell ya something - SBD is not about being nice. It's also NOT about being mean. It's about being honest. Gush if you wanna, be all fangirly. Perfectly fine. Doesn't have to be a rant, it just has to be plain honesty. So if there's a romance author out there that you love so much you'd say "I'm so totally straight, but I'd go lesbo for her" - let us know! If there's one whose work you hate so much you'd say "I'm so totally a lesbian, but she makes me crave the taste of boyparts" - share! Or it could be something about romance-in-general. That's usually what it is. Anyway -- tell us whatever, man, just go for it.
If this very idea fills with you revulsion and disgust, then don’t read on. Romance isn’t for everyone, and I’m cool with that as long as you are cool with the idea that some people like it. If we were all the same the world would be a really boring place and there would be fewer books in my store.
What I’m saying is that if you don’t want to read rants and raves about the Romance genre go here and read yesterday’s post or wait a few hours and I’ll get something else up. For those of you still here, let’s begin:
First of all, today is not a rant, or at least not much of a rant on the grand scale of ranting about birth control and penis size. Today is all about the romance novel series with a little bit of informal reviewing thrown in for flavor.
In the Romance genre the romance novel series seems to be a staple. You know what I’m talking about, when the secondary character from one novel gets his/her own book as the next one, and then a secondary character in that one gets his/her own book, and so on and so, until an author has five bagillion books about one group of friends and you’re thinking to yourself, “Shouldn’t someone die already? Doesn’t she know the divorce rate in this country? How is this possible?” Only recently has the Romance genre been more accepting of the other series format, one in which one character drives the entire series; the Romance equivalent of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, if you will.
Many find the first series type nice because it allows a reader to revisit the old characters from book one in later books, but does not jeopardize their happy ending. Others like the second type because it allows the characters to grow, develop and mature (ideally Stephanie Plum should not be exactly the same character in book eleven as she was in book one). In the romance set-up this allows readers to follow the evolution of a relationship and maybe, just maybe, get to see the couple work out some actual issues. In theory this should allow you to really believe the “Happily Ever After” when the series ends because, wow, look at all they’ve been through.
It’s that ending thing that writers seem to have a problem with. You know, saying good-bye to the characters they’ve labored over for years and years must be hard…which is why it doesn’t seem to happen. I stopped reading Evanovich’s Plum series because Stephanie seemed to be making the same mistakes time and again. I stopped reading the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton because, well, it became one big orgy where I was left wondering where to find the plot. I was disappointed when Sarah Strohmeyer’s Bubbles books went from a trilogy to an ongoing series. It wasn’t that I didn’t love the character anymore, but simply that I was afraid that she was going to fall into the same trap as those before her: the inability to move on when it was necessary.
This same problem infects most series based on the secondary characters. When the series gets popular suddenly there are more friends, and then more books of those friends and then even more books, and geez, they’re all starting to sound the same! Sometimes I wonder if it’s a trap that writers fall into, if they do plan to get out of writing the series only to have their editor, agent, or readers tell them, “You can’t stop now. Your readers love these people!”
So they spend the rest of their lives writing for their readers instead of themselves.
Yikes.
It was with these qualms in mind that I read two books in the last couple of weeks: Shadow Touch by Marjorie M. Liu, and Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow.
Shadow Touch is the second installment of Liu’s ongoing Dirk & Steele series, an example of the chain-linked through secondary characters series done right. The primary characters of this book own the book, and the primary characters of the last book are mentioned only in passing and even then only when the plot allows. While reading this I knew that secondary characters in this book would eventually have their own story, but none of them made it obvious in a “hey, pay attention to me” way that sometimes happens. This was Artur and Elena’s book and any help they received by secondary characters like Dean, Amiri, or Rictor served only to help forward the plot and Artur and Elena’s adventure.
Much of this can be attributed to Liu’s writing style. What could have been an okay suspense/paranormal is elevated by her lyricism and empathy with her characters. She doesn’t try to make them black and white as many writers do, but instead embraces their shades of gray. Artur used to work for the mafia, Elena kills with the very powers she heals with. These are not perfect people and they know that they are not perfect people.
We know that they are not perfect people.
Also Liu isn’t writing a series for series sake. Each book reveals a tiny glimpse at an overarching plot, a thread that ties all the books together. Yes, they might share characters, but they also share clues to a later plot. Something is not right with Liu’s imaginary world and it’s the job of the Dirk & Steele characters to discover how to fix it; something that cannot be done in just one book.
As far as books go, this is one of the best paranormal romances that I’ve read in quite some time. The plotting, characterizations, and writing were so strong that they got me to read right through the dinner hour and straight on until the end. When I finished, I finished satisfied with Elena and Artur’s ending, but still intrigued enough by the plot thread suggested throughout the series to want to pick up the next novel.
Actually there were only two times when I was pulled out of the book, which is a small number for me. The first was when Artur and Elena met, which bordered a bit closely on deus ex machina, but I decided to go with it and was glad I did (although one would argue that deus ex machina was the point given the players involved). The second took place when they were freed from the facility and discovered where they were. It really had nothing to do with Liu’s writing and everything to do with my own mind making a connection to an old Dean Koontz’s novel, House of Thunder. Intertextual allusion? Probably not, but my mind went there anyway and it pulled me (briefly) out of the story, mostly because I kept trying to remember the name of the novel.
Why yes, I do look for connections where none exist, thank you very much, I find it fun.
Quit looking at me like that. It is.
Lilith Saintcrow’s Working for the Devil differs from Liu’s book in a number of ways. First of all it’s the first of a series that follows Dante (Danny) Valentine, and it will always follow Dante—none of those secondary character stories here, at least not unless Dante is involved. Secondly I cut it a lot more slack plot-wise than I did Liu’s book. I knew it was the first of the series involving one character and therefore I expected some ground work to be done to get me to know that character. Danny’s billed as a dynamic, foul-mouthed necromancer, and that’s what she is: a foul-mouthed, issue-carrying, raiser of the dead.
Many of the reviews of this book that I read took to task the fact that it takes Danny awhile to get around to the plot point involving her deal with the Devil, but I think that’s wise. By the end of the book it’s obvious that we haven’t seen the end of the Devil or this plot, but what we do have is a pretty good understanding of what makes Danny tick. It’s that understanding that gives us the knowledge that she’s not going to let this one go. It also hints that all is not what it seems (or so I tell myself because I’m convinced that since the Devil is the Prince of Lies then seeing shouldn’t be believing and therefore what we think happened to someone might not have happened…vague enough for you? I thought so. I’m not going to spoil it so you don’t have to read the book).
I accepted all of the action taking place in the last third of the book and the various side jaunts that Danny took throughout the story because they allowed me to get to know the character…a character I had to know if I planned to continue on with a series based around her adventures (which I do). Where Artur and Elena’s story was self contained for Artur and Elena, Danny’s story is an ongoing exploration of her life, future, gifts and how they affect the world around her. Where Liu gave us a touch of Artur in Tiger’s Eye and then gave us the full story in Shadow Touch, Saintcrow is laying the groundwork for the mystery that is Danny and Danny’s past and future. This requires more time spent on Danny than the plot on this first outing.
This is not to say that the plot is left in the ditch while Danny frolics with the readers and other characters. No, Saintcrow simply allows Danny to take a few side trips to show us her network and give us a glimpse at some of her characteristics.
Does this detract from the story? I didn’t think so.
Would it appeal to anyone looking for a novel with a kick-ass heroine? I think it would.
It should be noted that the romance element in Working for the Devil is just that, an element, and not a plot-driving force. In fact, the way the “romance” plays out is not traditional in any sense of the word as it is in Liu’s book. Like Hamilton’s books, or Armstrong’s various series, this is a book focused on one character—Dante—and her story, not Dante and Jaf, or Dante and her former boyfriend. From the research I’ve done, it looks like Barnes & Noble can’t decide whether they want to shelve it in the Fantasy or in the Thriller sections, while Borders is calling it Romance (I was reading an ARC, the book has a March 2006 release date). Given the world building and character elements that Saintcrow develops, I would guess that Fantasy and Romance would be your best bets.
What I’m trying to say with these two books is that here are two authors who’ve seem to have this whole series thing down. I don’t foresee any cookie-cutter plots in their immediate futures and they both seem to have a long-term game plan. There’s a goal, a deeper plot-line with an ending, that they are trying to reach, and each book is to help forward that even as it tells its own unique story. When the time comes I would like to believe that both Liu and Saintcrow will know when to say goodbye to these characters and move on to the next story, the next plot, and the next world.
Or at least that’s what I believe with all the optimism of the newly converted reader to their books. I’ve been disappointed before.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Doing My Homework: Question #1
On the post where I solicited your questions (which is still open so you should go ask some already, sheesh), several people responded. Thanks to those who asked their questions, y’all rock. To those who didn’t ask questions, you rock too, but in a quiet way that does not require typing. I’m going to cover the longer questions as their own posts or use them as jumping off points (to the shorter questions I just responded on the thread). Today’s question was brought to us by the letter R, Kate R that is, and she asked:
What do we do if we catch them? Why boil them in oil, of course, and that’s after we make them wash the windows.
Just kidding.
I’ve never actually had anyone turn their books face out so blatantly that I caught them in the act. I’ve found out after the fact, but never during the actual re-shelving. If the face-out is a legitimate one (one where there were multiple copies on the shelf and the person simply turned them outwards without affecting the books on either side), then I probably wouldn’t do anything.
This does not seem to be a trend, however, from what I’ve viewed on the internet where people have posted about turning a friend’s book cover out. What appears to happen (and what has happened in my store) is that friends and authors turn their books out over other books. It’s my job to find books for customers and when someone has put one title in front of another it makes my job harder. Not only do most customers not look behind faced-out books (why would they), but people can be weird about asking for help, so I might end up losing a sale because the book my customer wanted was behind yours. I might even miss the book because the face-out looks legitimate. This type of face-out gets fixed immediately if I notice it, and makes me an unhappy bookseller due to the possibility of missed sales. There’s nothing like the feeling of kicking your own ass when you realize that the book the customer asked you for—the one you couldn’t find after several minutes of fruitless searching—was actually behind another book.
Don’t bother trying to face-out your title if we only have one copy because single copy face-outs not only look sloppy, but they lose their visual impact.
If you come into my store on a drive-by signing, and if we have a quantity of your books (always call ahead to see), chances are I’ll make the face-out myself either in section or in the new release area. Autographed books appeal to a certain section of the book buying population and it’s to our best interests to make sure that the customer can find that display.
I love drive-by signings, but only if the author actually shows up. We have a very nice publicist in town who always calls when she’s driving around an author. She always calls to have us pull the authors books for a signing, but then rarely shows up. To further make us crazy she never calls to let us know she won’t be showing up, so we sit on these books all day. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re on the end of her route and the author gets tired, or that we never have a large quantity of any of the authors, but it’s put a strain on our relationship with her.
I suggest you always call ahead to the bookstores you are thinking of visiting, giving them a couple of days notice. Find out if they have any of your books in stock, or if they would be interested in ordering some (don’t phrase it like that, but just let them know you’d be willing to drop by if they get some stock in). If you don’t call ahead, or if you arrive and they can’t find them/don’t have them, don’t throw a fit; the book business—and especially the book delivery business—is fickle. Instead smile, tell them how much you appreciate that they tried to get the title in (this is guaranteed to make them feel guilty if they haven’t tried for any reason), and leave them with some candy or something. This guarantees that you a.) sound like an understanding individual, b.) that you will stay in their minds as an understanding individual, c.) that they will remember that you drop by when you say you are going to, and d.) that you bring food-stuffs.
Food-stuffs are important. Bookselling doesn’t exactly pay the big bucks and trying to keep up the happy face for the general public requires calories, lots of calories. What you choose as your bribe doesn’t have to be expensive though. Chocolate works for the most part—Hershey’s is fine, I love the mini Hershey’s kisses—but you have to remember that this cuts out the people who are allergic or on a diet. One of the best little gifts an author ever left behind was a bag of Italian fruit candies. There weren’t a lot of them (there doesn’t have to be, just leave enough for the people you interact with), but they were lovely. Flavored as orange, mandarin, and lemon, we fought over who got to have them.
Did that guarantee that author front of store treatment?
No, her status as a NY Times Bestselling author did.
But did it keep her in our minds and guarantee some slightly preferential treatment in section, with handselling and reordering?
I think it did. I know that seeing her books make me smile and if I have a quantity I use it as a face-out instead of just overstocking most of the copies.
Candy isn’t a requirement; neither are ARCs (although I love them if I’m interesting in your writing or genre), bookmarks (Dear God No!), or magnets. And they won’t cancel out any bad treatment to the bookseller, which is the fastest way to get your book stripped, returned, or backstocked away from customer eyes.
If you really want to guarantee that your book will get some face time, and hand-sell love, it’s simple. Walk into the bookstore with a smile on your face and treat us like human beings. You’d be surprised at how rarely that happens: the treatment like a human being. I’m a cashier, detective, event planner, restaurant guide and mall map, but I’m rarely a person worthy of conversation. So if you want face time, give me some face time; open, honest and with a smile.
And I guarantee you’ll end up at the front of that store or faced-out in section.
What do you do to authors who turn their books cover out if you catch them? what do you do to their books once they leave? do you mind driveby signings or do they make you crazy? do you feel used or appreciated when authors stop by with chocolate to try to bribe you to push their books? Is Hersheys enough or do
you only pimp books for Godiva? just wondering.
What do we do if we catch them? Why boil them in oil, of course, and that’s after we make them wash the windows.
Just kidding.
I’ve never actually had anyone turn their books face out so blatantly that I caught them in the act. I’ve found out after the fact, but never during the actual re-shelving. If the face-out is a legitimate one (one where there were multiple copies on the shelf and the person simply turned them outwards without affecting the books on either side), then I probably wouldn’t do anything.
