Months ago, my esthetician recommended that I travel a different route to her salon. "It's much faster," she assured
me. "You miss all that traffic on Main Street." That sounded divine. As a long-time rider of New York's subway system,
I have no patience for street traffic. Mariana continued her hard sell of the new route, surely mistaking my
deer-in-headlights expression for incredulity.
I don't like to drive. Never have. I came to it late in life (at age 30, I was the youngest student in my five-hour
driving class in Manhattan) and view it as a necessary evil for anyone not living in New York or London. It's been 16
years since I've become licensed. Still, I have limited fluency in the language of the road. I've logged nearly 200,000
miles on my 14-year old Toyota Corolla yet I frequently get turned around when driving, especially in suburban or rural
areas unfamiliar to me. You can take the girl out of Manhattan...
So when Mariana kept pushing Ferguson Road, I blew her off.
But I've been feeling a little stuck lately. Nothing heavy, just the garden-variety ennui that pokes me in the ribs
every three years, saying, "What's your next step, huh? Huh?"
So, I decided to shake myself up a bit; try something new. I booked a solo trip to Vegas for this fall, went out
clubbing with some new girlfriends, did shots of Sicilian Kisses and finally took Ferguson Road home from the
salon.
A gorgeous road. Lined with magnificent trees, beautiful homes, and, best of all - not one traffic light all the way
to the highway. Yeehaw!
Then I wondered, "What took you so long?"
The prepublication feedback from readers is in. The verdict? They love the
book. It is fabulous if I do say so myself. However, many of the questions and comments demonstrated that I have
some structural issues to address. Also, I have to rewrite the introduction. Oy. The pains. Reading it objectively
after a few months' distance, it's clear that my thesis is well formed only in my heart. I'm still struggling to
clarify it on paper.
Last time, Gina recounted the seven-year journey of writing her third book,
Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road. In January 2007, she began her search for a book
designer. Here's what happened.
Based on the experience of my first two books and that I wanted to work with a designer who was geographically near,
I developed a list of criteria that I networked with associates who, for a variety of reasons, have graphic design
contacts:
- Located in New York, Connecticut or Massachusetts
- Experienced in general, with book design in particular
- Full-time, self-employed designer or with a small firm (vs. a sideline to a "day job")
- Wide-ranging graphic design experience (from illustration to digital layouts)
- Marketing and business sense as well as creative (vs. design for design's sake)
- Ability to interpret and act on feedback objectively in service to the project
- Comfortable with and experienced in digital media
- Where applicable, willingness to work directly with my printers and Webmaster to provide files in specified
formats
- Competitively priced
- Excited about the gig
Talent, of course, was a given.
I received four names. One designer had just taken a full-time job, so I crossed her off my list. Why? I know how
exhausting it is to work a full-time job and freelance on the side. I did it for three years. Long term, it's a grind
and, in the end, the steady paycheck wins, which means your freelance work suffers and your clients are not happy. In
this scenario, I would be the client.
A second designer had a nice portfolio; however, she was busy with existing clients and couldn't get to my book for
six months. Also, her fees were stratospheric - four times the range that the remaining two designers quoted. Besides,
I got the impression that she preferred corporate clients to independent authors. As a short-lived freelancer, I
completely understood this preference for a reliable income stream.
That left two designers (both pleasant people with impressive portfolios) who, based on our first in-person meetings,
met all of my above-listed criteria. They each were especially excited about breaking from the corporate client rut and
working with another artist.
Fabulous.
The next step in my process was to ask them to design book cover samples that would help me make my final decision
(I was upfront about working with both of them). I liked that they were professional enough to charge a reasonable fee
that would either serve as a deposit for the entire project - should that be the outcome - or full compensation for the
sample.
I provided them with an excerpt from the manuscript. I did not suggest specific images (I didn't have any in mind;
neither did I want to be overly directive). Rather, I asked each designer to visually interpret characteristics that I
wanted the cover to evoke:
- Target audience: female, 35 years of age and up;
- Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road is not a "travel book;" it is an
inspirational, motivational book that uses travel as a metaphor; and
- Compelling design that piques the curiosity of the target audience to pick up the book wherever they might see it
and look inside.
The creative process is iterative. Writers, dancers, visual artists, singers, photographers, and filmmakers do more
than one take before the paintings or photos are hung, the curtain rises, or the CDs distributed. Way more. That's why
I had no expectations for seeing my book's final cover in the first round of comps.
What I had hoped to see in these samples was how well each designer heard me, their unique interpretation of my
objectives and strong, confident designs. In short, I hoped to see a good start.
The designer I chose was the one who delivered 10 comps - all of which signaled that he had clearly heard me, eight
of which would have been great covers for a variety of travel/self-help books but not exactly right for mine, five of
which offered wide-ranging possibilities for my book's cover that never would have occurred to me, one of which I
instantly fell in love with but knew that the design delivered a message inconsistent with my book's thesis, and one
that become the cover for my third book.
Next time, Gina details how she asked (and received!) powerhouse endorsements for her second book in The Leap, Part 17: The Art of the Blurb.
Below are my three-word reviews for strong reads since my last newsletter. What you are
reading?
Non-Fiction
Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life
by Gregg Levoy
A forever treasure
Fiction
The Shape of Things
(stage play) by Neil LaBute
Tames Mamet's Oleanna
Veronika Decides to Die
(novel) by Paulo Coelho
Aftertaste is profound
Margaret from Andover, Conn., recommends:
The Kite Runner
(novel) by Khaled Hosseini
Tell me about your Symbol Life. How have your own metaphors for living shaped you? What leaps have you taken? I'd
love to hear about them.
Thanks for taking time to read my newsletter. I appreciate it and I'll be writing to you again in June.
E-mail this newsletter to a friend.
