Marketing Images for Books and E-Books.

It's hard to believe that this book marketing image was originally created using pencil-crayons, typing paper cut-outs and scotch tape on black bristol board. The text was added with Paint.NET.

When I shot the picture, the flash was turned on, and it resulted in a big spot of glare, and I thought the shot was ruined. However, I stuck it into Nero Photosnap and fiddled around with lightness and contrast, as well as the different colour channels. I also probably sharpened it up, although it was some time ago.

The next in the Shalako Publishing series of PODs, (print on demand) paperbacks will be, 'The Case of the Curious Killers.' It will be another 5 x 8" book. Recalling how it felt to hold the 'On the Nature of the Gods,' paperback, with its really good cover art, I am looking forward to uploading this one on CreateSpace and seeing what it looks like.

That's no reason to rush the process, and as long as I can put out one a month or so the schedule is fine. It also leaves me open to other things, not the least of which is to get out in the fresh air after a long winter. That one should be out in the first week of May, followed by 'The Shape-Shifters' in June.

Oh, I almost forgot: here's an excerpt from, 'The Case of the Curious Killers,' a kind of space-opera.

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The music had a syncopated, throbbing, thumping bass-line. A ragged cheer went up from clumps of youthful aliens here and there, and they came running out to the center, forming up in couples, trios, quads and odd-numbered formations. The biggest was a v-shaped formation, which looked like a club, due to the striped colours of their knee-length silken t-shirts.


This was merely the overture. He observed in fascination, as the bodies, including more of the alien types, began moving in a curious, shambling gait. Hartle caught the rhythm, and began to groove a little himself, conscious that he danced like a white man at the best of times. Their bizarre, long-armed, bandy-legged, ape-like shuffle was intriguing; he had to admit. As the music and the people began to speed up, he became aware that Sim was trying to grab his elbow and not having much luck.

“We must get off the dance floor.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I want to see this.”

“Watch from the side of the room!” Sim was practically shouting at him now.

He agreed a little unsteadily as they tried to make their way. What had been an empty, open space, was now covered in whirling dervishes, gymnasts, acrobats…when he felt the first hard elbow graze his rib cage it took a while to sink in.

“Excuse me, neighbours.”

The trio spun away. Then he took another hard one to the ribs just above the left kidney.

“That was a punch!” Sim was plainly frightened now.

A rock-solid, chitinous body slammed into him and he went down. He heard a shrill keening sound from the creature as he kicked upwards viciously. It scuttled right over him, putting a barbed foot-pod partly in his mouth, and suddenly his rage cracked wide open.

“Get your dirty alien mating-claspers off me, you creepy thing!” He shouted, all vestiges of courtesy and deportment gone.

Rolling and tumbling, he came up in a half crouch, hoping the thing was hurt real bad.

“Have your lost your marbles?” He bellowed at Sim. “You should have told me about the dancing.”

A quad of dancers, moving quickly in his left peripheral vision, targeted him. After a flurry of mutually exchanged blows with various members of the group, just as suddenly they broke off to engage another quad approaching. Hartle was furious, and came up again like a mongoose battling to make a cobra its dinner.

He ran at the bunch who had just attacked him, only to be grabbed and spun around, and he lost sight of them in eddies and currents of the dance. Lifting a leg and straightening it out real quick, Brendan managed to kick the boy who had grabbed him right in the face. There was a hot gush of satisfaction as the splash of blood vented. The boy’s two partners dragged him away by the legs, trailing bright yellow goo across the highly polished black tiles.

He had one brief moment of relative peace while the ebb and flow continued, and always that beat. Brendan gasped for air, with Sim beckoning from fifty metres away. Rival groups were attacking each other, and always, in time to the beat. Two big crabs came at him and he leaped on the nearest one’s head. Hartle tried to twist its antennae off by grabbing one and yanking as hard as he could. He kneed it in the side between two legs as he did so. The scream was so loud it startled him and he leaped off again with no trophy. He bared his teeth and growled and they both ran away.