This does not seem to be a trend, however, from what I’ve viewed on the internet where people have posted about turning a friend’s book cover out. What appears to happen (and what has happened in my store) is that friends and authors turn their books out over other books. It’s my job to find books for customers and when someone has put one title in front of another it makes my job harder. Not only do most customers not look behind faced-out books (why would they), but people can be weird about asking for help, so I might end up losing a sale because the book my customer wanted was behind yours. I might even miss the book because the face-out looks legitimate. This type of face-out gets fixed immediately if I notice it, and makes me an unhappy bookseller due to the possibility of missed sales. There’s nothing like the feeling of kicking your own ass when you realize that the book the customer asked you for—the one you couldn’t find after several minutes of fruitless searching—was actually behind another book.
Don’t bother trying to face-out your title if we only have one copy because single copy face-outs not only look sloppy, but they lose their visual impact.
If you come into my store on a drive-by signing, and if we have a quantity of your books (always call ahead to see), chances are I’ll make the face-out myself either in section or in the new release area. Autographed books appeal to a certain section of the book buying population and it’s to our best interests to make sure that the customer can find that display.
I love drive-by signings, but only if the author actually shows up. We have a very nice publicist in town who always calls when she’s driving around an author. She always calls to have us pull the authors books for a signing, but then rarely shows up. To further make us crazy she never calls to let us know she won’t be showing up, so we sit on these books all day. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re on the end of her route and the author gets tired, or that we never have a large quantity of any of the authors, but it’s put a strain on our relationship with her.
I suggest you always call ahead to the bookstores you are thinking of visiting, giving them a couple of days notice. Find out if they have any of your books in stock, or if they would be interested in ordering some (don’t phrase it like that, but just let them know you’d be willing to drop by if they get some stock in). If you don’t call ahead, or if you arrive and they can’t find them/don’t have them, don’t throw a fit; the book business—and especially the book delivery business—is fickle. Instead smile, tell them how much you appreciate that they tried to get the title in (this is guaranteed to make them feel guilty if they haven’t tried for any reason), and leave them with some candy or something. This guarantees that you a.) sound like an understanding individual, b.) that you will stay in their minds as an understanding individual, c.) that they will remember that you drop by when you say you are going to, and d.) that you bring food-stuffs.
Food-stuffs are important. Bookselling doesn’t exactly pay the big bucks and trying to keep up the happy face for the general public requires calories, lots of calories. What you choose as your bribe doesn’t have to be expensive though. Chocolate works for the most part—Hershey’s is fine, I love the mini Hershey’s kisses—but you have to remember that this cuts out the people who are allergic or on a diet. One of the best little gifts an author ever left behind was a bag of Italian fruit candies. There weren’t a lot of them (there doesn’t have to be, just leave enough for the people you interact with), but they were lovely. Flavored as orange, mandarin, and lemon, we fought over who got to have them.
Did that guarantee that author front of store treatment?
No, her status as a NY Times Bestselling author did.
But did it keep her in our minds and guarantee some slightly preferential treatment in section, with handselling and reordering?
I think it did. I know that seeing her books make me smile and if I have a quantity I use it as a face-out instead of just overstocking most of the copies.
Candy isn’t a requirement; neither are ARCs (although I love them if I’m interesting in your writing or genre), bookmarks (Dear God No!), or magnets. And they won’t cancel out any bad treatment to the bookseller, which is the fastest way to get your book stripped, returned, or backstocked away from customer eyes.
If you really want to guarantee that your book will get some face time, and hand-sell love, it’s simple. Walk into the bookstore with a smile on your face and treat us like human beings. You’d be surprised at how rarely that happens: the treatment like a human being. I’m a cashier, detective, event planner, restaurant guide and mall map, but I’m rarely a person worthy of conversation. So if you want face time, give me some face time; open, honest and with a smile.
And I guarantee you’ll end up at the front of that store or faced-out in section.
Friday, January 27, 2006
And Now We’ve Reached the Question and Answer Portion of Our Presentation.
I wanted to post something brilliant and thought provoking this morning, but let’s face it: brilliant and thought provoking are not only hard things to be, but they require me to be awake, which is something I’m not at the moment.
(I am, however, happy and not wishing to up and leave the book business due to the events early this week. I don’t want anyone to think that. My dearest friends pacified my need for blood by taking me out for greasy home fries, burgers and beer. Turns a frown upside down and all that.)
I did have a semi-brilliant (or some would call it lazy) thought, though, and that’s to ask y’all what you want to hear about?
So, um, yeah. What do you want to hear about?
C’mon, guys: thoughts, questions, whatever, just bring it on with the warning that I may completely ignore something or not answer it if I can’t get to it, and well, I sometimes have a short attention span that makes me forget things. Case in point: I was standing in the middle of the bookstore yesterday with a handful of books and I couldn’t remember if I was shelving them, returning them, or grabbing them for a customer.
See why I need your help with the brilliance?
(if you don't want to post as a comment because the comment box is scary--What? It can too be scary--go ahead and email me at bookseller.chick@gmail.com. I promise not to spam you for the rest of your life.)
(I am, however, happy and not wishing to up and leave the book business due to the events early this week. I don’t want anyone to think that. My dearest friends pacified my need for blood by taking me out for greasy home fries, burgers and beer. Turns a frown upside down and all that.)
I did have a semi-brilliant (or some would call it lazy) thought, though, and that’s to ask y’all what you want to hear about?
So, um, yeah. What do you want to hear about?
- More book covers?
- My bestselling books?
- My favorite books?
- How your favorite authors are doing?
- Why I think some people do better than others in my store (which we’re pretty much already covered, but I’m willing to go back there…eventually).
- Holidays: do people really still buy other people books for them?
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
- Was I the second shooter on the grassy knoll?
C’mon, guys: thoughts, questions, whatever, just bring it on with the warning that I may completely ignore something or not answer it if I can’t get to it, and well, I sometimes have a short attention span that makes me forget things. Case in point: I was standing in the middle of the bookstore yesterday with a handful of books and I couldn’t remember if I was shelving them, returning them, or grabbing them for a customer.
See why I need your help with the brilliance?
(if you don't want to post as a comment because the comment box is scary--What? It can too be scary--go ahead and email me at bookseller.chick@gmail.com. I promise not to spam you for the rest of your life.)
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
That Would Be an Order of Crazy, Hold the PC
Warning: Remember the venting? The ranting? Yeah, it’s got nothing on this week’s kind of crazy, so you might want avert your eyes as I vent my spleen.
Dear sweet son of a preacher man, what the hell is going on?
Is there going to be a full moon?
There’s a solid dot on the twenty-ninth (Chinese New Year for those who are following along on your calendars at home), does that mean full moon or no moon? I can never remember.
Something has gotta be goin’ on because the Crazies? Are. Out. In. Full. Force. And. In. My. Bookstore.
I’m not talking about the mentally ill. This is not one of those “We need more psych wards, everyone needs to be normal” rants, ‘cause normal? I have yet to see a working definition that I agree with and trust me when I say you don’t want me to get started on the historical societal pressures that define normality. There will be essays, people. Essays.
No, I’m talking about the Crazy-just-to-make-your-life-miserable-because-I-can-and-yes-I-must-never-been-socialized-because-people-do-not-ask-other-people-this.
And um, yeah…No. I don’t do that kind of crazy. I don’t do that kind of crazy in my store.
I don’t get paid enough to put up with some nitwits’ idea of a good time when it’s to harass the bookseller.
That’s what we pay Mall Security for.
First there was the guy who found those calendars offensive.
“Those calendars?” says you, “the ones with the naked chicks from Playboy?”
“You’d think,” says I, “but this would be the calendars with the nasty, nasty shirtless men in them.”
Just shirtless. Still possessing of the pants, but not of the tops.
The man-titty, it offends his eyes, his morals, the very fabric of the community he lives in. He wants those calendars of shiny pecks and glistening abs removed from his store, all the stores, and he’s not going to rest until it happens.
As always good customer service precluded me from asking him if this hate of the man-titty (and not the copious amounts of woman-titty as provided by the Hef and his girlfriends) stemmed from some deep homoerotic urges that he could not, would not bring himself to express.
It stopped me from inquiring about his relationship with his mother.
Or whether his name was Norman or Eddie.
The same customer service skills kept me smiling politely when the jerk-off looking for a rise started going on and on about how we “should all go visit this nice website about crushing the homosexual agenda in our country and how they should all be eradicated.” Waiting until the point where I was just about to dial mall security to pull his “Aw shucks, ma’am, you know I’m just screwing with you” routine.
Four people left my store during his little tirade because of what he was saying. I will not lose customers because some whack-job has decided that it’s fun to screw with the bookseller. For future reference, do not “screw” with someone who has ready access to a box knife and who can cry on command.
I would have never been convicted, and he sure as hell would have been shut up. The Police like me.
To the woman who fell asleep in the Children’s section—blocking the aisle—and then got pissy when we asked her to move on: this is not a hostel, and buy that magazine you just drooled all over.
To the women who left their children in the manga section, went shopping for several hours, and then came back for the kids but didn’t buy the books whose spines their children destroyed: this is not a daycare.
Not to mention, do you know what you’re children are reading and how many times I had to take explicitly marked “mature” material away from them? I charged $3.50 an hour back in the day when I babysat, and there has been much inflation since then, so buying one book? Is not going to cover the cost of having to step over your child, keep him from wrestling your other child, or stopping him from reading the wrong material. Next time I’m reporting them as unattended and you can claim them at the mall office.
Right back is not four hours later.
We’re booksellers, not bouncers, babysitters, shrinks, or sounding boards for your “jokes.” As a customer we try to give you the benefit of the doubt, and you are ruining it for everyone else when you act out just because you can. We’re here to serve, not to be served up on the platter of your humor, anger or selfishness.
So—here’s the benefit of the doubt thing I was talking about—I’m going to write off this week of non-stop “What the fuck” moments and blame it on the full moon (if indeed it is going to be full and not new—not that I would know because I never see the moon anymore), and call it good.
But if this continues? If the moon begins to wane and this behavior goes on unabated?
I have only two things to remind you of: box knife. Tears.
We may be little girls but we’re a hell of a lot meaner than we look.
Dear sweet son of a preacher man, what the hell is going on?
Is there going to be a full moon?
There’s a solid dot on the twenty-ninth (Chinese New Year for those who are following along on your calendars at home), does that mean full moon or no moon? I can never remember.
Something has gotta be goin’ on because the Crazies? Are. Out. In. Full. Force. And. In. My. Bookstore.
I’m not talking about the mentally ill. This is not one of those “We need more psych wards, everyone needs to be normal” rants, ‘cause normal? I have yet to see a working definition that I agree with and trust me when I say you don’t want me to get started on the historical societal pressures that define normality. There will be essays, people. Essays.
No, I’m talking about the Crazy-just-to-make-your-life-miserable-because-I-can-and-yes-I-must-never-been-socialized-because-people-do-not-ask-other-people-this.
And um, yeah…No. I don’t do that kind of crazy. I don’t do that kind of crazy in my store.
I don’t get paid enough to put up with some nitwits’ idea of a good time when it’s to harass the bookseller.
That’s what we pay Mall Security for.
First there was the guy who found those calendars offensive.
“Those calendars?” says you, “the ones with the naked chicks from Playboy?”
“You’d think,” says I, “but this would be the calendars with the nasty, nasty shirtless men in them.”
Just shirtless. Still possessing of the pants, but not of the tops.
The man-titty, it offends his eyes, his morals, the very fabric of the community he lives in. He wants those calendars of shiny pecks and glistening abs removed from his store, all the stores, and he’s not going to rest until it happens.
As always good customer service precluded me from asking him if this hate of the man-titty (and not the copious amounts of woman-titty as provided by the Hef and his girlfriends) stemmed from some deep homoerotic urges that he could not, would not bring himself to express.
It stopped me from inquiring about his relationship with his mother.
Or whether his name was Norman or Eddie.
The same customer service skills kept me smiling politely when the jerk-off looking for a rise started going on and on about how we “should all go visit this nice website about crushing the homosexual agenda in our country and how they should all be eradicated.” Waiting until the point where I was just about to dial mall security to pull his “Aw shucks, ma’am, you know I’m just screwing with you” routine.
Four people left my store during his little tirade because of what he was saying. I will not lose customers because some whack-job has decided that it’s fun to screw with the bookseller. For future reference, do not “screw” with someone who has ready access to a box knife and who can cry on command.
I would have never been convicted, and he sure as hell would have been shut up. The Police like me.
To the woman who fell asleep in the Children’s section—blocking the aisle—and then got pissy when we asked her to move on: this is not a hostel, and buy that magazine you just drooled all over.
To the women who left their children in the manga section, went shopping for several hours, and then came back for the kids but didn’t buy the books whose spines their children destroyed: this is not a daycare.
Not to mention, do you know what you’re children are reading and how many times I had to take explicitly marked “mature” material away from them? I charged $3.50 an hour back in the day when I babysat, and there has been much inflation since then, so buying one book? Is not going to cover the cost of having to step over your child, keep him from wrestling your other child, or stopping him from reading the wrong material. Next time I’m reporting them as unattended and you can claim them at the mall office.
Right back is not four hours later.
We’re booksellers, not bouncers, babysitters, shrinks, or sounding boards for your “jokes.” As a customer we try to give you the benefit of the doubt, and you are ruining it for everyone else when you act out just because you can. We’re here to serve, not to be served up on the platter of your humor, anger or selfishness.
So—here’s the benefit of the doubt thing I was talking about—I’m going to write off this week of non-stop “What the fuck” moments and blame it on the full moon (if indeed it is going to be full and not new—not that I would know because I never see the moon anymore), and call it good.
But if this continues? If the moon begins to wane and this behavior goes on unabated?
I have only two things to remind you of: box knife. Tears.
We may be little girls but we’re a hell of a lot meaner than we look.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Surprise! Stephen King Has a New Post-Apocalyptic Book Out…
No, really. Surprised?
No, not about it being post-apocalyptic. This is Stephen King so that was kind of duh.
