June is Book Cover Month at The Writer’s Chatroom. On Wednesday we talked about A Clockwork Orange. The conversation centered around a post entitled The best book covers of all time: 50 coolest book covers on a Website called ShortList. Sunday we are having a look at What Makes a Good Book Cover.
There are a million book covers out there—some amazing, some not so much. What separates the heroes from the zeroes and how can you create a book cover that
achieves its goals and gets people talking? In this post, I’ll explain what makes a compelling book cover and how you can improve your cover illustration game.
Business of Illustration
A good book cover generates sales
It communicates a variety of things
The genre
The audience
The tone
What the book is about
Immediacy
Uniqueness
Integration of type and art
Would you pick this up?
Final Words
Creating a successful book cover takes a lot of work. But if you can approach it from a buyer’s perspective that will help immensely. After all, the
cover is ultimately a sales tool. By remembering it’s goal, addressing the audience, and crafting something unique and immediate that stands apart in the marketplace, you can greatly improve your covers.
Let's start off with an informal chat about what makes a good book cover.
Nah, let's go all the way. Why is the particular book cover above, CLOCKWORK ORANGE listed as #1 on the Best book covers of all time?
Title: A Clockwork Orange Author: Anthony Burgess Artist: David Pelham
Designed ten years after the book's first publication, to coincide with the release of the 1971 film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick, this iconic cover was designed and realised by Pelham in a single night after an illustrator's first attempt was deemed inadequate. The Cog-eyed Droog design was thus adopted and
instantly became a design classic.
Please, you have got to help me out on this one because I am clueless.
Chat begins at 8PM EDT
Sunday’s Chatroom Topic will be The Personal Essay
We have been talking about writing memoirs for most of the month so I thought we could wrap up May with The Personal
Essay.
**I have lifted some info from The Write Life. I realize a previous topic on what not to do in a memoir got me into some
trouble with an unhappy author. I hope I was able to smooth things over with her.
When you don’t quite agree with something, say so, it enriches our chatroom experience. I don’t always agree with everything
I bring into the newsletter or blog.
Common mistakes while writing an essay about yourself
Here are eight common mistakes you should avoid when writing a personal
essay:
1. Using essay to vent
Writers often use an essay as an opportunity to express a moralistic stand, rant about a controversial issue or vent about a family
member. Don’t.
2. Clearing your throat on the page
Most first drafts I critique come with at least three lines of superfluous throat-clearing that can easily go without impacting the
piece.
3. Writing long… way too long
Don’t be afraid of the butcher knife.
When you’re revising and polishing an essay, make sure what you’ve written is tight — there are no unnecessary words, no superfluous anecdotes and no
nonsense!
4. Overlooking day-to-day life as essay fodder
An essayist’s job is to extract universal meaning from the mundane facts and experiences of life.
5. Using lazy language
Many writers tend to use words and phrases repeatedly.
6. Being afraid of dialogue
Using direct dialogue is often more effective than telling the reader what someone said.
Instead of saying, “The pediatrician told us to get rid of our son’s thumb-sucking habit,” write “’If you don’t put a stop to his thumb-sucking before he’s
three, his teeth will be set and the damage will be done,’ warned our pediatrician.”
7. Holding back
If you’re determined to stay safely on the surface of your story, essay might not be the right form for you.
8. Taking rejection personally
Personal essays are deeply intimate, so it’s painful when editors reject them.
Most importantly, don’t forget to have fun. Writing is a deeply personal and challenging pursuit, but it should be an
enjoyable one, too.
Join us Sunday, May 24 at 7PM EDT at The Writer's Chatroom
Black Sheep Angry Birds and Memoir Writing
I have been gathering information to share for The Writer’s Chatroom Memoir Month for so long the actual word, “MEMOIR” began to
distract me. Just look at it.
I haunt a few Memoir Writers Groups on Facebook and discovered many people feel compelled to write because they consider
themselves a black sheep and simply want someone to validate and understand them.
Some writers are filtering their Memoir through a very dysfunctional lens. They are writing to simply get all the crap out
there. I call this the giant flipping off.
Another type of writer becomes very confused about the difference between Journaling, Therapy, and Autobiography.
Every life is unique, worthy of a movie about the life and times of you.
The challenge you’ll face is getting the story out of you. When we write, we often hear ourselves think. We scribble or
tap, we walk away, and we come back, sometimes hours, days or even weeks later. It’s then that we re-read our own words and decide on what is most important to us or to anyone else who may read it. This is a process but a really important one, engaging our brains and helping us become more concise in expressing ourselves as we become better and better at it.
When you write your Memoir you are writing the Story of You.
Those writing their memoirs often have a burning need to do so.
When you write a memoir, you are writing your version of what you think happened from your own perspective. Someone else might
have another version, and years and years later your perception of an incident might eventually change.