Only fifty metres! In this crowd, it might as well be the other side of the Goddamned Galaxy!

“Fuck you all! Fuck all of you!” He stomped back and forth spitting mad. “Come on, you gutless fuckin’ little pukes.”

He bellowed, and then he was running at the wall of deadly dancers. Surreal in its bizarre incongruity, a spotlight followed him as he ran…

Wetness, warm and sticky, clouded his left eye. He brushed at it with a sleeve, and crashed into the line. Something in someone cracked with a brittle sound, and there came another shrill cry. His head jolted into his neck, there was greyness and stars, literally a flash of light in his head. He was pounding a fist into something’s abdomen. There was madness in him.

He lifted a knee into an obvious spot but got no response. He jabbed a thumb into its eye and it thought better of continuing the encounter. Again, someone raked his belly but it was a glancing strike and the clothing snagged and protected him. He popped it one in the kisser. Spinning, he was all arms and legs. A hole opened in the crowd, and he took a running, jumping dive, sliding to a halt right at Sim’s feet.

It was an oasis of peace and a kind of relative quiet here on the edge of the dance floor. Rolling over, he laid there, hoarse breath rasping in his throat. A semi-circular gaggle of citizens, all dressed in their Easter Bonnets and finery stared down at him.

“That was very impressive, young man.” An older female something or other with green eyes and head shaved bald stared at him through huge blue plastic pince-nez.

Four football-sized breasts heaved under her thin white blouse.

“You’re the best dancer we’ve seen tonight, at least so far.” Very upper class, you could tell by the diction, the terse elocution.

Maybe it had something to do with the long yellow bill, like a spoonbill or an egret. He got up stiffly.

“May I ask a personal question?”

She nodded, beckoning for something in a champagne-style glass. She only had four fingers, perhaps evolved from something like the tip feathers on a condor? Wow.

“What’s that thing sticking out of your ass?”

“It’s my tail, young man. We’re from Gallienus. We’re descended from avians.” She explained with a gracious nod.

“You’re very beautiful.” She simpered back at him and pecked at her stemware, filled with little multi-faceted pellets about three millimetres in diameter.

They were red and black. He had his breath back. She really was beautiful, in her own way. Her obviously male companion whispered in her ear and the pair of them giggled, nuzzling and cooing over some private joke, like mourning doves nestling together on a branch in winter.

END

Utopia 101: When all books were created equally well.

What if we lived in Utopia? What if every book in the marketplace was a great book? What if, the editorial gate-keeping process ensured that every book regardless of genre, whether it was fiction or non-fiction, self-help or sheer escapism, met all the critical criteria of ‘a great book?’ What if no one who bought one felt ripped off, or disappointed, or let down in any way? What if nice, safe profit margins were just assigned to publishers, and so they could even take a few risks, and publish books they loved but thought maybe wouldn’t sell too well?

Is it even possible? What makes a great book on diamond cutting might not be too interesting to some readers. Reading Tolkien might not be very suitable for an apprentice diamond cutter who just wants to learn his trade. It would be useless. Surely, we would have the wit to choose our own book purchases from a long list of titles in every category imaginable.

It seems evident that in a world where all books were somehow created equally well, none could really stand out above the crowd, yet genre-preferences would enable some to enjoy greater financial success than other, equally good books. There are far fewer readers who actually want to read a book on diamond cutting. Lots of people want to read fiction, including fantasies like ‘The Hobbit.’ Would it be necessary to review books, or couldn’t we just stick our hand in a bin labeled ‘fantasy,’ and pull out something equally good, every time, on the very first try? How would all equally good books be priced? Shouldn’t all hard cover titles cost the same, and wouldn’t all trade books in a certain size be the same price? It’s only fair, right? They’re all ‘equally-good,’ right? Ebooks, where there are no material costs, would be equally priced—and cut right to the bone…right?