I’m talking about the fact that he has an actual book out. I have to admit that when I first heard about it, I asked, “Didn’t he retire?” but I said the same thing when the Colorado Kid came out and that book with Stewart O’Nan. Maybe those didn’t count because they were different then say, The Stand. You know, the one about a post-apocalyptic world where good and evil square off and people search for a common ground with those who are left.
Not to be confused with this post-apocalyptic book, which is called The Cell and totally different.
I kid, I kid. Not about them being different—they are—but about needling King. I like the guy. I like his monthly columns in Entertainment Weekly. I like his legions of fans who spend their money at my bookstore so they can have the Dark Tower Series in all the same size because they MUST BE THE SAME SIZE ON THE BOOKSHELF, DAMN IT, OR IT DOESN’T LOOK RIGHT.
Gee, you think I hear that often?
The same size, by the way, is most often trade (the size in which they bought the first four Dark Tower books), but they also have to own them in hardback because they just can’t wait for the books to transition to trade...which means more money for me.
I love, love King’s fans—I’m such a book whore—and I love their enthusiasm, but I’ve never seen a more surprised group of people when I put this new novel out today.
Why?
Because they hadn’t heard about it.
Seriously, where was the advertising on this? I went to King’s website and there’s a nice blurb telling about how Scribner, Amazon.com, and Entertainment Weekly are doing these amazing promotions, and all I could think was, “Really? Where?”
Sure enough, there’s a cool clip you can watch on Amazon (it’s on the opening page and on the book page) where Bill Maher interviews King, but I don’t remember seeing it yesterday when I was browsing the book selection.
And there’s an excerpt of the book on EW Online, and in the magazine (apparently the first time they’ve ever included a fiction excerpt, which seems appropriate given that King’s a living sponge for pop culture) this last week, but you’d only know that if you picked up EW regularly.
Oh, and the Scribner stuff? Well, I haven’t seen it and neither have the other managers in my company. Our District Manager had to make us signage (lovingly photoshopped) to try to drum up reservations. There were no posters, or flyers, or even bookmarks (and y’all know how I feel about bookmarks, but in this case I would have taken them).
I mean it’s not like I’m asking for an Advanced Reader Copy here, people, just a little help from the Publishing Powers that Be at Scribners to help with the drumming up of sales.
‘Cause today? I sold two copies of King’s new book.
That’s right: two.
Wanna know how many copies of J.D. Robb’s newest book I’d sold by the end of my eight hour shift?
Eight and that was just me. Other people were ringing customers too.
This is not because I have more Robb than King readers. Oh no, this is because people knew about the Robb book. There had been advertising, a media campaign, a freakin’ sign up in my store telling customers the arrival date. Anticipation was built months in advance.
I didn’t have a whole group of her readers standing around going, “Wait a minute, J.D. Robb has a new book out? Why didn’t I hear about this?”
In the case of King’s book, I must ask, “Why indeed?”
Customers, as I’ve said before, need reassurance. They need to be told, “This is a great book and everyone is going to be buying it because it’s everywhere, Man!”
When they don’t hear anything they get skittish. They hesitate.
They don’t buy.
Again and again today I watched it happen. They came in, saw King’s name, picked up the book and frowned. Then they put it back. Some came to the counter and asked me if I’d heard anything about it.
“PW seemed to like it,” I would respond—I didn’t yet know about the Amazon interview or the Entertainment Weekly excerpt (my copies for the week never got delivered).
“Oh,” they would say, biting their lip, or frowning, or fill in your sign of distress here. “I’ll have to think about it then.”
Very few came back with the book to buy. So for King—in my store—it was a very slow first day.
I’m not claiming my store is typical and this is happening everywhere—maybe my state was left off the advertising map (though who knows why because they LOVE King around here)—but from what I’ve heard from my other managers, the customers seem to be confused.
“There’s a new King novel out? Why haven’t I heard about this?”
I just don’t know.
Maybe the publishing house thought the branding of a “Stephen King” book would sell itself, no help needed.
Maybe they just wanted to have more publicity focused around the actual release date?
Maybe Jupiter aligned with Mars and there really has been an apocalyptic event caused by cell phones that affected the publicity and I just don’t know it because I hate my cell phone with an everlovin’ passion.
Who knows? But what the hell am I going to tell my customers when they do what I did and ask, “A new book? Why didn’t I hear about this? Didn’t he retire?”
Somehow I think, “Don’t ask me, kids. I’m just here to take your money,” won’t cut it, and they might look at me a little funny if I blame the apocalypse.
Thoughts?
No, not about it being post-apocalyptic. This is Stephen King so that was kind of duh.
I’m talking about the fact that he has an actual book out. I have to admit that when I first heard about it, I asked, “Didn’t he retire?” but I said the same thing when the Colorado Kid came out and that book with Stewart O’Nan. Maybe those didn’t count because they were different then say, The Stand. You know, the one about a post-apocalyptic world where good and evil square off and people search for a common ground with those who are left.
Not to be confused with this post-apocalyptic book, which is called The Cell and totally different.
I kid, I kid. Not about them being different—they are—but about needling King. I like the guy. I like his monthly columns in Entertainment Weekly. I like his legions of fans who spend their money at my bookstore so they can have the Dark Tower Series in all the same size because they MUST BE THE SAME SIZE ON THE BOOKSHELF, DAMN IT, OR IT DOESN’T LOOK RIGHT.
Gee, you think I hear that often?
The same size, by the way, is most often trade (the size in which they bought the first four Dark Tower books), but they also have to own them in hardback because they just can’t wait for the books to transition to trade...which means more money for me.
I love, love King’s fans—I’m such a book whore—and I love their enthusiasm, but I’ve never seen a more surprised group of people when I put this new novel out today.
Why?
Because they hadn’t heard about it.
Seriously, where was the advertising on this? I went to King’s website and there’s a nice blurb telling about how Scribner, Amazon.com, and Entertainment Weekly are doing these amazing promotions, and all I could think was, “Really? Where?”
Sure enough, there’s a cool clip you can watch on Amazon (it’s on the opening page and on the book page) where Bill Maher interviews King, but I don’t remember seeing it yesterday when I was browsing the book selection.
And there’s an excerpt of the book on EW Online, and in the magazine (apparently the first time they’ve ever included a fiction excerpt, which seems appropriate given that King’s a living sponge for pop culture) this last week, but you’d only know that if you picked up EW regularly.
Oh, and the Scribner stuff? Well, I haven’t seen it and neither have the other managers in my company. Our District Manager had to make us signage (lovingly photoshopped) to try to drum up reservations. There were no posters, or flyers, or even bookmarks (and y’all know how I feel about bookmarks, but in this case I would have taken them).
I mean it’s not like I’m asking for an Advanced Reader Copy here, people, just a little help from the Publishing Powers that Be at Scribners to help with the drumming up of sales.
‘Cause today? I sold two copies of King’s new book.
That’s right: two.
Wanna know how many copies of J.D. Robb’s newest book I’d sold by the end of my eight hour shift?
Eight and that was just me. Other people were ringing customers too.
This is not because I have more Robb than King readers. Oh no, this is because people knew about the Robb book. There had been advertising, a media campaign, a freakin’ sign up in my store telling customers the arrival date. Anticipation was built months in advance.
I didn’t have a whole group of her readers standing around going, “Wait a minute, J.D. Robb has a new book out? Why didn’t I hear about this?”
In the case of King’s book, I must ask, “Why indeed?”
Customers, as I’ve said before, need reassurance. They need to be told, “This is a great book and everyone is going to be buying it because it’s everywhere, Man!”
When they don’t hear anything they get skittish. They hesitate.
They don’t buy.
Again and again today I watched it happen. They came in, saw King’s name, picked up the book and frowned. Then they put it back. Some came to the counter and asked me if I’d heard anything about it.
“PW seemed to like it,” I would respond—I didn’t yet know about the Amazon interview or the Entertainment Weekly excerpt (my copies for the week never got delivered).
“Oh,” they would say, biting their lip, or frowning, or fill in your sign of distress here. “I’ll have to think about it then.”
Very few came back with the book to buy. So for King—in my store—it was a very slow first day.
I’m not claiming my store is typical and this is happening everywhere—maybe my state was left off the advertising map (though who knows why because they LOVE King around here)—but from what I’ve heard from my other managers, the customers seem to be confused.
“There’s a new King novel out? Why haven’t I heard about this?”
I just don’t know.
Maybe the publishing house thought the branding of a “Stephen King” book would sell itself, no help needed.
Maybe they just wanted to have more publicity focused around the actual release date?
Maybe Jupiter aligned with Mars and there really has been an apocalyptic event caused by cell phones that affected the publicity and I just don’t know it because I hate my cell phone with an everlovin’ passion.
Who knows? But what the hell am I going to tell my customers when they do what I did and ask, “A new book? Why didn’t I hear about this? Didn’t he retire?”
Somehow I think, “Don’t ask me, kids. I’m just here to take your money,” won’t cut it, and they might look at me a little funny if I blame the apocalypse.
Thoughts?
Monday, January 23, 2006
About that Podcast Thing…Joseph Nassise Shows Me the Way
So remember during my little marketing/publicity rant I talked about putting any audio files of your radio interviews on your website? At the same time I meant to hit on Podcasts, only I think I forgot which is often what happens when I rant and post and then try to remember the entirety of my rant while in the grips of a migraine. What I meant to say all those many days ago, is that Podcasts are everywhere and if you have the voice (or know someone who has a good voice) for it, then do it.
You’ll never catch me on a Podcast, of course, because I sound like a chipmunk, and you should always just say no to chipmunk voices.
Unless they are the adorable Chip and Dale.
Anyway I was reminded of my Podcast slip when I received a very nice email from Joseph Nassise, the author of Heretic. Joseph, in conjunction with the Horror Channel, will be releasing a Podcast version of his novel for free, or so the press release says:
And free, my friends, is a very good price.
I planned on posting this when I got all the information together (as in who would be doing the reading, how long each Podcast would be, where the backlog would be kept, etc), but the migraine is not in agreement. If any of y’all are interested in this and want to fill me in, or if Joseph (Joe?) would like to give us the heads up, that would be great. I’m really interested to see how this turns out.
You’ll never catch me on a Podcast, of course, because I sound like a chipmunk, and you should always just say no to chipmunk voices.
Unless they are the adorable Chip and Dale.
Anyway I was reminded of my Podcast slip when I received a very nice email from Joseph Nassise, the author of Heretic. Joseph, in conjunction with the Horror Channel, will be releasing a Podcast version of his novel for free, or so the press release says:
For the first time ever, a novel currently available on bookstore shelves, released by a major New York publisher, will be podcast in its entirety beginning January 31st . HERETIC (Pocket Books, Mass Market Original, October 2005) is the first volume in a new dark fantasy series known as The Templar Chronicles, written by International Horror Guild Award nominee, Joseph Nassise. The complete novel will be released in a free, thirty-episode, weekly podcast read by Nassise and sponsored by The Horror Channel and The Podcast Network.
And free, my friends, is a very good price.
I planned on posting this when I got all the information together (as in who would be doing the reading, how long each Podcast would be, where the backlog would be kept, etc), but the migraine is not in agreement. If any of y’all are interested in this and want to fill me in, or if Joseph (Joe?) would like to give us the heads up, that would be great. I’m really interested to see how this turns out.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
A Cover Flat In All Its Glory
This is an example of the typical cover flat. Most include not only the cover, the spine and the back copy, but also the bar code (along with ISBN) and price. Additionally Zebra has hole-punched the cover of Kate's cover to indicate that this is not from a whole book (therefore the cover cannot be ripped off and sent back as a strip, so that the bookstore can cheat the publisher out of profit). Not all cover flats include the hole, often the opposite side of the front cover half will include marketing information not found on the actual release.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
I'm baaaaaaack... (cue the scary music)
The week of no internet is over, and I have returned alive, if not victorious. I'll get to answering everyone's questions and comments when I get home from work tonight (maybe), but I thought Doug should have an immediate answer:
A cover flat is just that: a flat version of the cover, unattached to a book, which has the front, spine and back. On the white underside you can typically find information on the marketing campaign. They can be useful or totally useless depending on whether you have the imagination or the space for them.
I'd find you a picture, Doug, but my scanner does not work and I'm a wee bit too tired to search the internet. If anyone has a picture readily available would you offer up a link? Think of it as free advertising.
Oh, and if anyone can tell me why the hell my bravenet counter spiked yesterday I would be very appreciative. I have this sudden fear that I've somehow got attached to a porn site.
A cover flat is just that: a flat version of the cover, unattached to a book, which has the front, spine and back. On the white underside you can typically find information on the marketing campaign. They can be useful or totally useless depending on whether you have the imagination or the space for them.
I'd find you a picture, Doug, but my scanner does not work and I'm a wee bit too tired to search the internet. If anyone has a picture readily available would you offer up a link? Think of it as free advertising.
Oh, and if anyone can tell me why the hell my bravenet counter spiked yesterday I would be very appreciative. I have this sudden fear that I've somehow got attached to a porn site.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Book Sense 101 Publicity: In the End, You Will All Wish You Were John Hodgman
I believe it was right before Christmas—I say “believe” because the past all seems to blur together for me—when the customers started asking, “Do you have John Hodgman’s book?”
“Do you have the book about hobos?”
“It’s about matters historical, matters literary, and matters cryptozoological. You’ve heard of it right?”
The book was, The Areas of My Expertise, and luckily I had heard of it. I’d even read the front, back, spine, inside flap (this makes sense if you’ve held the book), and perused the Hobo names (I’m a fan of Wicked Paul Fourteen-Toes, although MmmmmDandy Dundee is also pretty damn great—they all are really), but I had no idea why people were suddenly so crazy for it.
Turns out Hodgman was on the Daily Show.
Turns out he made Jon Stewart just lose it.
Turns out that Hodgman has been holding steady at number ten on the independent booksellers list since then.
