Episode 102 - The Second Process of Publishing: Design with Orna Ross
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Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the second of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the focus is on Design. We talk about cover design, and how it needs to be not a work of art but a billboard that will appeal to your target readers. We discuss the importance of a professional cover designer who will understand the tropes of your genre and options for making that path affordable. And we talk about book formatting, including the tools that are available to indy authors to effortlessly create the various file types needed by the online platforms.
Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.
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Interview
https://www.ornaross.com/
https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/
150 Self-Publishing Questions Answered: ALLi’s Writing, Publishing, & Book Marketing Tips for Authors and Poets (Publishing Guides for Indie Authors 5) (affiliate link)
Episode 088 - How to Receive and Give Critique with Tiffany Yates Martin
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello, and welcome to this second in the series of the Seven Processes of Publishing and I'm here with Orna Ross. Hey Orna, how are you doing?
[00:00:08] Orna: Hi, Matty. I'm very well. How are you?
[00:00:10] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. As I mentioned, we're on to the second of the seven processes, the first being Editorial, and now we're on to Design.
[00:00:19] And this is really, what does the inside and what does the outside of the book look like? And I'm going to start out with cover design. And one of the things that I thought was very interesting, I'm going to use this as kind of an entree to this conversation is, in the book 150 SELF PUBLISHING QUESTIONS ANSWERED, which is where much of this material can also be found, there was the conversation about cover design: billboard or work of art. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you think of when you think of cover design, billboard, or work of art?
[00:00:51] Orna: Yeah. The function of a cover design is so sophisticated now and covers are so beautiful. I mean, to see just how much design has moved on. It's really interesting to look back at covers say 10 years ago and just what is possible now is just amazing. Digital publishing has enabled extraordinarily beautiful covers. But it isn't really the function of a cover to be beautiful. That is all very well. But if it doesn't work as a cover if it doesn't do the billboard thing, then it's a failure, no matter how beautiful the cover is.
[00:01:34] So I think we've got to always be thinking about our cover as the vehicle that will cause the reader to look further into the book. A cover doesn't actually sell a book, but what it does is it's the first step towards the sale, and that's what we've got to think of. It. It's got to be an attractor. It's got to speak to the reader that you want to attract to your books. There's absolutely no point in somebody picking up the book because they like the cover if they don't read it. I mean, it's fine, but it's not what you're after. You want them to pick up the book and go further. You want that cover to speak about some emotional connection that you are trying to have with the reader. It's really a bridge between your heart and the reader's heart. That's what the cover should be.
[00:02:30] Matty: Are there some markers that people can look for or red flags they should watch out for if they're starting to think through, maybe they're finishing up their first book and they're thinking through what they want the cover to look like, they're thinking that they might want to ask a professional cover designer for, any tips to lead them more to the billboard than to the work of art?
[00:02:50] Orna: Yeah. So I think in these early stages of the publishing process, the same thing we were talking about editorial last time, you're moving from being the writer of the book, which calls on all sorts of skills and ways of being in relation to the material, into being the publisher of the book, which calls for a completely different set of skills and ways of relating to the material.
[00:03:16] So the first thing is to begin that process of objectivity that we talked about last time in relation to editorial. So with the editorial, it's about creating a distance through time or space and all the ways that we've discussed then. For cover design, it's the same. You've got to take two steps back and ask yourself all sorts of questions about the reader and what's going to attract the reader. But the main thing to do I think is to look at other authors in your genre. So go online. Go to the top 10, look at the book covers that are there. See what is actually attracting your ideal readers right at this moment and begin to break the cover down in your mind.
[00:04:02] So look at, okay, that's the image. That's the author name. That's the title. What sort of fonts are being used? What sort of colors are being used? And why? What are these, what's this image? What are these colors. What's the overall mood? What's it saying to the reader? Why were these particular choices made? What does this cover have in common with the other nine at the top 10? These kinds of questions I think are well worth beginning the exploration, long before you're finished your book, as you're writing.
[00:04:38] Matty: I think it kind of fun exercise is to subscribe to the reader email newsletters like BookBub and similar in your genre. Because a couple of times I found, you know, I'm subscribed to thriller, suspense, mystery kind of that set of genres. And it's surprising how often there are two and sometimes three almost identical covers in the list. And the one that I bring up a lot because I've collected a bunch of examples on The Indy Author Facebook page is the historical book with a woman in the red outfit from the back during World War II with the World War II planes in the sky and an identifiable architectural feature from either London or Paris in the background.
[00:05:21] And they're so similar. I mean, not similar in the sense of plagiaristically similar, but it is sending a very clear signal of, if you like this book with the woman in the red dress, you're going to like this book with a woman in the red dress, too. And it's very clear when you look through book lists like that, that are genre based, in addition to looking at the online retail pages, what those tropes are in your genre.
[00:05:45] Orna: Definitely. And I think it can be quite a process for some authors to get from the normal kind of relationship that a writer has with their own material to understanding that. So this is the kind of thing that if your trade published, you criticize your publisher for, but when you become an indy author and become a good publisher yourself, you actually begin to see the value all the time, like, why publishers do it. Because you're thinking about the reader or you're thinking they've got five or 10 seconds that they're going to spend looking at this cover.
