Creating for Yourself Instead of Your Clients

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is a big day for me. I’ve been building up to this for a few months and now that it’s finally here… Well, it’s hard to really express exactly what’s going on in my head. Today, the cover for book 1 in my brand new series is being revealed to the world.

Frankly, it’s terrifying. How are people going to react? What if they hate it? And, worse, what if no one cares enough to look?

I’m sure everyone feels this way when they put a new creation out in the world. Artists (and by that I’m including all producers of creative works) put their hearts out there when they share a new Thing They Did. We all want these Things to be well-received. At the least, even a negative reaction can be a positive. It means you did something that elicited some sort of response. Someone looked.

Today is like that for me, only this is a little different than what many authors may experience on cover reveal day. Most of them don’t design covers, especially not in a professional capacity. Yes, these images are representatives of the words contained in that package, but if it’s not well-liked they can point to someone else and say “THAT GUY’S FAULT”. Me? I can’t do that, because, in this case, I’m the cover designer.

If you didn’t know, designing book covers is what I do. Usually, this is for other people. Yes, that’s still my art going out into the world, but I have zero control of what happens to it after that and I’m not accountable for the story contents. There’s a disconnect in ownership after I release a client’s cover. That image becomes their herald, not mine. Not to say that I don’t do every job to the best of my ability, but, quite often, once the job is done, it’s done. I move on to the next one. You know. Work.

Designing a cover for yourself is so much more personal. In many ways, I will always be my own biggest critic and this cover speaks to that. The hours I sunk into searching through stock photos to find the exact model I wanted… you don’t want to know. As the author, I knew very specifically what I was looking for as far as representation went. The character featured on my cover has been a fixture in my head for years. I know her extremely well. In many ways, being the author makes my job as a designer harder because of that intimate knowledge. I finally had to “settle” for the most similar person I could find. I tell this to my clients all the time: we’re looking for representative, not literal depictions. Swallowing that bit of reality was painful, but at least now my clients can rest assured that I know how tough it is to take. It’s hard to listen to your own advice!

Another difference in designing for myself versus for others is the time I could take with the project. I don’t rush any job, but I had months to sit on this image, to tweak it during downtime, to scrutinize every last pixel. It was probably fine when I “finished” it the first time, but, like they say, art is never finished, only abandoned. I had to force myself to stop before I ruined it. Seriously. This cover is live now and I’m fighting myself to not open it in Photoshop again.

So, I’m sure I’ll go through this anxiety all over again when Maven goes live on June 3rd. Probably worse, actually. It’s the first long-form fiction I’ve released since The Dreamer’s Thread podcast in 2009. Will others see the change and growth in my writing? I certainly hope so. After four years, I think I’ve learned a thing or two!

Above all else, though, I hope people look.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Description of Maven:

How far would you go for love?

Since losing her parents at 14, young prodigy Dr. Lydia Ashley has focused on one thing: an appointment on the Deep Water Research Command Endure. Now 21, she’s about to realize that dream, but nothing is how she imagined it would be. Her transitional sponsor forgets her, her new lab is in complete chaos, and, as if that weren’t enough, she’s about to discover something so horrific it could potentially destroy all life on the planet. 

Daniel Brewer, a noted playboy and genius in his own right, may be exactly what she needs… Or he may make everything worse.

Has she finally found a puzzle she can’t solve?

New Paradigms in Publishing: Creativity from the Business End of Books

So, I am a writer.

I have no problem saying that. I know many creative types that hold back on calling themselves “writers”, “painters”, “sculptors”, etc. Why? Because they may not make a living at it. And we are defined by how we make a living, right?

Wrong.

We define ourselves. And even though I have a day job that pays the bills (almost), I define myself as a writer because that is what I do. I write. I create. I put words on the screen and that turns into paper books and ebooks that I sell. Can I support my family that way? No. But Van Gough couldn’t support himself with his painting alone and he is called a painter. I write therefore I am. Or something like that.

But, beyond the defining name of writer, I am also a businessman. An entrepreneur, if you will. I make half my income from my writing. That’s a pretty big deal. I have always, for most of my life, looked for the perfect small business to start. I’ve had a vegetarian jerky company (true story, tasty jerky), I have been an independent sales rep, and I have a massage school degree. But it wasn’t until writing happened for me did I find my business niche.

Who knew being creative would actually pay off?

The thing is, with writing as a business, is that there is no manual or plan that leads to success. Is there with other businesses? To a certain degree, yes. If you open a café in a good location, with a good menu, and good prices, and good marketing (and work your ass off) then you will have good success. With writing, though, you can have a great novel at a great price and have great marketing, but it can still flounder. Why?

Nobody knows.

That’s the thing about publishing, which is really the business I am in, no one has a freaking clue what will sell and what won’t.

This is why I have opened my writing career up to my fans and readers and I’m asking them to choose my next novel. (You can read all about it here). Since no one, from massive multinational publishing megagiant to little ole self-publisher, knows what will be a hit and what will be a miss I realized that I needed to go to the source. I had to ask the readers what they wanted instead of writing my next novel and forcing it on them in the hopes it is exactly what they are looking for.

What I’m doing isn’t so revolutionary. Many industries have focus groups after focus groups and take poll after poll to see what their customers want. You think Taco Bell just happened to throw the Doritos Taco up on the menu for shits and giggles? No way, Jose. They market tested that puppy before the first one was even wrapped and handed to a salivating code monkey. But, for a writer to hand over the direction of their next project to the readers? Crazy mad!

Or is it?

Why wouldn’t I ask? Why would I waste a couple months on a novel that only a small percentage of my fans want to read? Why go to all the expense of publishing something that may or may not sell? Isn’t that really madness?

Why gamble?

Ah, there is the key. Gambling. It is well known in publishing that you aren’t in the book business. You are in the gambling business. And I don’t gamble. My game of choice? Poker. That’s not gambling. Not when you know how to play. I hate gambling. It’s a waste of time and money. I want to know I have at least some control over the outcome. Random throw of the dice? Watching a ball spin, spin, spin until it stops on whatever number/color it stops on? Pull a lever and pray? Come on 21? Nope, not for me.

Does my novel experiment have risks? Sure. Everything does. There are no sure things in life. If you are told otherwise then you are being lied to. No such thing as sure things. Chaos rules existence and always will. But I fancy myself a chaos surfer. I like to hop in and see where I end up. That is why I have taken the risk of handing my creative direction to hundreds of people I may or may not even know. Most of them I do not know. They are total strangers.

But they are readers, fans, customers.

Is the customer always right? No, of course not. But they are the ones with the dollars in hand and how they spend those dollars, that process of exchanging money for goods, is always right. I’m just hoping the customers’s/fans’s/readers’s choice of my next novel matches their desire to exchange money for the goods.

If it doesn’t  Well then it was a good experiment and I’m just right back where I started. Just hanging out with all the writers, publishers, agents, book industry folks, waiting to see what novel hits the wall and sticks. Either way I am cool.

Why?

Because I’m a writer. And I’ll still get to write. And that is what matters.

 

Editors note added on May 5, 2013~

Jake’s readers and fans have selected his next novel and you can pre-order it HERE.