Don't Judge a Book by It's Cover

Don’t judge a book by its cover.  We’ve all heard that expression.  It’s certainly well-intentioned, but not very practical.  Don’t we ALL judge books by their covers?  Isn’t the cover what prompts us to take a closer look at a given book?  The eye catching artwork draws us to read the blurb, then maybe thumb through the first few pages.  Some might say it's the title which attracts their attention.  But where does one find the title?  On the cover of course.  The same can be said for the author.

What the author of this saying meant was that we shouldn’t prejudge based on appearance.  That is, in theory, a good idea.  But consider this scenario.  You pull a bowl of leftovers out of the refrigerator.  It looks like a science fair project.  Do you really need to smell it, let alone taste it, to know it has turned?

They also tell us: “You only have one chance to make a first impression.”  If we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, then why do we worry about making a good first impression?  So if a cover gives a negative impression, whose fault is it?

Which leads me to my current dilemma.  My third novel is ready to upload with the exception of ONE thing: cover art.  The cover IS very important.  Every article I ever read about publishing a book stresses the importance of cover art.  Kindle has another factor to consider.  Not only do you need an eye catching cover, it has to catch people’s eye as a tiny thumbnail image.  I have a vision, but bringing it to fruition has been difficult.  Perhaps I need a new vision?

At any rate, here are my first two covers.  The art for Soul Searching was my own photography. The cover for Apocalypse Road came from a web site which offers free artwork.

Click here for Soul Searching, a novel by Rick Armstrong, available for Kindle from Amazon.com	Click here for Apocalypse Road, a novel by Rick Armstrong, available for Kindle from Amazon.com

I will have to come up with something for my third novel's cover, because people will most certainly base their judgement on that one factor to decide if they even want to see what its about.

My Fantasy Turret

Are any fellow writers reading my blog?  I have a question.  Do you ever wish you had a turret to which you could retreat and create?  I can picture myself in a haven for my creativity.  Like most of my fantasies, it quickly grew out of hand.  Yes, a turret would be perfect, with its only access being a winding staircase.  It would, however, need certain accoutrements.  A coffee pot would be a must, as would a small fridge.  Since coffee requires water and clean-up, a sink would be necessary.  A microwave would be nice, too.  Sounds like I should just turn the kitchen into my writing room. 

Unfortunately, the kitchen tends to be the busiest room in our home.  We have something of a commune at our house.  It is never quiet, and I am never alone.  At its peak, we had 10 people, a dog, and a cat, all in a two bedroom house.  In all honesty though, they weren’t ALL in the house; we had two tents in the back yard.  We have leveled off at eight, after two left, taking the cat with them, but that still makes for quite a crowd.  And loud considering two of them are small children aged one and four. 

So my “turret” is now wherever I take my laptop.  I prefer my desktop, but it resides in our living room.  Its fine in times of minimal activity, but when life gets too revved up, I have to go somewhere quiet.  To keep my writing synched between the two computers, I’m using Google Drive and Google Docs.  As a word processor it is basic.  But I have not as yet found any of its limitations to be a problem.   

On the writing front, I’m making progress on my next novel, and even have an idea for a future work.  And more on the commune situation, coming soon. 

Can a dog hear peanut butter hitting bread at 50 yards?

Can a dog hear peanut butter hitting bread at 50 yards?
OK, here I am.  It’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m working on a project.  Everyone in the house is asleep, except for me.  The dog is snoring away in the bedroom with my wife.  I get a little hungry.  Good time for a peanut better sandwich, I think.  So I quietly get up, not allowing my chair to squeak and make my way to the kitchen.  Without rustling the plastic bag, I take out two slices of bread and lay them on the counter.  From the cupboard I take the peanut butter, from the refrigerator, the butter.  OK, it’s some kind of perpetually soft butter substitute.  I get a knife from the drawer.  All this is in Ninja mode, not making a sound.  I spread the imitation butter on one piece of bread, and peanut butter on the other.  In silence I return the spread to the fridge and the peanut butter to the cupboard.  I start back to the computer and there I see it.  The dog, lying on the floor in front of my chair.

I love our dog.  She is our baby girl. And whenever I make a sandwich, she gets the last bite.  It was a family tradition my dad started when I was a kid and I have continued it today through all the dogs we’ve had.  I don’t so much MIND her waiting for her due.  I just want to know how she does it.  She was ASLEEP… in the OTHER ROOM… I made NO noise.  But there she is.  Are her ears really good enough to hear peanut butter hit bread at 50 feet?  Or maybe she’s psychic.  Now there is a scary thought.

There is Nothing Wrong with: “It was a dark stormy night”

There is nothing wrong with this much maligned opening line.  The FULL opening line tells a different story.

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

The criticism of “It was a dark story night,” was not earned all on its own.  It had help. A LOT of it from the long run on sentence reminiscent of the hook in an agent query letter.  So “It was a dark stormy night” in and of itself is NOT a bad thing. 