What have we learned from this? If you can make Jon Stewart publicly lose it to the point of giggling, you’ve got it made.
Many, however, will never make it on the Daily Show (the Daily Show’s loss, I’m sure), and it’s hard to get up the courage and stage presence that Hodgman possesses. Not to mention that ability to not giggle right along with Stewart.
Let’s face it though, if it were that easy to get up in front of a live television audience most authors wouldn’t be writers, they’d be television personalities. Despite this, writers these days have to sell themselves to sell books, which means public events, interviews, and signings (oh my!).
Some writers have a head start: they’re radio personalities (Hodgman), or advertising execs (Patterson). They know how to work a crowd; they’ve had years of practice.
My advice? Steal from them. It’s the sincerest form of flattery. Go to signings and speeches, any public events with authors in attendance and see what they do. Adapt what you like where you can, make a list of those things that drive you crazy and never, ever do them.
I cannot help you with the stage fright, but I can discuss the little extras that authors seem to love (bookmarks, magnets, etc), and how well they work on the bookseller level.
On Bookmarks:
In the interest of full disclosure I should probably tell you that I have a special hatred in my heart for bookmarks. Hate, hate, hate, hate. It wasn’t always this way, but I somehow got on a very nice publicist’s list, and I keep getting packages upon packages from her clients. I have no place to put these bookmarks for customer access, and I have my stores own bookmarks to give out. I cannot even put the bookmarks in the appropriate sections because I don’t have anything to hold them in.
Yes, they’re probably lovely.
Yes, you probably spent a lot of money on them.
But nine times out of ten when they get to the bookstore they go straight into the garbage.
If you are so attached to the idea of bookmarks, here’s my suggestion: get together with a bunch of authors wish similar writing styles. Pool your funds to put together a bookmark that says: “If you like this book you should check out…” and fill in the best title from each of you. Do not put a title in for “If you like this book;” leave it generic. Every time you are in a bookstore slip these bookmarks in your books, your similar writers’ books, and any big time author who falls within your category.
Do not get caught. I will disavow any knowledge of this suggestion and this message will self-destruct if you do.
To help with the “not getting caught” tuck the bookmark completely inside the book, so neither end is showing—this will greatly increase the possibility that the bookmark will stay there, undisturbed. If it’s pushed tightly enough against the spine, both the bookseller and the customer will be more likely to consider it part of the book. The reader will get home, start reading their book, and find the bookmark. They’ll look at it—probably even use it (!)—and in the end, if they liked what they are reading well enough they might even use this booklist to buy more books.
Viola! Piggyback sale.
But only if you don’t get caught; this might be illegal.
Um, yeah, and I’d never tell you to do anything illegal, unless it’s getting me the winning numbers for the lotto. I promise we can split the pot.
On Magnets:
Give them out with the bookmarks (if you can’t give up the bookmark love) at signings, or send them to your readers list-serve, just please don’t send them to me. As with bookmarks, most bookstores don’t have any place to put them, and what good will they do you if they are not getting distributed. This could be different for independent bookstores, so you might want to have a link on your website or list-serve so booksellers can contact you.
Speaking of…
On Websites, Print News, and Interviews:
Website? Get one.
Blog? Get one of those, too.
Interviews? Go give ‘em.
If you’re not comfortable selling yourself face to face then do it through the screen of the world wide web. If you’ve got a voice, look into podcasts and see about getting any audio files of radio or news interviews you might be giving. You are your own archival service, so archive, archive, archive.
You don’t have to be an expert to run a website, you can hire people to do it for you as long as you are not too attached to that advance.
You’re building your future here.
Besides, if you have a website, I then have someplace to direct your potential or already die-hard fans towards. If I don’t have the answer I tell them to get on the net.
It has the answers long before I do.
On Bribery:
Cash, check, credit or money order, we take it all. All bribes to get me to hand-sell like I’m possessed can be addressed to:
Bookseller Chick
P.O. Box 42
Book Pages, Smythe-sown Spine
00000
Joking. Booksellers are a cheap lot. We just like to know that we’re being thought of: candy, a card, anything that says “I paid attention.” Paying attention to us gets us to pay attention to you, and if we remember you kindly we’re more likely to push your book or give it a front of store placement.
The best, and cheapest, way to show you paid attention? Smile.
You would be surprised how many authors I’ve had come into my store can’t bring themselves to smile. They’re tired, it’s been a long day, etc. I know, buddy, I’ve had one too, but drive-by signings are there to help the author drive their sales, whether or not my stock has been signed makes no difference to me.
Take a chance, widen those eyes and curve those lips.
Fake it, baby. Fake it.
We booksellers do it all the time, customer service demands it.
On Dumps:
Dumps, for those of you who don’t know, are large cardboard stands to display books usually with a blow-up of the cover or the author somehow attached. When a publishing company hooks up with a bookstore chain, dumps often result as part of the marketing strategy. They are to be placed at the front of the store, or in section to draw the eye of the customer. The bookstore chain then distributes them to all of their little stores and everyone puts them up, right?
Right?
Not exactly. Lately I haven’t been getting as many dumps as I used to, but at one time I would get four or five a week to display. This would be all fine and dandy but I have no room at the front of my store, and no place to put them in section. For the most part, my dumps all get thrown away unused, and I know it’s the same for a lot of other stores. I don’t know if the company knows this, and the agreement to do this type of marketing has some sort of clause (for use in stores only over X number of feet in front, or only in superstores, or only on months ending in Y), or if publishers really do believe that they will be there in the front of every store. I sometimes feel like they’re overbooking us, just like airlines, and assuming that someone will either not show up or take the bump.
There are some gorgeous dumps out there though, and so I wouldn’t want to get rid of them completely. Most publishing companies instruct their author to carry around a box of their books with them (in the case that the store will sell out and then you can restock them), or so I’m told, so why don’t you also have an empty dump. They collapse down quite nicely, are easy to ship, and they provide your own personal display to be placed right by the signing table just in case the bookstore doesn’t have their own dump to use.
Maybe this is common practice, I don’t know, but it’s something to think about.
On Cover Flats:
Love ‘em, wish I got more of them, so that I could do endcap displays with them. As it is now I get so few that I don’t have a chance to make use of what I have. Cover flats can be used as a stand-in for a book to take reservations (if it’s not already out), to decorate the end caps to let people know of coming attractions, and to decorate a signer’s table.
On Foam-core Mounted Posters:
The first time I got one of these was from Seal Press when we called to get some marketing materials for their book No Touch Monkey. We were selling it like crazy (couldn’t keep it in stock, in fact), and since we were expecting a big shipment soon we wanted to be able to advertise it in our window displays. Seal Press sent us two foam-core mounted posters complete with their own built in stands.
The window display was a hit. It’s probably already common practice, but if you are doing a signing or a tour, send these on ahead. Especially if you have a great cover or design on there.
Just like with covers, people like the pretty.
But let's here what works for those of you who are authors? Flats, covers, signings? None of the above?
How about you readers that go to signings? Who have liked and why?
If I missed any aspects, let me know. I’ll cover them when I get back to an internet connection next Saturday. If you think that I’ve got it all wrong, also let me know. I’m just basing my thoughts and feelings on five years of bookselling. I do not claim to be an expert.
This guy does however, and I’ve heard several good things about his book for authors.
Of course, you wouldn’t have to do any of this if you’d made Jon Stewart giggle like a little girl, but we can’t all be John Hodgman, can we.
“Do you have the book about hobos?”
“It’s about matters historical, matters literary, and matters cryptozoological. You’ve heard of it right?”
The book was, The Areas of My Expertise, and luckily I had heard of it. I’d even read the front, back, spine, inside flap (this makes sense if you’ve held the book), and perused the Hobo names (I’m a fan of Wicked Paul Fourteen-Toes, although MmmmmDandy Dundee is also pretty damn great—they all are really), but I had no idea why people were suddenly so crazy for it.
Turns out Hodgman was on the Daily Show.
Turns out he made Jon Stewart just lose it.
Turns out that Hodgman has been holding steady at number ten on the independent booksellers list since then.
What have we learned from this? If you can make Jon Stewart publicly lose it to the point of giggling, you’ve got it made.
Many, however, will never make it on the Daily Show (the Daily Show’s loss, I’m sure), and it’s hard to get up the courage and stage presence that Hodgman possesses. Not to mention that ability to not giggle right along with Stewart.
Let’s face it though, if it were that easy to get up in front of a live television audience most authors wouldn’t be writers, they’d be television personalities. Despite this, writers these days have to sell themselves to sell books, which means public events, interviews, and signings (oh my!).
Some writers have a head start: they’re radio personalities (Hodgman), or advertising execs (Patterson). They know how to work a crowd; they’ve had years of practice.
My advice? Steal from them. It’s the sincerest form of flattery. Go to signings and speeches, any public events with authors in attendance and see what they do. Adapt what you like where you can, make a list of those things that drive you crazy and never, ever do them.
I cannot help you with the stage fright, but I can discuss the little extras that authors seem to love (bookmarks, magnets, etc), and how well they work on the bookseller level.
On Bookmarks:
In the interest of full disclosure I should probably tell you that I have a special hatred in my heart for bookmarks. Hate, hate, hate, hate. It wasn’t always this way, but I somehow got on a very nice publicist’s list, and I keep getting packages upon packages from her clients. I have no place to put these bookmarks for customer access, and I have my stores own bookmarks to give out. I cannot even put the bookmarks in the appropriate sections because I don’t have anything to hold them in.
Yes, they’re probably lovely.
Yes, you probably spent a lot of money on them.
But nine times out of ten when they get to the bookstore they go straight into the garbage.
If you are so attached to the idea of bookmarks, here’s my suggestion: get together with a bunch of authors wish similar writing styles. Pool your funds to put together a bookmark that says: “If you like this book you should check out…” and fill in the best title from each of you. Do not put a title in for “If you like this book;” leave it generic. Every time you are in a bookstore slip these bookmarks in your books, your similar writers’ books, and any big time author who falls within your category.
Do not get caught. I will disavow any knowledge of this suggestion and this message will self-destruct if you do.
To help with the “not getting caught” tuck the bookmark completely inside the book, so neither end is showing—this will greatly increase the possibility that the bookmark will stay there, undisturbed. If it’s pushed tightly enough against the spine, both the bookseller and the customer will be more likely to consider it part of the book. The reader will get home, start reading their book, and find the bookmark. They’ll look at it—probably even use it (!)—and in the end, if they liked what they are reading well enough they might even use this booklist to buy more books.
Viola! Piggyback sale.
But only if you don’t get caught; this might be illegal.
Um, yeah, and I’d never tell you to do anything illegal, unless it’s getting me the winning numbers for the lotto. I promise we can split the pot.
On Magnets:
Give them out with the bookmarks (if you can’t give up the bookmark love) at signings, or send them to your readers list-serve, just please don’t send them to me. As with bookmarks, most bookstores don’t have any place to put them, and what good will they do you if they are not getting distributed. This could be different for independent bookstores, so you might want to have a link on your website or list-serve so booksellers can contact you.
Speaking of…
On Websites, Print News, and Interviews:
Website? Get one.
Blog? Get one of those, too.
Interviews? Go give ‘em.
If you’re not comfortable selling yourself face to face then do it through the screen of the world wide web. If you’ve got a voice, look into podcasts and see about getting any audio files of radio or news interviews you might be giving. You are your own archival service, so archive, archive, archive.
You don’t have to be an expert to run a website, you can hire people to do it for you as long as you are not too attached to that advance.
You’re building your future here.
Besides, if you have a website, I then have someplace to direct your potential or already die-hard fans towards. If I don’t have the answer I tell them to get on the net.
It has the answers long before I do.
On Bribery:
Cash, check, credit or money order, we take it all. All bribes to get me to hand-sell like I’m possessed can be addressed to:
Bookseller Chick
P.O. Box 42
Book Pages, Smythe-sown Spine
00000
Joking. Booksellers are a cheap lot. We just like to know that we’re being thought of: candy, a card, anything that says “I paid attention.” Paying attention to us gets us to pay attention to you, and if we remember you kindly we’re more likely to push your book or give it a front of store placement.
The best, and cheapest, way to show you paid attention? Smile.
You would be surprised how many authors I’ve had come into my store can’t bring themselves to smile. They’re tired, it’s been a long day, etc. I know, buddy, I’ve had one too, but drive-by signings are there to help the author drive their sales, whether or not my stock has been signed makes no difference to me.
Take a chance, widen those eyes and curve those lips.
Fake it, baby. Fake it.
We booksellers do it all the time, customer service demands it.
On Dumps:
Dumps, for those of you who don’t know, are large cardboard stands to display books usually with a blow-up of the cover or the author somehow attached. When a publishing company hooks up with a bookstore chain, dumps often result as part of the marketing strategy. They are to be placed at the front of the store, or in section to draw the eye of the customer. The bookstore chain then distributes them to all of their little stores and everyone puts them up, right?
Right?
Not exactly. Lately I haven’t been getting as many dumps as I used to, but at one time I would get four or five a week to display. This would be all fine and dandy but I have no room at the front of my store, and no place to put them in section. For the most part, my dumps all get thrown away unused, and I know it’s the same for a lot of other stores. I don’t know if the company knows this, and the agreement to do this type of marketing has some sort of clause (for use in stores only over X number of feet in front, or only in superstores, or only on months ending in Y), or if publishers really do believe that they will be there in the front of every store. I sometimes feel like they’re overbooking us, just like airlines, and assuming that someone will either not show up or take the bump.
There are some gorgeous dumps out there though, and so I wouldn’t want to get rid of them completely. Most publishing companies instruct their author to carry around a box of their books with them (in the case that the store will sell out and then you can restock them), or so I’m told, so why don’t you also have an empty dump. They collapse down quite nicely, are easy to ship, and they provide your own personal display to be placed right by the signing table just in case the bookstore doesn’t have their own dump to use.
Maybe this is common practice, I don’t know, but it’s something to think about.
