I finally had time to allocate an hour. I'm glad I did, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps it's my age, wanting to slow down. Meredith is just speeding up.
Meredith is a real dynamo. Not only attractive, which helps, but she's very gregarious and kind of a woman of all trades when it comes to writing. She seems to know a lot more than me, just doing her first novel--amazing!
I have done most of my covers, primarily to make sure that the reader will know what the book is about. And for search engine purposes, I've tried to avoid titles that are the same as other books out there. But that is getting harder with so many people publishing and writing books these days the same title I've had online for years.
On one of my earlier books I shared by email with family and friends several concepts for covers. Got some good advice. But haven't done that since. For my most selling book, I hired an award-winning professional. While the book is attracting readers and sales, the cover is way to apocalyptic for me. The book starts with fires and the cover shows it very well on both the front and back. But most of the book is very green and jungle like, and he missed that part of it altogether. Unfortunately, he gives me only one chance to make minor revisions. On my bookshelf, the title is way too dark. I wish I had an opportunity now to change the color to a color that could be seen more easily from a distance amid the dark fire raging above ravaged buildings.
For my last cover I enlisted my nephew, a talented artist. Working as a heating mechanic in midwinter Wisconsin, he didn't have time and only sent me pencil sketches on sepia. They were good, but I was looking for full-color illustrations. I only had three and put them all in the book. The one I chose shows my protagonist at 16 with his horse and dog. Unfortunately, anyone seeing the cover might think it was a book for youngsters rather than the life story of the grandson of the Iceman of the Alps, and his killer by unfortunate circumstance in the first chapter. There was one head sketch of him as a grown man, but it wasn't enough for the cover.
Meredith made me wish I had joined Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tick-Tok, and the like. But I had my own website by 1997 and certainly didn't want to spend all of my time keeping all of those threads up to date, like I keep Authors Den, while trying to maintain my thousand pages on my website. But again, people will want to watch her videos because she is part performer and actress… I am not. I have made many videos, but they are all on my obscure MyTube on my website rather than on YouTube where I should've put them from the very beginning… Sigh.
It was interesting that she apparently, was determined and is determined to get an agent. I'm beginning to think that the big houses and agents are like stockbrokers. The big houses may survive if they stop using agents and just go for those who have the most hits on the various Internet platforms. I have a poem with 23,000 views that was taught in a couple of high schools for a few years, but that's it.
As far as comparables, I don't have any problem with where my books fit on a library shelf by their titles and genres.
All in all, a very informative interview with Meredith, thank you.
I finally had time to allocate an hour. I'm glad I did, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps it's my age, wanting to slow down. Meredith is just speeding up.
Meredith is a real dynamo. Not only attractive, which helps, but she's very gregarious and kind of a woman of all trades when it comes to writing. She seems to know a lot more than me, just doing her first novel--amazing!
I have done most of my covers, primarily to make sure that the reader will know what the book is about. And for search engine purposes, I've tried to avoid titles that are the same as other books out there. But that is getting harder with so many people publishing and writing books these days the same title I've had online for years.
On one of my earlier books I shared by email with family and friends several concepts for covers. Got some good advice. But haven't done that since. For my most selling book, I hired an award-winning professional. While the book is attracting readers and sales, the cover is way to apocalyptic for me. The book starts with fires and the cover shows it very well on both the front and back. But most of the book is very green and jungle like, and he missed that part of it altogether. Unfortunately, he gives me only one chance to make minor revisions. On my bookshelf, the title is way too dark. I wish I had an opportunity now to change the color to a color that could be seen more easily from a distance amid the dark fire raging above ravaged buildings.
For my last cover I enlisted my nephew, a talented artist. Working as a heating mechanic in midwinter Wisconsin, he didn't have time and only sent me pencil sketches on sepia. They were good, but I was looking for full-color illustrations. I only had three and put them all in the book. The one I chose shows my protagonist at 16 with his horse and dog. Unfortunately, anyone seeing the cover might think it was a book for youngsters rather than the life story of the grandson of the Iceman of the Alps, and his killer by unfortunate circumstance in the first chapter. There was one head sketch of him as a grown man, but it wasn't enough for the cover.
Meredith made me wish I had joined Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tick-Tok, and the like. But I had my own website by 1997 and certainly didn't want to spend all of my time keeping all of those threads up to date, like I keep Authors Den, while trying to maintain my thousand pages on my website. But again, people will want to watch her videos because she is part performer and actress… I am not. I have made many videos, but they are all on my obscure MyTube on my website rather than on YouTube where I should've put them from the very beginning… Sigh.
It was interesting that she apparently, was determined and is determined to get an agent. I'm beginning to think that the big houses and agents are like stockbrokers. The big houses may survive if they stop using agents and just go for those who have the most hits on the various Internet platforms. I have a poem with 23,000 views that was taught in a couple of high schools for a few years, but that's it.
As far as comparables, I don't have any problem with where my books fit on a library shelf by their titles and genres.
All in all, a very informative interview with Meredith, thank you.
Ron