It’s also important to note why you should not write a memoir—and that is for revenge. Revenge does not serve anyone well. In
fact, the best revenge is to live a good life. It’s also difficult to read a memoir that judges rather than reflects upon the past. Take Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (1996), for example: he had a horrific childhood, but after reading his book, you empathize with him, but you don’t pity him. He wouldn’t have wanted that.
Your memoir is primarily pain focused, or an act of catharsis.
This problem often goes hand in hand with the first. Someone has experienced something traumatic, and as part of their therapy
or recovery, they write about the experience. Before long, they have a book-length work, and friends and family say (as a form of well-meaning support), “You should find a publisher.”
You probably shouldn’t. If your writing was:
undertaken as a way for you to deal with a painful experience
if that painful experience is in the recent past (within the last few years), and/or
if you have no other writing experience or ambition to publish …
… then publishing a memoir is rarely the next best next step. It’s great that you’ve used writing to aid in recovery, but it
doesn’t mean you have a book that will appeal to agents or big publishers.
Your memoir is really an autobiography.
This happens the majority of the time I read a memoir chapter outline or synopsis: it begins in childhood and ends in the
present day. In other words, it looks more like an autobiography.
You’ve written a series of vignettes. *
A vignette is a story that stands alone and is little more than an anecdote about your life. Some memoirs consist of nothing but
back-to-back vignettes. They might be beautiful and touching vignettes, but the manuscript lacks a narrative arc. There’s no real story; there’s no question that keeps us turning pages.
* This is what I had in mind last week. Now, I will reconsider.
I have included snippets from three blogposts. I hope before Month’s end you will check them out. Use what you want.. leave what
you don’t.
May is Memoir Month at the Writer’s Chatroom. We are getting a bit of a late start. Last chat, we talked a little about writing
a 500 word segment on some memorable event in our life.
We also talked about a Memoir being different from an Autobiography.
Let’s talk about creative ways to tell our stories.
Whether you curl up with memoirs on a frequent basis or pick one up every now and again, you know powerful memoirs have the capacity to take you, as a reader,
for an exhilarating ride.
When I teach people how to write and sell memoir, we talk about how to tell a compelling story. While all memoirs are different, the best memoirs all have certain elements in common.
My goal with this piece is to review some of those common elements, so you can weave them into your own memoir.
This is a fairly long post and there are 170 comments on the page. We won’t go through the whole thing in one evening.
Let me break it down a little bit and you can read it before chat, tomorrow.
How to write a memoir
If you’re planning to write a memoir, you’ll want to take your readers on a journey they won’t forget. In this post, we share tips for writing a memoir well,
as well as plenty of memoir examples.
Here’s how to write a
memoir.
Narrow Your Focus
Include more than just your Story
Tell the Truth
Put your Readers in Your Shoes
Employ elements of Fiction to bring your story to Life
Create an emotional Journey
Showcase your Personal Growth
The article ends with examples of types of Memoirs.
If you want to go ahead and work on an event from your life, go for it. Bring it to chat or hit Comment way down on the Writer’s
Chatroom Blog Page and put your words in there.
Chat begins at 8PM EDT on Wednesday May 13th
While We Own the Social Distancing thing, Let's own this Virus
“WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.”
May is Memoir Month
We are getting a bit of a late start. I'd like to go ahead and cover the topic from Wednesday before easing into the topic of memoir writing.
The Times they are a Changin'
Our world has been disrupted. It feels like we are in an episode of The Twilight Zone. As Writers we need to adapt.
We can work from just about anywhere but things like book signings and readings are out of the question.
Writers Conferences are going to be virtual for awhile.
Until the new world settles in we have brand new experiences, fears, triumphs and What Ifs to play with on the page.
This Covid-19 world is going to stay around, who knows, several months or a few years. Do you think readers are going to bury themselves in books? What genres will they choose?
In a Covid World, we may have a perfect profession. Our audience has limited travel but a book can take a reader anywhere imaginable and it will be a safe journey.
Maybe, Covid will give rise to a whole new genre. I wonder what it will be.
We already have the gift of being able to work from home, many of us are socially distant as a way of life. Now, our audience, our readers, will rediscover the freedom contained within the covers of a good book.
Drop into the chatroom at 7PM EDT on Sunday and let's talk about our advantages as writers.
Where is your Muse?
It is springtime. For most of you, anyway. We have been inside far too long. Now, we can all say we know what Cooped Up really is.
As parts of the world begin to reopen instead of taking time for reflection, wake up your muse and tell her you want to start looking forward.
Do you have a manuscript of two that could be dusted off and sent back into the submission circuit? Are you thinking about some virtual blog tours?
Have you been using this time to start new projects?
Poetry Month is wrapping up at the Writers Chatroom. Let's have a look back and a look forward.
Sunday is another Relaxed Topic Night. Join us at 7PM EDT
