Posts tagged ‘cuing’

Sarah sends her apologies

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.

Book Plug Friday:

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.