On Cover Flats:
Love ‘em, wish I got more of them, so that I could do endcap displays with them. As it is now I get so few that I don’t have a chance to make use of what I have. Cover flats can be used as a stand-in for a book to take reservations (if it’s not already out), to decorate the end caps to let people know of coming attractions, and to decorate a signer’s table.
On Foam-core Mounted Posters:
The first time I got one of these was from Seal Press when we called to get some marketing materials for their book No Touch Monkey. We were selling it like crazy (couldn’t keep it in stock, in fact), and since we were expecting a big shipment soon we wanted to be able to advertise it in our window displays. Seal Press sent us two foam-core mounted posters complete with their own built in stands.
The window display was a hit. It’s probably already common practice, but if you are doing a signing or a tour, send these on ahead. Especially if you have a great cover or design on there.
Just like with covers, people like the pretty.
But let's here what works for those of you who are authors? Flats, covers, signings? None of the above?
How about you readers that go to signings? Who have liked and why?
If I missed any aspects, let me know. I’ll cover them when I get back to an internet connection next Saturday. If you think that I’ve got it all wrong, also let me know. I’m just basing my thoughts and feelings on five years of bookselling. I do not claim to be an expert.
This guy does however, and I’ve heard several good things about his book for authors.
Of course, you wouldn’t have to do any of this if you’d made Jon Stewart giggle like a little girl, but we can’t all be John Hodgman, can we.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Razzle Dazzle 'em
If you’ve ever seen the musical (or the movie) Chicago, you know that the title refers to the courtroom scene where Billy tells Roxie,
“Give 'em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle dazzle 'em
Give 'em act with lots of flash in it
And the reaction will be passionate
Give 'em the old hocus pocus
Bread and feather 'em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?”
The Razzle Dazzle in this case has to do with reviews. I was going to start on the whole “What I think works and doesn’t work at the bookstore level” marketing/publicity column when I noticed there seemed to be some uproar going on. Something about authors having their friends and followers pad their reviews on Amazon with glowing words of praise, while negative reviews are taken down.
Now I cannot say anything about Amazon’s policy on negative reviews, but the idea of padding a book’s reviews with positive ones? As far as I know that’s an industry-wide practice. I used to be involved with a small press, and it was common practice for the editor or someone at the company to post reviews on Amazon. We were even instructed to not make them too glow-y, to go ahead and point out some faults, but to make the overall review a positive one.
And it’s not only review sites like Amazon that you have to be careful of; those little blurbs from other authors on the backs (and sometimes the front) of books? For every author that really means what they write for the blurb, there is one who just jots off some off-hand response. I’m not saying that every author does it, or that your favorite author does, simply that it is done. It’s only twenty to twenty-five words, and the publisher/agent/friend says that they would love it, so it’s okay, right? They’re just doing someone a favor.
Kind makes you feel dirty, huh?
The thing is that you’d never be able to tell and who’d want to believe that of your favorite author. Look at the blurbs from other authors on the back of some of your newest books. What to other authors say about the story, the author? What does that tell you?
Not a whole hell of a lot. There’s not a lot of room to say much, people tune out during long blurbs. Short and to the point sells books. It’s the same reason that whole reviews by newspaper reviewers aren’t included, just salient points broken with ellipses.
Ah, ellipses. They make for some nice creative excerpting. Oops.
Are all blurbs lies? Of course not. People can check reviews. A lot of authors out there genuinely mean what they write for others.
Are all Amazon reviews biased love for the author left by one of their fangirl/boy followers? No, take a look at Harriet Klausner.
Blurbs and reviews are just part of the Razzle Dazzle show that publicists and marketers put on for readers. They serve two purposes:
And bad reviews and scandals don’t necessarily mean bad sales, look at Frey. It all depends on how you spin it, or who you’re paying to spin it for you.
While I do read reviews in print or on the net and blurbs on books, I tend to take it all with a little salt (a slice of lime, and a shot of tequila). They’re a tool, one I use to gage customer interest and actual book content. Any review, positive or negative, that backs up its statements is a good review in my opinion because it allows me to distill the information that I need.
I try not to let the sequins get in the way.
"Give 'em the old three ring circus
Stun and stagger 'em
When you're in trouble, go into your dance
Though you are stiffer than a girder
They'll let you get away with murder
Razzle dazzle 'em
And you've got a romance"
“Give 'em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle dazzle 'em
Give 'em act with lots of flash in it
And the reaction will be passionate
Give 'em the old hocus pocus
Bread and feather 'em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?”
The Razzle Dazzle in this case has to do with reviews. I was going to start on the whole “What I think works and doesn’t work at the bookstore level” marketing/publicity column when I noticed there seemed to be some uproar going on. Something about authors having their friends and followers pad their reviews on Amazon with glowing words of praise, while negative reviews are taken down.
Now I cannot say anything about Amazon’s policy on negative reviews, but the idea of padding a book’s reviews with positive ones? As far as I know that’s an industry-wide practice. I used to be involved with a small press, and it was common practice for the editor or someone at the company to post reviews on Amazon. We were even instructed to not make them too glow-y, to go ahead and point out some faults, but to make the overall review a positive one.
And it’s not only review sites like Amazon that you have to be careful of; those little blurbs from other authors on the backs (and sometimes the front) of books? For every author that really means what they write for the blurb, there is one who just jots off some off-hand response. I’m not saying that every author does it, or that your favorite author does, simply that it is done. It’s only twenty to twenty-five words, and the publisher/agent/friend says that they would love it, so it’s okay, right? They’re just doing someone a favor.
Kind makes you feel dirty, huh?
The thing is that you’d never be able to tell and who’d want to believe that of your favorite author. Look at the blurbs from other authors on the back of some of your newest books. What to other authors say about the story, the author? What does that tell you?
Not a whole hell of a lot. There’s not a lot of room to say much, people tune out during long blurbs. Short and to the point sells books. It’s the same reason that whole reviews by newspaper reviewers aren’t included, just salient points broken with ellipses.
Ah, ellipses. They make for some nice creative excerpting. Oops.
Are all blurbs lies? Of course not. People can check reviews. A lot of authors out there genuinely mean what they write for others.
Are all Amazon reviews biased love for the author left by one of their fangirl/boy followers? No, take a look at Harriet Klausner.
Blurbs and reviews are just part of the Razzle Dazzle show that publicists and marketers put on for readers. They serve two purposes:
- to reassure those readers who need the reassurance that someone else loves this book (so obviously they’ll love it too)
- and to piggyback off the other author’s following (for example, if author X writes a glowing review on author Y’s book, then author X’s readers might think that author Y is like author X. It’s a form of branding really with author X acting as the brand). Take a look at the Freakonomics cover again. Levitt and Dubner are using Gladwell’s name prominently for a reason.
And bad reviews and scandals don’t necessarily mean bad sales, look at Frey. It all depends on how you spin it, or who you’re paying to spin it for you.
While I do read reviews in print or on the net and blurbs on books, I tend to take it all with a little salt (a slice of lime, and a shot of tequila). They’re a tool, one I use to gage customer interest and actual book content. Any review, positive or negative, that backs up its statements is a good review in my opinion because it allows me to distill the information that I need.
I try not to let the sequins get in the way.
"Give 'em the old three ring circus
Stun and stagger 'em
When you're in trouble, go into your dance
Though you are stiffer than a girder
They'll let you get away with murder
Razzle dazzle 'em
And you've got a romance"
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
I'm Feelin’ a Wee Bit Freyed Around the Edges
I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. Everyone else was doing it and I couldn’t bring myself to rise above the pun. Give a girl a break, why don’cha? I just got this from Drea,
"So, I'm going to use the "Covering Covers" topic as an excuse to ask you about your take on Frey's AMLP snafu. I like the cover (even if it does make me wish I was in second grade and eating cupcakes with sprinkles).
"So, I'm going to use the "Covering Covers" topic as an excuse to ask you about your take on Frey's AMLP snafu. I like the cover (even if it does make me wish I was in second grade and eating cupcakes with sprinkles).
What do you think about Random House's decision to offer refunds and encourage dissatified customers to try and return the book to the store where they bought it? I thought my poor bookstore manager would cry. We live in a very-suburban-Oprah-watching area;)."
(See: this CNN article)
My first thought was, “Son of a fucking bitch. Oh no they didn’t.”
My second one was, “No way in hell they’re getting a refund without a receipt. They want store credit, that’s fine, but refund? Not without a temper tantrum.”
Pretty miserly, I know, but a lot of creeps crawl out of the woodwork when they think they can get free cash. I wouldn’t put it past some jerk to rip off a couple of books from one store and then try to return them at another. I’m not all that concerned at the moment with my regular customers. I had three people buy the book after hearing about the controversy. In fact, they bought it because of the controversy.
“I have to know what he lied about,” one told me.
Another said, “Well my friend loves it, and even if it is fiction it sounds like a good story.”
So do I think sales will go down significantly? Perhaps a little, it really depends on how Oprah responds to this, for the cult of Oprah is strong. But if there is one thing I know, it’s that Americans love, love, LOVE watching the proverbial train wreck, why else would so many follow the gossip mags so closely? This has the potential to actually increase sales, at least for My Friend Leonard. The Boss’s response to this whole brouhaha? “Oh, maybe they’ll rush Leonard to trade, the sales will be great!”
Why yes, we are opportunistic. Perhaps it’s because I’m not as shocked by authors behaving badly as I used to be, which is a sad, but with authors committing plagiarism and not getting any more than a slap on the wrist, the idea that a guy—a known liar, druggy and thief—made up parts of his memoirs?
Maybe he can claim it was all part of a drugged fueled lapse.
I wish that I could give something more, funny or brilliant or--I don't know--something, but guys, I'm so tired. I hate closings followed by openings.
So how about y’all? Will any of you be returning your book?
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Book Sense 101: Covering Covers, the Just the Facts, Ma'am Edition
Notes: This post is a continuation of my ongoing Book Sense 101 series about covers. The first post in the series is “Covering the Basics of Covers,” and the second is a Smart Bitches Day entry called, “Hit with the Pretty Stick (the “Come on Closer Remix”)”.
“Covering the Basics of Covers” is a general outline of cover basics and what works in fiction and what doesn’t. I suggest you read that before following this post (although it is not required, you’re not in school).
“Hit with the Pretty Stick” applies the same rules to upcoming romance covers. If romance isn’t your shtick, feel free to skip the post.
With that out of the way, let’s get on with the show.
When people make comparisons between fiction and nonfiction, nonfiction is inevitably characterized as the drier of the two. It’s just facts, man. And anyone who has had to sit through some boring lecture, or pour through some obscure text book, will tell you that facts can be very yawn worthy. Who could blame them with examples such as these:
Oooh, white words on a dark background, should I be sensing the dark forbidding power of the No Such Agency? The gradient thing is pretty and all, but the cover as a whole does nothing for me. The only reason I would pick up this book is if I had any interest at all in the NSA, and the part where it says “National Security Agency” is buried under the title and the author’s name. It’s reduced to third billing. Do you think reducing the NSA to third billing could be grounds for being wire-tapped? I think I’d be a bit more careful when writing about a spy agency. They might hit you with this book:
Ack! Gah! Word blindness. Focusing on the white. Then the black. Oy, so dizzy. What was this about again? The KGB? The red on the black background fades in, but maybe that’s my picture quality. Is that what that symbol means? KGB? As far as a cover goes it leaves me with a lot of questions, but it doesn’t do anything to attract me beyond my own interest in the KGB. Combine that with the fact that this book is mammoth and hardbound, and I’ll be waiting for the paperback edition, thank you very much.
These books, with their uninspiring covers, do nothing to relieve the idea that history/current events/etc are only for the person looking for hard, dense literature because they make no attempt to appeal to an audience outside of their built in niche. Now I find this idea insulting to not only my intelligence but also to everyone out there who will read whatever catches their eye.
Of course, this is partially a result of my education and I must remind myself that not everyone had a professor who seemed to be a blend of Robin Williams, Chris Farley, and an auctioneer on crack to teach them the finer points of the history of Biology and Western Medicine. They missed out on writing notes so fast that they had to form a tag-team with the people on either side of them, having said professor play Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” to herald the midterm, enjoying the creme brulèe recipe that he learned from Julia Childs (actually learned from her, not a cook book), and scribbling furiously on the final while he sipped eighteen-year-old scotch.
Good times. Good times.
Was this an arcane from of liberal arts torture? Perhaps.
Did he blind me with science, brainwash me with history? Could be.
Could said “blindness” be why I find nonfiction so interesting and want others to share my obsession? Hell no.
From this professor I learned that history could be entertaining and easily accessible, sure, but I learned the same thing from Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (and let’s just take moment to remember Harrison as Indy. Ah Indy, much love). History is amazing, and it belongs to everyone so everyone should have some knowledge of it!
Alright, enough of my soapbox. All I’m saying is just because you don’t go looking for it doesn’t mean that you won’t be interested in a subject once you stumble across it, and publishers believe that too. Check out this cover for The Great Mortality:
While this cover shares a bit of the writing overload that affects The World Was Going Our Way , it tempers it in a couple of different ways. The inclusion (and twisting) of the painting, Woman and Death, by Hans Baldung Grien on the cover, ties in the tattered parchment look of the white backdrop to the title. This is a history of the plague of the 1300s (not to be confused with any of the other plagues, and yes there were others), and we’d have a sense of that even if we never saw the words “Black Death” and “Plague” in the subtitle.
Would this book (now in paperback) appeal to the same people who bought Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders? Maybe, maybe not. That’s about a different plague entirely.
Would this book appeal to someone who was just browsing through the section without any idea of what they were looking for? I’ve seen it happen time and again, and I think it owes it all to the cover.
The publishing industry, in an attempt to drive up sales, has decided to embrace this idea of selling outside the box (via these new and attention-catching covers) across the spectrum of nonfiction. What else could explain the cover for Freakonomics?