[00:06:17] So there is no room for subtlety and, very often authors talk about, for example, she had a red dress on in the cover, but my heroine never wore a red dress all the way through. And that's not what a cover is about. It isn't about reflecting your book in that way. It's just about getting all the shorthand signifiers that say to the reader, this is a book you're going to enjoy. And it can be quite a journey for some writers to go from how they relate to their book as a writer to that.
[00:06:54] Matty: I think an interesting analogy is to think of it as like visual keywords. I don't think anyone's ever putting together their keywords and saying, I can't use that set of keywords. Everyone else has used those. I want a different and fresh set of keywords. No, you want to find all the keywords that match the other books that you. it would be comparably interesting to your readers. And the cover can be like the visual version of keywords.
[00:07:15] Orna: Such a good way to think about it. It really is. And that's because you're taking the art of it away and it is because we're thinking of either our own art in our own work or the artwork that's making up the image in the cover. That's really good. I'm going to, I'm going to use that one, Matty.
[00:07:34] Matty: You had mentioned the importance of thinking about why the covers work, looking through the top 10 in your genre and looking for the similarities and why they work. That's probably going to be comfortable to people who are not only writers but also have kind of an artistic bent. But if that's not your thing, are there any resources people can use to better understand the why of that?
[00:07:56] Orna: Yeah, we have a post on the Self-Publishing Advice blog, which is selfpublishingadvice.org and it's how to commission a designer. And in fact, we have a few key, big posts on design and book design and what it is and why it matters, so it's definitely worth checking those out.
[00:08:18] I think understanding cover design to becoming good at commissioning a designer and I suppose this is a good place to say, don't do your own book design please, unless you already are a book designer. Even if you're a graphic designer, don't do it unless you understand the composition of book design, because it's not just again about how it looks, it's about much more than that.
[00:08:44] But I think to understand that it's a process as well, commissioning good design, and as I spoke of in relation to editorial, I think we skip over the research process that is necessary here. So the more time that you spend looking at them, the more you're going to get a sense of the why, if you like, which lies behind those design choices.
[00:09:10] And it can also be an interesting exercise to read the book description in relation to the design of the cover and just see the way in which certain tropes and things that turn up again and again in book descriptions in your genre will also be turning up in the actual visuals. And all of this helps you to understand those kind of trigger points that make the reader take the action. So when you're thinking about your why, you're thinking about why would a reader actually, why would my ideal reader pick up this book?
[00:09:49] Matty: There are some conventions and I'm not going to remember them specifically, but for example, the type of font that's used, like serif versus sans serif font, or size of the font and things like that, that as a non-graphic designer, I might be responding to that as a reader, but I don't fully understand as an author, and so I think if people can maybe follow book design blogs or just keep a finger on the pulse of that. Or at least, maybe ask your book cover designer, when you get it back and the font is way bigger than you think looks nice, ask them why they did it. And they'll say, oh, so it will show up in a thumbnail, or whatever their answer is, to use that interaction as a learning experience as well.
[00:10:36] Orna: Definitely. Romance books for example, will tend to have swirlier fonts than techno thrillers. And that's a very kind of obvious distinction, but that kind of thing is going on all the time, and authors would say, why is the title bigger than my name, or why is my name bigger than the title? Usual convention would be, if you're an established author who has a platform that it in itself is going to attract readership, then the author name gets more billing. If it's your first book, first time out then your well-chosen title is probably going to get more billing. So there are things like that going on as well.
[00:11:16] But what I find with most writers is that they love design, you know, the creativity around design, they actually like to follow book design blogs and to learn more about book design and what's going on there because it is actually quite fascinating.
[00:11:31] Matty: It is interesting to see the effect, and then why, have professionals explain why it's giving the effect that it has? I know a lot of book cover designers will ask clients or prospective clients to provide them with covers that they like. Might that lead down the wrong path if the author doesn't have a good sense themselves about it?
[00:11:54] Orna: I think the question they usually tend to ask for is the covers that you want the end design to emulate onto to explain why. So again, it's back to this question of why, so an experienced designer would be able to take all your amateur author kind of assessments of the covers, and from that get a sense of something that should go into the cover, of which they will obviously know the genre tropes and stuff like that, because you would have chosen a designer who is suitable for your genre. Did we say that point? That's really important that you get a designer who has experience in your actual genre, so they'll be able to take your responses and your sense of what you're doing.
[00:12:41] And designers are very good at ignoring you as well. You'll find we'll come up with all sorts of things, ideas and stuff, and they'll kind of ignore that and they come out with something. And the power of a good visual is very powerful, but of course you may not always love what they come up with.
[00:13:00] My own designer who I've worked with since I began indy publishing, which is now a decade ago, she has said to me that it is really important to her always that as well as everything else working, that the author likes that the end result is really key for her. And I think for me, as I said, publishing, also one of the reasons I left trade publishing was I hated the covers that they did so much. And I know why they did them, and I know how they were positioning the book in the marketplace, and I know which was successful and worked and all of that. And I'm grateful for that part, but I also know it's horrible to hate your cover because you just never feel great handing the book over to somebody or inviting them to read it.
