Morning, everyone. Sarah asked me to put up a quick note to apologize for not having a chapter today. It seems the con crud she’s been fighting since LibertyCon has finally hit and is laying her low. She will be back for her regular post on Wednesday and a chapter next week.
In the meantime, here are some links for your consideration.
This is Sarah and I have a message for my friends and colleagues still trapped in and only in Traditional Publishing:
Look, people, you might choose to close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and believe that your publishers are your friends. They’re not.
Oh, okay, perhaps a small exception can be made for Baen books, a small family run company that treats its authors like family. The others?
They’ve made it very clear what you are. Widgets. Another can of beans. Burn your career (snap of fingers.) No skin off their noses. There are another ten . . . writers just like you in line waiting to break in.
On that same note, there is this article from across the ocean:
The ALCS set its findings against Department of Culture, Media and Sport figures which show that in 2014, the creative industries were worth £71.4bn per year to the UK economy. “In contrast to the decline in earnings of professional authors, the wealth generated by the UK creative industries is on the increase,” it said. “If unchecked, this rapid decline in the number of full-time writers could have serious implications for the breadth and quality of content that drives the economic success of our creative industries in the UK.”
Then, for those of you who have been following the, er, “discussion” on covers, experts and other things over at According to Hoyt, here is an awesome post by Dorothy Grant on cuing with your book covers. Read it, read it again and learn. I know I am doing my best to take in everything she says.
The best way to get a feel for what your cover needs to signal is to look at your genre’s covers, discard the classics and the iconic covers with major push, and average the differences for cues.
Now, have a great Sunday, enjoy the World Cup, all you soccer fans and Sarah will be back on Wednesday.
Mad Genius Club 
Sarah! Get better! That’s an order… uh… from the High Command of the Evil League of Evil!
…
Don’t look at me. I am merely a cut rate messenger! I was next up in the minion pool to deliver bad news. I hear there’s a death pool going on about whether or not I survive this assignment…
The odds aren’t good. I didn’t bother to get a proxy in on the action. 🙂
Die Mannschaft! Die Mannschaft! Ahem, where was I? Oh yeah. On the cover “controversy,” Bearcat had a great point about series. A good series “look” makes it very easy for readers to spot a book and go “Cool! It’s a [series name]” and then wander over and see if it’s new. Especially now that more people are saying, “That looks interesting but I’ll wait until there are more books out,” having a series look can kick more book-browsers into action. Peter Grant’s books all have a “look.” The second run of Ann Bishop’s Dark Jewels books also share a similar cover pattern. On the other hand, headless women in Tudor costume have gotten so common that you’d have to do something else to “brand” a Tudor series.
I’m using tudor portraits. Seems to sell well.
I had originally named my series genre “A fantasy without Elves” and the cover was (still in my mind) going to be a female warrior with sword and the Scales of Justice. I don’t know if I will keep the cover design; however, I now have a defined genre- Urban Fantasy. Cool, I like that. Now, to figure out the adventure series.
By the by, for those working on doing their own covers, Filter Forge Pro is currently at an 80% off discount. For a day, I believe. Sarah and Cedar both sing its praises.