Size Matters (But Not in the Way You Think)

Picture from I can has force.


Size Matters in the Indie world, but here I think smaller is better.  Blog posts are short, Twitter is short, Facebook updates are short.

On the net, everything is bitesize. 


There's a major theory that our attention spans are getting shorter.  We are not paying attention to the world around us.  We only read blogs with pictures (like the nice one of the lady with the strawberry ------------>) or short blog posts. 

Readers like things short.

There is also lots of things on the net that are free. 

With so many free things abounding, how do we make our readers buy our books?  Well, the books have to be good.  The free sample has to hook them in.  Make them desire our books. 

And give them content that's bitesize.

NY may have turned its back on novellas, but they are alive and well amongst the indies.  Cheap enough that the freebie loving internet generation doesn't immediately discount them, short enough that an author could write several a year (writing full-time, at the speed I write, I reckon I could turn out 3  novels a year - so a lot more novellas, then) and short enough that the internet generation with its goldfish attention span doesn't mind reading them.

I don't know if my attention span is as short as a goldfish, but I do know that, unlike some people who have recently experienced a complete about-face with regards to e-books, I'm not likely to get a Kindle anytime soon (they're not worth it in the UK yet) and as a result I'm much more likely to download and read a novella, especially an inexpensive one.





So let NY continue with its a year and a half to produce an over-priced and under marketed novel.  After The Guns of Pleasure and Death comes out, I'll be moving onto novellas for a while.  

How about you?  Do you fancy lots of short, good reads, or something more substantial.

The Typography of Book Covers

Here are some book covers by debut authors or unknown authors.

Now okay the thumbnails are small, but the similarities are easy to spot.

First of all, how many of these books have you heard of?  I've heard of the one on the end, that's it.  I'm very intrigued by the first two.  Definitely by the first one.

So, some interesting covers.  Number three is very generic (a fantasy that has people on horseback riding through the mountains.  My Gods, I must buy this at once.  Yeah, not so much...)

But what do they have in common?

Try some more covers, not all fantasies this time.

Do you see what they have in common?

In the first four pictures, the book title is given far more importance than the author's name.  Because the title is the selling point in these cases.  "Oh, Fallow Blade," says the bookshop browser.  "I wonder what that's about."  In the second lot of four we see a shift to "Oh, the next Terry Pratchett/Dan Brown/ whoever book.  I have to buy that."

The Unique Selling Point or USP (seriously, if you want to market your books effectively, you will need to learn marketing.  And that means learning things like USPs and how to do market research and so on) alters in the second batch of books to be about the author.

Interestingly, even by book seven, Harry Potter was still considered of far more importance than JK Rowling.  That's the power of branding.

So, for the debut author it seems that you're title should be at the top of the book.  Should it?  Readers are subconsciously targeted by the layout of your cover.  If you give your name all the attention, it might suggest to readers that you are far more well known than you actually are.  And having the readers subconsciously thinking "Hmm, this is a popular author," can't be a bad thing, can it?

Oh, and it's not lying, it's marketing.  Well, it is lying, but marketing IS LYING.  And we are having to compete with companies that have multi-million pound turnovers per annum.  We need whatever help we can get.

What do you think?  Where's the title going on your next book cover?

These book images are all copyrighted.  I don't own the copyright.  I have used them simply for illustrative purposes.  I am not claiming to be the author or publisher of any of these books.  If you are the author or publisher of any of these books and you wish me to remove the image, please email me at Chriskelly82*AT*aol.com, replacing the *AT* with an @.

Thank you.   

 

Indie vs self-published: is there a difference CLARIFIED Part 2

Hats.


I was talking about hats.  About Indie Publishing hats, to be precise.  If you haven't read Part 1 of this post, you'll find it here.  


Anyway, hats.


I'm not trying to steal the Indie Author hat from anyone.  There are a lot of great Indie Authors out there.  A whole community of them, and if I or any one of them wants to make it big we have to support each other.  This support, this community spirit, is what we can have that NY publishers can't. 

United we stand...

Alan Baxter started Blade Red Press to self-publish his own work.  He now also publishes anthologies of other people's work.  He's a sound guy and when we've emailed he's always given me good advice.  He has a couple of books out, and if you haven't given them a look you really should.

Zoe Winters I already mentioned in the last piece.  She has a 10 year plan, and I think she'll go really far.

These are just two of the awesome Indie writers out there.  There are hundreds, possibly thousands, more.  And the cool thing about being Indie is the freedom; the freedom to blur genres, to challenge the traditional (and quite often boring) mainstream fiction streams, the I-can-do-whatever-I-want (as long as it's good) mentality. 


We need to network.  We need to support each other.  That is exactly what I'm trying to do with The Guild and I really, really hope it takes off.  Zoe was writing the other day that Indie Readers (people who love Indie writers work but don't write themselves) are looking for more writers to read.

The bottom line for big publishers is £££££ or $$$$$.  For the Indies it's more about the creation, the joy of bringing something to life.  I can't wait until my book is released and some comments how much they liked it.  I'll be like "OhhhhhmyyyyyyyygooooodddddddssssssI'msquuueeeeeaaaammeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Yeah.

So, if you're an Indie and you think I insulted you, I am truly sorry.  I never wanted to do that.  I want us all to become a community, to support each other.  To link to each other's blogs, and point readers in each others direction.  Because they can read faster than we can write, and there's more of them than there is of us, and sharing is nice.

Big businesses, like NY Publishers, aren't interested in nice, and they aren't interested in customers.  They only care about the money, and that's why Indie Authors are threatening them.

PS, join The Guild.  It's free and I hope, hope, hope it will become the awesome resource that it could, easily, become. 

The Guild of Independent Authors.

I was looking for a forum geared towards Independent Authors, where I could meet other independent authors and ask for hints, tips and advice.  Where people even newer to the world of Indie publishing could ask me for advice.

I found

nothing.

Zero.  Zilch.  Zitch.

So I made one.

Come and join.  It's free, and right now, it's kind of empty.

The Guild of Independent Authors