The use of neon green and orange on the white background is very eye-catching and then they further up the ante by playing the visual trick with the apple. See, it’s an apple with an orange middle. It’s all apples and oranges, but not, because they’re the same even though their different… get it? Get it?
Er, anyway, then you have the large blurb by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell and Levitt/Dubner became tied together after a debate in New York about the drop in crime. I can’t find the link to the article (if you have a subscription to the New York Times you can look it up), but the debate basically ended with Gladwell saying something like “This is normally where I would have a rebuttal, but I agree with what you’re saying.” Suddenly Freakonomics and the Tipping Point (Gladwell’s book) were irrevocably joined. Talk about a snazzy piece of marketing and piggybacking, but I’ll cover those two issues in a later column.
The cover of Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach, shows an example of the same playfulness with the subject matter exhibited in Freakonomics, albeit in a more morbid way.
The greens provide an alien antiseptic feel, the feet with the toe-tag screams body, and the title—off-kilter as if written on the toe-tag—captures the morbid sense of humor. The cover, like that of Freakonomics, manages to portray the tone and subject matter of the book in the best way possible. A true bravo moment given that this is a book about dead bodies (one I highly recommend to anyone who has a keen sense of the absurd).
“Okay,” says you, “I get that they can make Freaky economics interesting looking, and I’m sure cadaver lovers fall in the same category, but what about something normal? Can they do something to that?”
Well, that depends if you think that the cover for Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Plot to Become the Smartest Person in the World works or not.
Personally I think it does, and my customers seem to agree as this is one of the bestsellers off my trade paperback table. It’s got some great things working for it from the title (hello, hyperbole—smartest man in the world—plus false modesty—humble quest—equals this guy either has a real tongue-and-cheek sense of humor or he’s an ass, and ass’s only get their blogs published), to the picture that follows the sight-line down the title, and the books falling from the top of the stack, which tells us he might not have succeeded in his effort. The whole presentation is clean against its white backdrop and despite its “grandiose” claims, lacking in too many embellishments. I truly hope that the book can live up to the promise of the cover (it’s in my TBR pile).
“Okay, so history books, economics books—when they are about freaky things—can have interesting covers, science books about cadavers, and biographies can have interesting covers, but they’re about interesting things—if you’re a sick freak, which obviously you are. What about business books, huh? Have you seen the cover for The 48 Laws of Power?”
God yes, and it’s so bloody ugly. I hate shelving that book, I really do. And despite it’s bold use of orangey-red and blue I’ve developed some sort of book blindness to seeing it, which may or may not be caused by my hatred for that cover. Business books as a whole tend to be a bit blah. Every once in a while you get chairs on the beach (a la David Bach), which just screams retirement-let-me-show-you-what-to-do-with-your-money, or a marketing book like The Deviant’s Advantage, but as a whole, for a area of books that want to make money off of teaching other people how to make money, they don’t try to hard. This makes the ones who do stand out better. Take, for example, Laura Penny’s, Your Call is Important to Us.
From a distance you get smacked in the face by the bold combination of yellow and red. Yellow and red, by the way, are the two most eye-catching colors (think about that next time you are in Micky D’s), combined it’s almost retinal overload, but it gets your attention. Once you get closer, the use of white draws your eyes to the main title, even though it is smaller than the subtitle, and then your eyes follow the handle of the shovel down to—POW—the word Bullshit. Want to get someone’s attention in the United States? Put a pejorative word in your title. Works every time. Just make sure you’ve got something to back it up. In this case Penny does. Despite using some great marketing techniques to grab your attention, her book is about how marketing and the customer service industry screw with your head. Oh, and she says bullshit a lot.
Anyone want to guess why they chose to put a shovel on the cover? I think it’s pretty clear.
Is this the most attractive cover I’ve seen? Well, if your using the word attractive to ask whether or not I think this cover is pretty, then the answer is no. I do not think this cover is pretty, it does, however do the job.
To recap: A cover can be butt ugly if that works with the marketing strategy to get customers’ attention, which has evolved to be the sole purpose the dust jacket/cover in this bookselling age. Fiction, nonfiction, or strange hybrids in between, the point of the cover is to get the attention of the shopper who may not even be looking for this book. A pretty cover, if it can’t differentiate itself from the crowd, can be just as much as a detriment as a boring cover, so start praying to the Tiki Gods for your (if you’re an author) design department to choose, and choose wisely because you want to hook all the browsers you can.
Getting people to actually go out looking for the book is the role of marketing and publicity departments, and most importantly the author, but that’s the subject for my next column (which will hopefully appear in the next couple of days, I’m following a closing shift with an opening one, so no promises).
“Covering the Basics of Covers” is a general outline of cover basics and what works in fiction and what doesn’t. I suggest you read that before following this post (although it is not required, you’re not in school).
“Hit with the Pretty Stick” applies the same rules to upcoming romance covers. If romance isn’t your shtick, feel free to skip the post.
With that out of the way, let’s get on with the show.
When people make comparisons between fiction and nonfiction, nonfiction is inevitably characterized as the drier of the two. It’s just facts, man. And anyone who has had to sit through some boring lecture, or pour through some obscure text book, will tell you that facts can be very yawn worthy. Who could blame them with examples such as these:
Oooh, white words on a dark background, should I be sensing the dark forbidding power of the No Such Agency? The gradient thing is pretty and all, but the cover as a whole does nothing for me. The only reason I would pick up this book is if I had any interest at all in the NSA, and the part where it says “National Security Agency” is buried under the title and the author’s name. It’s reduced to third billing. Do you think reducing the NSA to third billing could be grounds for being wire-tapped? I think I’d be a bit more careful when writing about a spy agency. They might hit you with this book:
Ack! Gah! Word blindness. Focusing on the white. Then the black. Oy, so dizzy. What was this about again? The KGB? The red on the black background fades in, but maybe that’s my picture quality. Is that what that symbol means? KGB? As far as a cover goes it leaves me with a lot of questions, but it doesn’t do anything to attract me beyond my own interest in the KGB. Combine that with the fact that this book is mammoth and hardbound, and I’ll be waiting for the paperback edition, thank you very much.
These books, with their uninspiring covers, do nothing to relieve the idea that history/current events/etc are only for the person looking for hard, dense literature because they make no attempt to appeal to an audience outside of their built in niche. Now I find this idea insulting to not only my intelligence but also to everyone out there who will read whatever catches their eye.
Of course, this is partially a result of my education and I must remind myself that not everyone had a professor who seemed to be a blend of Robin Williams, Chris Farley, and an auctioneer on crack to teach them the finer points of the history of Biology and Western Medicine. They missed out on writing notes so fast that they had to form a tag-team with the people on either side of them, having said professor play Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” to herald the midterm, enjoying the creme brulèe recipe that he learned from Julia Childs (actually learned from her, not a cook book), and scribbling furiously on the final while he sipped eighteen-year-old scotch.
Good times. Good times.
Was this an arcane from of liberal arts torture? Perhaps.
Did he blind me with science, brainwash me with history? Could be.
Could said “blindness” be why I find nonfiction so interesting and want others to share my obsession? Hell no.
From this professor I learned that history could be entertaining and easily accessible, sure, but I learned the same thing from Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (and let’s just take moment to remember Harrison as Indy. Ah Indy, much love). History is amazing, and it belongs to everyone so everyone should have some knowledge of it!
Alright, enough of my soapbox. All I’m saying is just because you don’t go looking for it doesn’t mean that you won’t be interested in a subject once you stumble across it, and publishers believe that too. Check out this cover for The Great Mortality:
While this cover shares a bit of the writing overload that affects The World Was Going Our Way , it tempers it in a couple of different ways. The inclusion (and twisting) of the painting, Woman and Death, by Hans Baldung Grien on the cover, ties in the tattered parchment look of the white backdrop to the title. This is a history of the plague of the 1300s (not to be confused with any of the other plagues, and yes there were others), and we’d have a sense of that even if we never saw the words “Black Death” and “Plague” in the subtitle.
Would this book (now in paperback) appeal to the same people who bought Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders? Maybe, maybe not. That’s about a different plague entirely.
Would this book appeal to someone who was just browsing through the section without any idea of what they were looking for? I’ve seen it happen time and again, and I think it owes it all to the cover.
The publishing industry, in an attempt to drive up sales, has decided to embrace this idea of selling outside the box (via these new and attention-catching covers) across the spectrum of nonfiction. What else could explain the cover for Freakonomics?
The use of neon green and orange on the white background is very eye-catching and then they further up the ante by playing the visual trick with the apple. See, it’s an apple with an orange middle. It’s all apples and oranges, but not, because they’re the same even though their different… get it? Get it?
Er, anyway, then you have the large blurb by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell and Levitt/Dubner became tied together after a debate in New York about the drop in crime. I can’t find the link to the article (if you have a subscription to the New York Times you can look it up), but the debate basically ended with Gladwell saying something like “This is normally where I would have a rebuttal, but I agree with what you’re saying.” Suddenly Freakonomics and the Tipping Point (Gladwell’s book) were irrevocably joined. Talk about a snazzy piece of marketing and piggybacking, but I’ll cover those two issues in a later column.
The cover of Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach, shows an example of the same playfulness with the subject matter exhibited in Freakonomics, albeit in a more morbid way.
The greens provide an alien antiseptic feel, the feet with the toe-tag screams body, and the title—off-kilter as if written on the toe-tag—captures the morbid sense of humor. The cover, like that of Freakonomics, manages to portray the tone and subject matter of the book in the best way possible. A true bravo moment given that this is a book about dead bodies (one I highly recommend to anyone who has a keen sense of the absurd).
“Okay,” says you, “I get that they can make Freaky economics interesting looking, and I’m sure cadaver lovers fall in the same category, but what about something normal? Can they do something to that?”
Well, that depends if you think that the cover for Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Plot to Become the Smartest Person in the World works or not.
Personally I think it does, and my customers seem to agree as this is one of the bestsellers off my trade paperback table. It’s got some great things working for it from the title (hello, hyperbole—smartest man in the world—plus false modesty—humble quest—equals this guy either has a real tongue-and-cheek sense of humor or he’s an ass, and ass’s only get their blogs published), to the picture that follows the sight-line down the title, and the books falling from the top of the stack, which tells us he might not have succeeded in his effort. The whole presentation is clean against its white backdrop and despite its “grandiose” claims, lacking in too many embellishments. I truly hope that the book can live up to the promise of the cover (it’s in my TBR pile).
“Okay, so history books, economics books—when they are about freaky things—can have interesting covers, science books about cadavers, and biographies can have interesting covers, but they’re about interesting things—if you’re a sick freak, which obviously you are. What about business books, huh? Have you seen the cover for The 48 Laws of Power?”
God yes, and it’s so bloody ugly. I hate shelving that book, I really do. And despite it’s bold use of orangey-red and blue I’ve developed some sort of book blindness to seeing it, which may or may not be caused by my hatred for that cover. Business books as a whole tend to be a bit blah. Every once in a while you get chairs on the beach (a la David Bach), which just screams retirement-let-me-show-you-what-to-do-with-your-money, or a marketing book like The Deviant’s Advantage, but as a whole, for a area of books that want to make money off of teaching other people how to make money, they don’t try to hard. This makes the ones who do stand out better. Take, for example, Laura Penny’s, Your Call is Important to Us.
From a distance you get smacked in the face by the bold combination of yellow and red. Yellow and red, by the way, are the two most eye-catching colors (think about that next time you are in Micky D’s), combined it’s almost retinal overload, but it gets your attention. Once you get closer, the use of white draws your eyes to the main title, even though it is smaller than the subtitle, and then your eyes follow the handle of the shovel down to—POW—the word Bullshit. Want to get someone’s attention in the United States? Put a pejorative word in your title. Works every time. Just make sure you’ve got something to back it up. In this case Penny does. Despite using some great marketing techniques to grab your attention, her book is about how marketing and the customer service industry screw with your head. Oh, and she says bullshit a lot.
Anyone want to guess why they chose to put a shovel on the cover? I think it’s pretty clear.
Is this the most attractive cover I’ve seen? Well, if your using the word attractive to ask whether or not I think this cover is pretty, then the answer is no. I do not think this cover is pretty, it does, however do the job.
To recap: A cover can be butt ugly if that works with the marketing strategy to get customers’ attention, which has evolved to be the sole purpose the dust jacket/cover in this bookselling age. Fiction, nonfiction, or strange hybrids in between, the point of the cover is to get the attention of the shopper who may not even be looking for this book. A pretty cover, if it can’t differentiate itself from the crowd, can be just as much as a detriment as a boring cover, so start praying to the Tiki Gods for your (if you’re an author) design department to choose, and choose wisely because you want to hook all the browsers you can.
Getting people to actually go out looking for the book is the role of marketing and publicity departments, and most importantly the author, but that’s the subject for my next column (which will hopefully appear in the next couple of days, I’m following a closing shift with an opening one, so no promises).
Monday, January 09, 2006
SB Day: Hit with the Pretty Stick (the “Come on Closer” remix)*
*Warning: This is a continuation of my on going series “Book Sense 101: Covering the Basics of Covers”. You are not required to read the first part (this isn’t school), just like anyone who read the previous post is not required to read this one. I’m just putting it out there so you know.
It's another Smart Bitches Day, and I thought I should continue with the cover theme started yesterday. Now I ideally a cover should evoke some sort of interesting or emotion, just like a piece of art. This feeling should somehow be represented by the book. Given this line of reasoning, SciFi/Fantasy covers should evoke some sense of technology, magic or other-worldness, and Romance covers should…well, rev our ovaries if they’re supposed to be hot. As the song says:
You should feel all of these things when you look at the cover. It’s a romance! You’re going to spend the next several hours of your life (if you buy this book) following the natural progression of these people’s lives and how they join them together. Emotions—love, lust, joy—run the spectrum of sexy to heartwarming, and you get to act the voyeur on it all. How cool is that?
Correction: How cool would it be if the cover actually told you this?