What if your story starts out on a dark stormy night?  What if it’s actually an integral part of the opening scene?  I can’t very well have my heroine, running from her abusive husband; put her car into a ditch on a beautiful sunny day can I?  “It was a beautiful sunny day.  The sky was clear to the horizon, and the sun beating down heated the surface of the roadway giving her tires extra grip.  That would make her look incompetent behind the wheel.  You can excuse her if it was dark, it was stormy, and the dirt road had turned into very slippery mud.

This all came to mind because I have been thinking about my third, but as yet unpublished completed novel.  Still working on cover art.  I had an concept, but it just didn’t fit in the vertical format of a book cover.  Back to the old drawing board.  That was all it took for me to wonder if I should give it one more read through.  I hate it when I do that.

Inspiration Strikes

I have had a flash of inspiration lately.  I have found that happens when it comes time to work on promotion.  After creating two rough outlines for my next novel, a pre-post apocalypse story, I didn’t like my sequencing.  My order of peak moments just didn’t work.  The hero's motivations wouldn't work.  I was stumped for a few days.  Then I remembered something I learned at a writing seminar.

The instructor, author Jaimie Engle, spoke about writing techniques. One of them was writing in scenes.  Jaimie said that it doesn’t work for her, but a friend uses it all the time.  She writes her scenes on note cards, and then rearranges them until it suits her.  I've never been a note card kind of guy.  I've been spoiled by the computer.  I need my cut and paste when I write.
 
To that end, I have started a list of scenes, added notes, and in some cases begun filling in the details.  So far so good, but I’m still in the early stages.  At the very least, I will end up with the high points of my story, which I will piece together.  It seems to suit me as I tend to bounce around a lot anyway as the creative juices ebb and flow from one direction to another.  Sometimes working on a particular scene, I am inspired to add a character trait.  Then off I go to my character bios to add them there.  It’s a little ADDish, but it seems to be working.  Hmm, I wonder if that means something.

Beginning my Book Promotions

Advertising isn’t what it used to be.  In days gone by advertisers hit you with a pitch that encouraged you to buy.  It was a sheer numbers game.  Get your ad in front of as many people as possible, and SOME will buy.  The internet alone didn’t change that.  In the early days of the World Wide Web, advertising was still delivered in a similar manner.  But social media changed all of that.  Advertising has become interactive, and to be successful it requires more than just blasting out your sales pitch.  You have to develop an online presence and interact with your audience. 

Developing an online presence isn’t something that happens overnight.  You can’t just set up profiles on all of the social media sites and post “You’ll love my book.  Buy it Now!”  That’s why it’s called “developing.”  Developing takes time.  Building a following takes time.  And the only way to build a following is to give people a reason to follow you, and interact.

At first I looked with dread and the marketing and promotional aspects of my books.  But now I’m excited.  In a moment of self discovery, I realized it was getting started that caused me trepidation.  It seemed like such a huge job, one that had to be repeated for each and every web site on which I wanted to have a presence.  My first instinct was to put it off “until I had more time.”  THAT will never happen.  It’s like in writing, the often heard lament of: “I have this great idea but I don’t have time to write.”

Soooooo, I am starting with Goodreads.com.  It took a little over a week to take possession of my author page.  Sure I would have liked it to be instantaneous, but I know these things can take time.  I’ve filled in most of the profile, wondered if my bio needs work, and realized I can have fun rating and/or reviewing all of the books I have ever read.

Yes, I am looking forward to developing my presence on Goodreads, and adding other sites as well.  And maybe, somewhere, I’ll make the time to work on my next novel.

People ARE Reading my Work!

I’m pleased with the activity on my latest novel Apocalypse Road.  I’m getting page reads at a rate of about 5,000 per month (from Kindle Unlimited subscribers,)  and have even sold a few copies outright.  Not bad but considering all I have done is post it to my Facebook page once. 

Early in my research on Kindle promotions I thought I had read “don’t bother with the big sites until you have 4 or 5 reviews.”  Inwardly, I dreamed of becoming an overnight sensation; don't we all?  Realistically I expected it to sell a few copies to friends who would say "It was very nice," after which it would disappear into a black hole never to be mentioned again.  Even after a free giveaway of my first novel Soul Searching, I only had 1 review.  5 seemed impossible.  I thought “why bother.”  Why bother promoting it. If I had to wait until I had reviews, then it was hopeless to expect I’d ever get listed on “the big sites.” 

Apparently, I was misinformed.  Goodreads.com found ME.  They list both of my novels.  I even have 2 ratings, but no reviews, for Apocalypse Road.  After a quick bit of research, I learned about Goodreads Author Program.  So  I created a reader account, and claimed my author page.  Apparently there ARE sites worth joining that don't exclude beginning authors.  They say it will take awhile to process my claim, but once it goes through, I will have to start more serious promotion.

Time to find more such sites.  More to come....