This looks perfect
(Source: via http://shopruche.blogspot.com/)
Category: books
Two reasons why not to self-publish your book
Confession: I am an advocate of self-publishing. I have been for years. But my views are changing on the matter due to the glut of poorly written self-published books being released each year. Serendipitously, I found this article in the London Evening Standard that offers two reasons why not to self-publish: 1) publishers and 2) editors.
Authors need publishers more than ever when there are so many voices out there competing for our attention. As Horowitz rightly says, the main raison d’être of a publisher is to provide the author with a skilful editor who can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.
Editors are the midwives of great literature. T S Eliot’s The Wasteland wouldn’t have been the masterpiece it is if it hadn’t been edited by Ezra Pound and his wife, Vivien.
The death of publishing is greatly exaggerated. We will still need publishers as long as we read books, just as we still need critics to review those books. It is part of the great filtering process of literature and culture. (link: Self-publishing makes us think we can write)
Any questions?
Judging a book by its cover
For me, every book cover I design begins with pencil sketches that eventually lead to ink drawings. Actually, I suppose it begins prior to that. The author receives a pre-publication questionnaire from me prior to the design process. The questionnaire asks the author what is his/her elevator pitch, what are the pillars of the book (i.e. what are three main concepts/ideas in the book?), and what is the book’s key audience? There are more questions that help me prepare for the design process, but reading through that document helps me form an idea of who the author is, what the book is about and how best to represent the book’s content with an attractive cover.
Then I receive the manuscript a few weeks later and begin reading the author’s work. This helps try to envision in my mind an iconic poster image. For me, a book cover is the equivalence of a film poster. At this stage, I produce some concept drawings (like the one’s pictured) and research color schemes and subject themes that I plan to use in the cover design. After a couple rounds of emails with the author, I proceed to the full-color design phase.
The full-color design is often photographic, as in the case of this sample, but can also feature illustrated work or typographic designs. An illustrated cover is sent to a freelance artist who spends a week or so producing the cover art. The final cover design pulls together all the elements (art, photo, type and copy) to present a cover that, in theory, sells a 1000 to 3000 copies on face value. I know what you’re thinking, but books really are judged by their covers. Just watch people at a bookstore. They’re scanning covers before they even pick up a book to read the back copy blurb or open a book to read the first few chapters. If a book has amateurish art or less than professional photography, the audience will move to the next book cover that has great photography or stunning artwork. Further, if a book has poor quality cover art, it will be represented in poor book sales. Let me say it again: if a book has crappy cover art, the book will have crappy sales. No reader wants a crappy book on their bookshelf or e-reader. Half the battle for a reader’s attention is getting him/her to pick the book from the shelf. The same applies to e-book stores. Readers are scanning covers from the Kindle or Nook e-stores and deciding, based on cover design and book blurb, what title to purchase.
From the time the final cover is approved until the product arrives is six to eight weeks depending on circumstances. That’s when the real test of a book’s cover design and interior content begin. And that’s about the time I begin the next round of cover designs.
Illiteracy in America
44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.
National Adult Literacy Survey (via firstbook)
The Origin of Titles
It is amusing that modern readers have been spared the lengthy title of the 1859 first edition:
ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
hm?
British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years (via libraryland)
Poetrio at Malaprop’s
The monthly poetry reading series Poetrio continues Sunday, March 4, 2012, 3:00 p.m. at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café. The March Poetrio features Megan Volpert with SONICS IN WARHOLIA, Rupert Fike with LOTUS BUFFET, and Jethro Clayton Waters with SOUTH OF ORDINARY.
Please note that UNC-A has a champion basketball event downtown this weekend and the public parking garages will charge a special daily “event fee.” Park away from the center of downtown Asheville and enjoy a lovely Sunday afternoon stroll to Malaprop’s. They have a wonderful café with refreshments and poetry for after a nice walk through the city.
POETRIO readings and booksignings:
Megan Volpert, Rupert Fike, Jethro Clayton Waters
Sunday, March 4, 2012, 3:00 p.m.
Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood Street, Asheville, NC 28801
www.malaprops.com
Quote: Patti Smith
Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.