Currently the romance covers are the bane of most romance readers’ existence. They feature awful clinches, half clothed women, man-titty galore, and in the case of the Ellora’s Cave covers things I wouldn’t even put in a circus freak show or Ripley’s Believe it or Not (see: “Maybe he’s compensating for something”).
Do we want to see some woman’s half-naked back? Well, the female form is pretty, but it doesn’t really do anything for me. I can take it or leave it, I guess.
Do we want to see a man with a cup-size bigger than our own? Hell no!
Do we want to spend half our time looking at the male half of the cover going what the fuck is that? Not unless we’re there specifically to mock.
Romance readers have developed a hard shell against the covers of the books because what the publishers have put us through is ludicrous. You’ve seen on clinch cover you’ve seen them all; the pictures of the estates on the front tell us nothing, absolutely nothing; and you’re not going to flash an Ellora’s on the bus. You just aren’t, especially when it’s damn easy to make a brown paper cover.
I’m sure the cardboard cut out clinch covers evolved for a reason, maybe to differentiate the romances from the straight fiction when they were all shelved together once upon a time. That was a long time ago. Now wherever you go romance has its own section just like SciFi/Fantasy and Mystery. Sure it keeps people accidentally picking up a book from one of these genres when they are just browsing because some will never venture into these sections, but let’s be frank (or you be Frank and I’ll be Earnest), with the cover situation being what it is, they wouldn’t have picked up these books anyway.
And yet still they torture us, TORTURE US with these covers, leaving a whole hell of a lot of romance readers (at least) crying out, “Why can’t they get a clue?”
Well folks, it appears that they just might have. Not only are there books coming out with covers that show a great improvement on the old, but they’re actually appealing! Candice Hern, romance author and Fog City Diva, recently did a post on the changing face of historical romance covers in “Candice Ponders Historical Covers.” Her own cover for her upcoming book, In the Thrill of the Night, is a great improvement over her traditional clinch covers of the past.
It's another Smart Bitches Day, and I thought I should continue with the cover theme started yesterday. Now I ideally a cover should evoke some sort of interesting or emotion, just like a piece of art. This feeling should somehow be represented by the book. Given this line of reasoning, SciFi/Fantasy covers should evoke some sense of technology, magic or other-worldness, and Romance covers should…well, rev our ovaries if they’re supposed to be hot. As the song says:
Hot temptations
Sweet sensations
Infiltrating through
Sweet sensations
Hot temptations
Coming over you
You should feel all of these things when you look at the cover. It’s a romance! You’re going to spend the next several hours of your life (if you buy this book) following the natural progression of these people’s lives and how they join them together. Emotions—love, lust, joy—run the spectrum of sexy to heartwarming, and you get to act the voyeur on it all. How cool is that?
Correction: How cool would it be if the cover actually told you this?
Currently the romance covers are the bane of most romance readers’ existence. They feature awful clinches, half clothed women, man-titty galore, and in the case of the Ellora’s Cave covers things I wouldn’t even put in a circus freak show or Ripley’s Believe it or Not (see: “Maybe he’s compensating for something”).
Do we want to see some woman’s half-naked back? Well, the female form is pretty, but it doesn’t really do anything for me. I can take it or leave it, I guess.
Do we want to see a man with a cup-size bigger than our own? Hell no!
Do we want to spend half our time looking at the male half of the cover going what the fuck is that? Not unless we’re there specifically to mock.
Romance readers have developed a hard shell against the covers of the books because what the publishers have put us through is ludicrous. You’ve seen on clinch cover you’ve seen them all; the pictures of the estates on the front tell us nothing, absolutely nothing; and you’re not going to flash an Ellora’s on the bus. You just aren’t, especially when it’s damn easy to make a brown paper cover.
I’m sure the cardboard cut out clinch covers evolved for a reason, maybe to differentiate the romances from the straight fiction when they were all shelved together once upon a time. That was a long time ago. Now wherever you go romance has its own section just like SciFi/Fantasy and Mystery. Sure it keeps people accidentally picking up a book from one of these genres when they are just browsing because some will never venture into these sections, but let’s be frank (or you be Frank and I’ll be Earnest), with the cover situation being what it is, they wouldn’t have picked up these books anyway.
And yet still they torture us, TORTURE US with these covers, leaving a whole hell of a lot of romance readers (at least) crying out, “Why can’t they get a clue?”
Well folks, it appears that they just might have. Not only are there books coming out with covers that show a great improvement on the old, but they’re actually appealing! Candice Hern, romance author and Fog City Diva, recently did a post on the changing face of historical romance covers in “Candice Ponders Historical Covers.” Her own cover for her upcoming book, In the Thrill of the Night, is a great improvement over her traditional clinch covers of the past.
The hint of lace, the luminescent pearls: very sensual touches that fit with the theme of Merry Widows getting their Merry on, and the use of a historical portrait gives us an instant recognition of the time period (as in it’s a historical novel not a contemporary). I’m not a big fan of the ghostly couple superimposed on lower left-hand side, but I a.) believe in less is more, and b.) think the edges could have been smoothed out the bit better. (Both of these points tell me that I’ve spent far too much time thinking about this.) This cover is going to pop when faced out in the romance section, just as it is will on the New Arrivals wall. The combination of the pale white skin and the purple backdrop guarantee that.
Congrats Candice, as long as this book’s innards live up to its cover you’ve got a winner on your hands.
But what about contemporaries? While a lot of the books seem to avoid the clinch cover, they’re kind of blah as if the artist didn’t know what to do. A lot of them have the cartoonish drawings going on these days, but really that only works for something that’s romantic comedy. Put one of those drawings on a book that’s mostly romantic suspense and you’re going to have a lot of customer returns. Up until this point, romantic suspense seemed to either require a picture of a woman running, or a moody, dark alley—something with a single light source. These covers have progressed lately with the shadowy imprint of a couple getting it on (see the latest covers for Linda Howard and Jayne Ann Krentz), but I don’t have to see that much to get a sense that this couple is hot for each other. I really like how they designed Alison Kent’s cover for her upcoming release Deep Breath.
Sure it has that “they’re totally getting it on” aspect to it, the naked shoulders tipped me off (‘cause I’m observant like that), but it fits with the whole theme she’s got going on for her series. The black and white aspect of the picture is very voyeur. Are they caught on camera by security? This is a spy novel. And since it is a spy novel the shades of gray inherent in a black and white photo represent the world that a spy inhabits.
The prominence of the author’s name tells us that her publishing company thinks this is a name that sells because it’s bigger than the title, and the blurb line (in this case a lead in for the title) is small, giving the impression that it’s an afterthought. What this cover says to me is that this is a moody, sexy novel that is tempered with some lightness (I get this from the fact that they chose to do Kent’s name in hot pink).
Is this a reflection of the inner aspects of the book? I don’t know. From the back cover copy I read at her site, I would think so, but only the author or an actual reader could say for sure.
So what do you think, romance readers: do these covers work for you?
Are we finally witness a cover revolution in the industry or are these just to throw us off our games?
Or am I once again reading too much into a cover?
If you wish to continue this series into the realm of nonfiction, the next section is Book Sense 101: Covering Covers, the Just the Facts, Ma'am Edition.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Book Sense 101: Covering the Basics of Covers*
*In response to "Food Coma induced ponderings and questions" and questions asked on "Give'em the hook."
I would like to start this essay with a disclaimer:
I am not an expert. I do not have a degree in bookselling, I’ve never been a book buyer for a national chain and I’ve never worked for a publishing company. All of my thoughts and opinions are based on what I’ve learned in the five years I’ve been selling books. What my customers buy does not necessarily represent the whole of the United States or even the whole of my state, nor should it. Geographically barriers breed distinctions; that’s the basis for evolution my biology professors always used to say and it’s the basis for book buying too. Just because my customers love a certain title doesn’t mean that the good folks of Tuscaloosa, Alabama are going to greet it with the same enthusiasm. On a more local level, what people buy in an urban store (my designation) vs. a suburban store will also vary wildly. Comfort levels and convenience factor in to a high degree.
What I can promise is this:
Having worked in both suburban and urban areas on the West Coast, and having made it my business to stop into every bookstore I’ve ever come across on my travels, I can provide you with my opinion of what works at the store level and what doesn’t. The few (read: very few) classes I’ve taken in book design and publishing have helped shape these opinions, although I’m sure that someone who’s been in the book business could give you the charts, graphs and marketing breakdowns that I cannot. What I can provide you with is an in-depth study of what my customers buy, and what my observations (and their comments) have told me about their buying habits.
If this helps you as an author to focus your audience, then great; I’m glad I could be of service. If this helps you as a reader to pin down finally what attracts you to books, then I’m glad that I could help explain that “I know what I like” feeling. If you read this all and come to the conclusion that I’m full of shit, well, I’ve been told that before. There is a reason why the initials of bookseller are synonymous with those for bullshit, and I am in the business of selling people stuff they don’t need.
That said, if you want to check out two great books on the book business as a whole (by people who have much better credentials than I, but with whom I agree), I would suggest reading Jason Epstein’s, Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future, and André Schiffrin’s, The Business of Books.
Now that we’ve gotten my credentials and disclaimers out of the way (I’m also not responsible for any lost or stolen objects while you read this post), let’s focus on book covers. Primarily I’m going to focus on book covers in their trade paperback form for books that have sold well off my front table, although I will also hit upon some hard bound books that did (or didn’t do well) with their front of store exposure. While some have now gone on to be bestsellers, when the boss and I picked these titles (we don’t follow any company provided planogram for the two areas of focus) they were either fresh titles or titles that had yet to receive a lot of press (this does not mean that they hadn’t already been well reviewed, but that’s a section of this essay meant for a later day). For display purposes these books are placed on the table face up in pyramid stacks, so the first thing a browsing customer would see upon entering our store is the cover.
I must make one thing clear right now: books are almost always judged on their cover alone by a browsing customer, and this is the customer to whom all books want to appeal. I’m not saying an awful cover cannot be overcome with great press and reviews, or that a gorgeous cover equals high sales. As your mother always said, it is what is inside that counts in the end, and in the case of books causes the word of mouth recommendations that bring in more people for your title. But the average browser makes the choice to buy a book within the first seven seconds of picking up. In seven seconds the customer has barely had time to flip the book over and peruse the back copy.
Don’t believe me? Test this the next time you are out book shopping.
Finished? Before you flip that book over look at your watch again and see how much time has elapsed. Probably a lot more than seven seconds.
A successful book cover must:
We no longer live in a time where only a small number of books come out every season, instead we’re bombarded by thousands of new titles every year, with 25,184 new fiction titles being released in 2004 alone (around 195,000 new titles in total book production) (Publisher’s Weekly, Cranking It Out 5/3/05). Book covers have attempted to evolve using the latest marketing techniques to catch the browsers eye and hook them into picking up the book. Somewhere in a publishing company far away there is a marketing team attempting with the same precision of Swiss watchmakers to find the perfect hook to attract the target audience. This immediate hook is most often achieved through the cover art and the overall appearance of the book. It is then up to additional hooks of the title, author’s name, and blurb to keep that book in the customers hand during those crucial seven seconds. If the customer gets past the cover to the back copy you’ve almost guaranteed a sale.
For our first example, let’s look at The Illuminator by Brenda Rickman Vantrease:
Since I placed this title on our table a week ago, we’ve sold out and had to reorder our copies from a local distributor. From a distance the first thing that you see when looking at this cover is the gorgeous artwork and the touch of gilt foil to highlight. This is a great improvement over the old cover (which is what you will see if you click the link above), which was much too busy in my opinion. Upon closer examination, you then take in the title (above which the book informs us it was a “National Bestseller”) and the author. Your eyes are then drawn to the very incongruous looking blue box in the lower right hand corner that informs you that this is a Reading Group friendly book. In the age of the book club tyranny (and yes, I too belong to a book club), this is very, very important. After taking all of these other elements in, the average browser only then gets to the nice blurb from the Boston Globe that proclaims this book to be “a sweeping portrayal of the distant past…ample in romance, mystery, and adventure.”
My, oh my, how can you resist that?
“I’m not into historicals,” you might say.
Or, “I’m a guy. What do I want with romance in my books?”
Well, obviously this book is not attempting grab the postmodernists or the Clive Cussler crowd (although Clive’s guys do get their share of the ladies). It’s aiming for the group of readers out there who picked up Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl or Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, and it has been selling well in this trade form to women and men. Sure some may remember it from the press junket a year or two ago, but the majority of my customers who pick it up off the table do so because something about it appeals to them: the cover.
A couple of years ago we ordered in Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn because we liked the cover, and the trend at the time seemed to be a great love of all things Middle Eastern (see: Kite Runner) and Asiatic in general (see: Memoirs of a Geisha) at our store. We didn’t really know anything about it—not that it was an International Bestseller (as the cover claims) or that it would soon become a New York Times Notable Book (an emblem you can find on later copies)—just that it was keeping with a trend and sounded interesting.
Within a week all six copies we’d placed on the table were gone (which is fast for my tiny store), so we ordered in six more…and then six more…and then the next book in the series (and six more of the first book because we were out again). We couldn’t believe it, and we couldn’t get customers to explain why they picked up the book to begin with (“It sounded interesting,” I got time and again). God forbid that you ask when they came back for the second book because they’d look at you like you were an idiot. “Don’t you know? It’s on your table. You mean you haven’t read it yet?”
We started watching the customers shop the table and what we saw was fascinating. What the boss and I viewed as a reasonably attractive cover (although nothing to write home about) had the power to keep drawing the customers gaze. Did they approach the table for that first book? No, not unless someone specifically sent them in for it. But as they looked at all the different covers on the table that was the one they kept going back to time and again. Soon they were picking it up, and the next thing you knew they were buying it. I finally checked out a copy myself just to see what all the fuss was about and was surprised how much I enjoyed the series. To this day it is one of my favorite recommendations, and it continues to draw people with all different genre loves from fantasy to straight historical fiction.