(Would this impair or promote ‘competition?’ Amongst whom, the publishers, or the writers?) *

If every aspiring writer had to compete in the big leagues, going up against Jonathan Swift or ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ or ‘War and Peace’ their first time up to the plate, or if any brand-new non-fiction writer had to go up against ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,’ or maybe Winston Churchill, how would they do? You would be up against people who had first-hand knowledge and had lived the story.

They’d probably strike out, three times in a row, and they’d never get another ‘at-bat’ until hell froze over. That’s because there is a ‘glut’ of aspiring writers. The majority have little or no training, just a desire. In some cases, there is the desire to learn, in some perhaps not. We also have no experience. None. Not until we’ve done it a few times. It’s not enough to serve in the trenches to pay our dues. We have to go ‘over the top’ once or twice, taking the battle into the enemy’s camp. Only then do we know what it’s all about.

The good news is that all the rules of the game changed recently due to the rise of a newer technology, and new methods of publishing our work. We don’t have to take on Tolstoy or Voltaire our first time up to the plate. We don’t have to pursue agents and publishers for fifteen years or more until we get noticed. While some would argue that Amazon is itself a kind of vanity publishing, we can avoid the traditional vanity predators that still dot the landscape. Hey! We don’t even have to spend money on postage, ink and envelopes. This will not make things any easier. It’s just different from the way it was before. The playing field has been leveled and it is a sea of anonymous, hungry, and unwashed faces. The towers that dot the landscape are now isolated, cut of from water and sources of supply, and heavily outnumbered. They cannot withstand long years of siege.

There has always been independent publishing. Take a pdf on a CD and go to a local printer. Get an estimate. Get some books printed. There has always been vanity publishing. Take a CD and go to a vanity publisher. Hand them the file and a cheque. If this was the extent of the business plan, it generally failed. The difference is that now it is easy, and it is also free. The game is open to anyone who fancies themselves as a writer. Now, my plan involves slow but steady growth over the long term. It’s not glamorous, and it’s not going to make any headlines, but to rely on an instant bestseller is infantile.

The world of business, mean and arbitrary, Darwinian as it is, evolves constantly. We either evolve with it, or we will be consumed by it. Over the short term, I just need to learn my new environment, to discover and adapt its resources to my needs.

For those with the right attitude, this represents the opportunity of a lifetime. For others, it represents a big survival challenge. If competition improves the breed, then we must assume the survivors, better yet, those who thrive, to be the fittest, the smartest and the fastest when it comes to meeting those challenges. They will be those with adaptable skills and staying power. They will endure. One of their challenges is the writing of a good book. It goes with the territory.

It looks like those authors who learned their trade by the old model might still have some advantages. This is only true in the short term. They have a following, an audience. But they also have to learn a few new tricks, or they simply won’t survive. They might have to forgo the safety net that a major publisher has always provided. This was something that aspiring writers always prayed for. An agent. An editor. A proofreader and a typesetter, and a cover designer, a few good marketing and promotions people. Some of this old infrastructure will have to adapt, or perish.

We will have to learn the basics of promotion, in a new, online environment. Independents will have to look, for the most part, to the readers for their validation. In an industry which is in some small part fueled by vanity—hence all the vanity predators—there must also be some massive insecurities. This sometimes manifests itself in a sense of moral outrage. To think that some anonymous, hungry and unwashed person would engage in that most anti-social of all activities, the writing of a book, and try to compete with the big boys…well, it’s just wrong. And all the wrong sort of people want to do it. The book is the most revolutionary tool I can think of in terms of human evolution. Hell, even business evolution. I guess you could say they just don’t like it. They don’t want to be our colleagues, and maybe they don’t have to.

It is a free country, after all, or about the closest we have ever come to Utopia.

Please feel free to contribute a comment or observation to this piece.

*Does war impair, or promote, commerce? If you can answer this question, you are a hell of a lot smarter than I am. Anyway, you probably just got it out of some classic and well-regarded old book, written by some brash young feller who was considered a ‘radical’ for his time and place.