Patti Smith (via libraryland)
Literary Reading at Posana Café
Later this week, a literary reading featuring Catherine Reid and Valerie Neiman. February 18, 2012, at Posana Cafe, at 7:30 p.m.
Catherine Reid is the author of COYOTE: SEEKING THE HUNTER IN OUR MIDST, as well as essays in such journals as GEORGIA REVIEW, MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW, FOURTH GENRE, and BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEW. Currently, she directs the undergraduate creative writing program at Warren Wilson College, where she also teaches creative nonfiction and environmental writing.
Jane Alison calls Valerie Nieman‘s third novel, Blood Clay “both a tense, plot-driven story about complicated issues of race and guilt, and a meditation on solitude, history, and ways of living.”
A former newspaper reporter, Nieman is also the author of a collection of short stories, Fidelities, and a poetry collection,Wake Wake Wake. She teaches at the John C. Campbell Folk School and serves as poetry editor of Prime Number magazine.
From an email from Mark Prudowsky and Katherine Soniat
People do judge a book by its cover
Have you ever considered who the people are who design book covers? I know most of us are more interested in the author and the story being told, but for me it is interesting to learn of the designers behind such iconic book covers. That’s why I enjoyed this short list of iconic book covers and the creatives who designed them. The list includes some of my favorites like The Great Gatsby (designed by a relatively unknown artist at the time, Francis Cugat), To Kill A Mockingbird (designed by Shirley Smith), Brace New World (designed by Leslie Holland), and Fahrenheit 451 (designed by Joe Pernaciaro). What are some of your iconic book covers?
Book cover design
Kidlingers like the latest book cover design… because the title has flaming letters & a firefighter.
Just a few of the books I designed during the last few weeks.
Choose Your Own Adventure at the library.
Paradise… a library
(Source: http://imgfave.com/view/1718859)
How to make a mini book
“Maybe it’s not about the happy ending…”
‘Maybe it’s not about the happy ending…’
(via sunnysideeeee)
(Source: http://sayingimages.tumblr.com/)
Who doesn’t want to curl up with a good book on a day like today?
Books on book binding.
Nightstand reading
I’ve been told my taste in books is eclectic.
I choose my own books
But really it’s destiny.
Their stories find me.
alannaevelyn (via prettybooks)
Quote: Charles Simic
How many book lovers among the young has the Internet produced? Far fewer, I suspect, than the millions libraries have turned out over the last hundred years.
Charles Simic (‘A Country Without Libraries’) via NYR Blog
Limited edition – Rooftop Poets poetry book
In September 2010 an idea was born to hold a poetry reading under a full moon at the Roof Garden of the historic Battery Park Hotel. Three weeks after that September afternoon, sixty people attended an invite-only poetry reading, book-signing and jazz show on Friday, October 22, 2010. The event was publicized almost exclusively through Twitter, Facebook and word-of-mouth and featured Asheville, North Carolina poets Barbara Gravelle, myself (Matthew Mulder) and Brian Sneeden with special musical performance by Vendetta Creme and Aaron Price. And thus, Rooftop Poets was born in Asheville under a full moon.
Since the Roof Garden reading, the Rooftop Poets have been invited to read at various venues and interviewed for newspaper and television. Brian’s poem “The Temple” (included in Rooftop Poets poetry book) went on to be the Mountain Xpress’s first place winner in their 2011 poetry contest.
If you missed the memorable evening last October, there are still a few copies of the limited-edition, 64-page book. You may purchase copies at Malaprop’s.
Rooftop Poets is a limited-edition, 64-page book of poems featuring the work of three Asheville, North Carolina poets.
Barbara Gravelle, author of several poetry books including, Keepsake, Dancing the Naked Dance of Love, and her latest collection of poems, Poet on the Roof of the World.
Matthew Mulder, one of the original members of the Traveling Bonfires, his poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Small Press Review, The Indie, H_NGM_N, and other publications.
Brian Sneeden has produced, designed or written for more than a hundred theatrical performances. He is the current director and MC of Asheville Vaudeville.
Coffeehouse Junkie 