Yesterday, the following post was featured on ACFW’s blog, but I wanted to make certain my regular readers got to see it.
It’s a bold new world for writers. No doubt about that. Not all that long ago, there was a traditional path to publishing that the vast majority of novelists followed. The digital age has changed things so much in the last two years, I hardly know where to begin.
It used to be I always discouraged any writer from self-publishing. Now I simply caution them to be careful. Don’t try to do it yourself if you aren’t willing or able to spend the money required to have your book professionally edited. Don’t do it if you aren’t prepared to create a marketing plan and follow it to the letter. And for pity sake, don’t slap a less-than-stellar cover on it that screams, Amateur!!! or Lazy!!! or Cheapskate!!!
Recently, I came across a three-in-one Anne of Green Gables book, released in November 2012. The cover is atrocious. Not because it is ugly but because it is so inappropriate. There was even a Publishers Weekly blog post about it. Here we see a 21st Century teenager with a sexy, come-hither look on her face. Blond, no less. This was supposed to be Anne Shirley?
Then I noticed this book was from CreateSpace, a self-publishing service. I realized then that someone took stories in the public domain, slapped a cover on them, and put the book up for sale on the Internet. Obviously without any thought to what the stories are about or when/where they are set (the first Anne of Green Gables was released in 1908).
Want to see when someone does self-publishing right? ACFW member Kristin Billerbeck recently went that route with her book, Swimming to the Surface. The book is available as an ebook, but she also used CreateSpace for the print version. However, judging by the cover alone, no one (outside of the writers who obsess about such things) would know this book wasn’t released by a major publisher. It is professional in every way, right down to the recognizable font used in her name.
I’m not saying traditional publishing houses always get covers right. They don’t. And sometimes they listen to authors and sometimes they turn a deaf ear. They have control But if you are going the self-publishing route, control is in your hands. Use it to make good decisions. Learn what makes a book cover “pop,” especially when viewed as a thumbnail on the Internet.
It’s a brave new world out there. Here’s to your publishing success.
~robin