Another book we ordered in because of the Middle Eastern trend was The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
Divakaruni is a pretty well known writer of India-themed stories, poetry and short stories. Her fame is reflected in the fact that her name is only slightly smaller than the title (in this later printing, this was actually her first book). If you ever want to know how much a marketing department thinks about the selling power of an author’s name look at its placement and prominence on the cover. Patterson, Grisham, Roberts, Martin and others have names that often are larger than the titles themselves. Divakaruni might not be an automatic bestseller, but as a fiction writer she does pretty well. The Mistress of Spices cover is bright (reflecting the culture it stems from), the cover art hints at the “magical realism” techniques incorporated throughout the story, and overall appearance appeals to the feminine reader (who is targeted with most of Divakaruni’s work).
This cover is a bit of a cross-subgenre hybrid; meant to appeal to the female reader that wants something different but not Chick-Lit, and the Chick-Lit reader who wants a little lyricism and culture (this cover was changed before Chick-Lit started its venture into the Bollywood-esque lives of Indian women). I’m interested to see what they’ll do to the cover if the movie based on the book (which has already premiered at the Toronto Film Festival) is released here in the United States.
For the final cover today, let’s look at Marie Bostwick’s book, Fields of Gold.
Unlike many books these days, Fields of Gold was released directly to trade. The water color quality of the cover (done in soft purples) and the quote from Gaffney makes it clear that this title is focused towards the Women’s Fiction audience and not the sharper edged Chick-Lit crowd. The old-fashioned plane in the distance tells us (the viewer) that the book does not take place in the present. The reason why I chose this book as an example is because unlike the other books it does not hit all the points of a successful cover and it shows in the sales.
Is the cover an accurate representation of the concept of the book? Quite well.
Does it appeal to its target audience? Yes.
Does the cover catch the eye and make the book standout when placed with a group of other titles? Not exactly.
I’ve noticed a curious thing when it comes to this title; it has a tendency to blend in when placed with other books on the wall display bays. When the author visited several months ago we placed her book on the table, and there it sold out in a couple of weeks. While in the process of reordering the title, we changed the table around and there was no longer an open space for it, so we stuck it in a wall bay. The book was still presented to the customer face out, but instead of lying on its back on a table, the book was now about chest level and facing out from a wall. In its new home, despite from of store marketing, it has barely moved at all.
I propose that this has nothing to do with content and everything to do with the softness of the cover. On the table the stack’s height help differentiate it from the titles around it, whereas on the wall depth perception is inhibited, and customers begin to suffer from what I call book blindness. When people just look at the wall (with its massive amount of titles and gray backdrop) without focusing on any one point, the covers blur together into one giant mass. Covers that are bright or edgy manage to “pop” despite this, and become points of reference, but the softer covers blend into the background. Alice Sebold’s Lovely Bones suffers from the same problem, and it’s only the well known story (and book clubs) that keeps people coming in for it. Even then they ask us to find it for them.
That’s all the covers I have the energy for today, I hope this has been helpful. Tomorrow I’ll hit some more genre specific covers (romance for smart bitches and such), and then we’ll move on to nonfiction (a.k.a. that thing that sold so well over Christmas) and hardcovers. After I be all I can be with the covers, I’ll go on to hit the marketing aspect of books, such as TV appearances, book clubs, and why you should worship at the Cult of Oprah (or not). If you have anything else you want me to add (or explain) as I go along, please let me know.
I would like to start this essay with a disclaimer:
I am not an expert. I do not have a degree in bookselling, I’ve never been a book buyer for a national chain and I’ve never worked for a publishing company. All of my thoughts and opinions are based on what I’ve learned in the five years I’ve been selling books. What my customers buy does not necessarily represent the whole of the United States or even the whole of my state, nor should it. Geographically barriers breed distinctions; that’s the basis for evolution my biology professors always used to say and it’s the basis for book buying too. Just because my customers love a certain title doesn’t mean that the good folks of Tuscaloosa, Alabama are going to greet it with the same enthusiasm. On a more local level, what people buy in an urban store (my designation) vs. a suburban store will also vary wildly. Comfort levels and convenience factor in to a high degree.
What I can promise is this:
Having worked in both suburban and urban areas on the West Coast, and having made it my business to stop into every bookstore I’ve ever come across on my travels, I can provide you with my opinion of what works at the store level and what doesn’t. The few (read: very few) classes I’ve taken in book design and publishing have helped shape these opinions, although I’m sure that someone who’s been in the book business could give you the charts, graphs and marketing breakdowns that I cannot. What I can provide you with is an in-depth study of what my customers buy, and what my observations (and their comments) have told me about their buying habits.
If this helps you as an author to focus your audience, then great; I’m glad I could be of service. If this helps you as a reader to pin down finally what attracts you to books, then I’m glad that I could help explain that “I know what I like” feeling. If you read this all and come to the conclusion that I’m full of shit, well, I’ve been told that before. There is a reason why the initials of bookseller are synonymous with those for bullshit, and I am in the business of selling people stuff they don’t need.
That said, if you want to check out two great books on the book business as a whole (by people who have much better credentials than I, but with whom I agree), I would suggest reading Jason Epstein’s, Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future, and André Schiffrin’s, The Business of Books.
Now that we’ve gotten my credentials and disclaimers out of the way (I’m also not responsible for any lost or stolen objects while you read this post), let’s focus on book covers. Primarily I’m going to focus on book covers in their trade paperback form for books that have sold well off my front table, although I will also hit upon some hard bound books that did (or didn’t do well) with their front of store exposure. While some have now gone on to be bestsellers, when the boss and I picked these titles (we don’t follow any company provided planogram for the two areas of focus) they were either fresh titles or titles that had yet to receive a lot of press (this does not mean that they hadn’t already been well reviewed, but that’s a section of this essay meant for a later day). For display purposes these books are placed on the table face up in pyramid stacks, so the first thing a browsing customer would see upon entering our store is the cover.
I must make one thing clear right now: books are almost always judged on their cover alone by a browsing customer, and this is the customer to whom all books want to appeal. I’m not saying an awful cover cannot be overcome with great press and reviews, or that a gorgeous cover equals high sales. As your mother always said, it is what is inside that counts in the end, and in the case of books causes the word of mouth recommendations that bring in more people for your title. But the average browser makes the choice to buy a book within the first seven seconds of picking up. In seven seconds the customer has barely had time to flip the book over and peruse the back copy.
Don’t believe me? Test this the next time you are out book shopping.
- Go to your bookstore.
- Pick up the first book that catches your eye.
- Now look at the seconds hand on your watch, and remember the time.
- Read and look at everything you usually read and look at on the cover.
Finished? Before you flip that book over look at your watch again and see how much time has elapsed. Probably a lot more than seven seconds.
A successful book cover must:
- Catch the eye
- Appeal to the target audience
- Represent the book in some way (plot, theme, character, or setting)
- Stand out when placed with other books
We no longer live in a time where only a small number of books come out every season, instead we’re bombarded by thousands of new titles every year, with 25,184 new fiction titles being released in 2004 alone (around 195,000 new titles in total book production) (Publisher’s Weekly, Cranking It Out 5/3/05). Book covers have attempted to evolve using the latest marketing techniques to catch the browsers eye and hook them into picking up the book. Somewhere in a publishing company far away there is a marketing team attempting with the same precision of Swiss watchmakers to find the perfect hook to attract the target audience. This immediate hook is most often achieved through the cover art and the overall appearance of the book. It is then up to additional hooks of the title, author’s name, and blurb to keep that book in the customers hand during those crucial seven seconds. If the customer gets past the cover to the back copy you’ve almost guaranteed a sale.
For our first example, let’s look at The Illuminator by Brenda Rickman Vantrease:
Since I placed this title on our table a week ago, we’ve sold out and had to reorder our copies from a local distributor. From a distance the first thing that you see when looking at this cover is the gorgeous artwork and the touch of gilt foil to highlight. This is a great improvement over the old cover (which is what you will see if you click the link above), which was much too busy in my opinion. Upon closer examination, you then take in the title (above which the book informs us it was a “National Bestseller”) and the author. Your eyes are then drawn to the very incongruous looking blue box in the lower right hand corner that informs you that this is a Reading Group friendly book. In the age of the book club tyranny (and yes, I too belong to a book club), this is very, very important. After taking all of these other elements in, the average browser only then gets to the nice blurb from the Boston Globe that proclaims this book to be “a sweeping portrayal of the distant past…ample in romance, mystery, and adventure.”
My, oh my, how can you resist that?
“I’m not into historicals,” you might say.
Or, “I’m a guy. What do I want with romance in my books?”
Well, obviously this book is not attempting grab the postmodernists or the Clive Cussler crowd (although Clive’s guys do get their share of the ladies). It’s aiming for the group of readers out there who picked up Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl or Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, and it has been selling well in this trade form to women and men. Sure some may remember it from the press junket a year or two ago, but the majority of my customers who pick it up off the table do so because something about it appeals to them: the cover.
A couple of years ago we ordered in Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn because we liked the cover, and the trend at the time seemed to be a great love of all things Middle Eastern (see: Kite Runner) and Asiatic in general (see: Memoirs of a Geisha) at our store. We didn’t really know anything about it—not that it was an International Bestseller (as the cover claims) or that it would soon become a New York Times Notable Book (an emblem you can find on later copies)—just that it was keeping with a trend and sounded interesting.
Within a week all six copies we’d placed on the table were gone (which is fast for my tiny store), so we ordered in six more…and then six more…and then the next book in the series (and six more of the first book because we were out again). We couldn’t believe it, and we couldn’t get customers to explain why they picked up the book to begin with (“It sounded interesting,” I got time and again). God forbid that you ask when they came back for the second book because they’d look at you like you were an idiot. “Don’t you know? It’s on your table. You mean you haven’t read it yet?”
We started watching the customers shop the table and what we saw was fascinating. What the boss and I viewed as a reasonably attractive cover (although nothing to write home about) had the power to keep drawing the customers gaze. Did they approach the table for that first book? No, not unless someone specifically sent them in for it. But as they looked at all the different covers on the table that was the one they kept going back to time and again. Soon they were picking it up, and the next thing you knew they were buying it. I finally checked out a copy myself just to see what all the fuss was about and was surprised how much I enjoyed the series. To this day it is one of my favorite recommendations, and it continues to draw people with all different genre loves from fantasy to straight historical fiction.
Another book we ordered in because of the Middle Eastern trend was The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
Divakaruni is a pretty well known writer of India-themed stories, poetry and short stories. Her fame is reflected in the fact that her name is only slightly smaller than the title (in this later printing, this was actually her first book). If you ever want to know how much a marketing department thinks about the selling power of an author’s name look at its placement and prominence on the cover. Patterson, Grisham, Roberts, Martin and others have names that often are larger than the titles themselves. Divakaruni might not be an automatic bestseller, but as a fiction writer she does pretty well. The Mistress of Spices cover is bright (reflecting the culture it stems from), the cover art hints at the “magical realism” techniques incorporated throughout the story, and overall appearance appeals to the feminine reader (who is targeted with most of Divakaruni’s work).
This cover is a bit of a cross-subgenre hybrid; meant to appeal to the female reader that wants something different but not Chick-Lit, and the Chick-Lit reader who wants a little lyricism and culture (this cover was changed before Chick-Lit started its venture into the Bollywood-esque lives of Indian women). I’m interested to see what they’ll do to the cover if the movie based on the book (which has already premiered at the Toronto Film Festival) is released here in the United States.
For the final cover today, let’s look at Marie Bostwick’s book, Fields of Gold.
Unlike many books these days, Fields of Gold was released directly to trade. The water color quality of the cover (done in soft purples) and the quote from Gaffney makes it clear that this title is focused towards the Women’s Fiction audience and not the sharper edged Chick-Lit crowd. The old-fashioned plane in the distance tells us (the viewer) that the book does not take place in the present. The reason why I chose this book as an example is because unlike the other books it does not hit all the points of a successful cover and it shows in the sales.
Is the cover an accurate representation of the concept of the book? Quite well.
Does it appeal to its target audience? Yes.
Does the cover catch the eye and make the book standout when placed with a group of other titles? Not exactly.
I’ve noticed a curious thing when it comes to this title; it has a tendency to blend in when placed with other books on the wall display bays. When the author visited several months ago we placed her book on the table, and there it sold out in a couple of weeks. While in the process of reordering the title, we changed the table around and there was no longer an open space for it, so we stuck it in a wall bay. The book was still presented to the customer face out, but instead of lying on its back on a table, the book was now about chest level and facing out from a wall. In its new home, despite from of store marketing, it has barely moved at all.
I propose that this has nothing to do with content and everything to do with the softness of the cover. On the table the stack’s height help differentiate it from the titles around it, whereas on the wall depth perception is inhibited, and customers begin to suffer from what I call book blindness. When people just look at the wall (with its massive amount of titles and gray backdrop) without focusing on any one point, the covers blur together into one giant mass. Covers that are bright or edgy manage to “pop” despite this, and become points of reference, but the softer covers blend into the background. Alice Sebold’s Lovely Bones suffers from the same problem, and it’s only the well known story (and book clubs) that keeps people coming in for it. Even then they ask us to find it for them.
***
That’s all the covers I have the energy for today, I hope this has been helpful. Tomorrow I’ll hit some more genre specific covers (romance for smart bitches and such), and then we’ll move on to nonfiction (a.k.a. that thing that sold so well over Christmas) and hardcovers. After I be all I can be with the covers, I’ll go on to hit the marketing aspect of books, such as TV appearances, book clubs, and why you should worship at the Cult of Oprah (or not). If you have anything else you want me to add (or explain) as I go along, please let me know.
ETA: The romance aspect of covers is covered in the next post, "SB Day: Hit with the Pretty Stick (the "Come on Closer" Remix)."
If romance isn't of interest you can skip on to the third in this series, Covering Covers, the Just the Facts, Ma'am Editon on nonfiction covers of note.
If you want more cover recommendations check out this listing from Bookslut.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)