[00:13:45] So I think as an indy author, one of the perks of the job is that you love your covers. So they have to work commercially, but you also have to like them. So if you don't, it's back to the drawing board. And most designers will give you couple of worlds and won't settle it down too much at the start. It can be exploratory and stuff at the beginning, so there's room to change things up.
[00:14:11] Matty: I had an interesting experience with my first Ann Kinnear cover. It was the first book I had published, and at the time I think that when the designer asked me to provide covers that I liked, there's an edition of the Patricia Highsmith books where there's an image, but it's not a clear image, it's an architectural detail that's used as a design element. So if you look carefully, you realize it's a spiral staircase or something like that, but when you're just glancing at it, it just looks like a design element. And I love the covers of those books. And I gave him those, I said, I love this idea of the architectural element as a design feature, and I gave him the summary of the book, which is this woman who can sense spirits and has a consulting business around that.
[00:14:58] And so I got the first one back and it was a Gothic house on a hill with a creepy tree, a moon and then hands around a crystal ball. I was like, no, no! Where's my design element? And looking back, I realize that would have been a totally legitimate, and this was like an experienced, pretty well-known cover designer, that would have been a totally legitimate choice depending on how I wanted to position my book.
[00:15:29] But part of my pitch for my book was that sure she can talk to dead people, but it's in the context of this otherwise very normal world. She has a consulting business, that's like a CPA and she has a business manager and it's not like the woo-woo Ouija board kind of thing. And so I feel like if I had gone with that, I probably would have sold a lot of books initially, but then the story wouldn't have paid off the expectation that the cover set.
[00:15:58] And so, I initially did find a cover designer who did the single architectural element. And even though I recognize that I may be losing some sales because they don't jump out at people the way hands around a crystal ball would, I feel like the story's paying off the expectations the cover sets, and like you're saying, I just love showing people those books because I love the design. Any thoughts about that story?
[00:16:24] Orna: Yes, very much because back to my story of why I didn't like the covers, it was the trade publishing thing. It was very much that. So the book sold well, but I very much felt I wasn't building a readership because it was always this disjunction and people were constantly saying to me, I only bought your book because somebody said I should. I would never would have thought I would enjoy it because of the cover, but I actually did enjoy it. And of course the contrary happened probably more often. People bought the book expecting one sort of reading experience and got quite a different reading experience.
[00:17:02] And I think it's shortsighted, and I understand why trade publishing does it because they mostly are working through the bookstore model and you've only got a short period of time in which to move the books off the shelf, or the booksellers sending them back, and so you do this. But I think in the long-term it doesn't do the author or the publisher any favors really, because you're not building that readership. And in these days where you've got customer reviews, when people get a book that the reading experience doesn't match the cover and they're very quick to say, you know, you get your one-star review, not because the book is bad, but because the reader expected something quite different.
[00:17:45] So, I think it's really, it's the single most important thing I think is that you're positioning your book correctly in the marketplace. And as we said, that takes a bit of research. That is a skill. That's not something that most of us as authors, lots of authors, are not very visual, we're verbal and not brilliant on visuals. And so that whole way in which the visual elements of the cover are positioning your book is something that you need, it's a skill you need to develop, and your designer can hopefully help you to do that.
[00:18:21] Matty: So for people who are convinced that a professional is the way to go but they don't have boatloads of cash to sink into it, let's start with the most expensive, tips about working with a professional designer who's creating a cover specifically for your book, and then if you could work through some of the maybe more financial accessible options as well.
[00:18:41] Orna: Yeah. I think the main thing in terms of saving money and making sure it's as cost-effective as possible in terms of the designer that you're working with is to respect their time. So the more you can give them up front, so we've spoken about providing your book description and providing a sense of what you want the cover to convey and having a clear idea of who your target reader is and going for somebody who already has experience in your genre and giving them some samples of book covers that you like yourself and explaining why. All of these things that we have discussed, these are ways in which you can actually make sure the process is as cost-effective as possible, because if it takes extra time or the designer has to do lots of different rounds, actually, sometimes it means that it's more expensive, but it can also mean it's over, because there's something about the nature of the whole commissioning and design and production process that, it's a way, even if you have to go back at it too many times, it kind of goes out the window, and taking care of that level is important.
[00:19:48] And pre-made designs are a possibility that some people use. So these are not templates that are just a made up beforehand, but what they are is designs that a designer has produced in advance. They are relatively inexpensive, they are there, and you choose it, and the designer sells it to you with maybe some small modifications or no modifications, you're happy with it, off you go. It's a unique design, it's not going to turn up somewhere else. It's not like they're selling it and it's not like they print and sell a hundred of them. And it could be a more cost-effective option.
[00:20:25] You can try some of the marketplace sites where you can actually get designs, and sometimes good designs, really quite cheaply. So Fiverr and places like that. You need to be careful there though that you know what you're doing and that you have a very clear idea of the brief and that you are hiring somebody that's able to deliver. But you can actually get surprisingly cost-effective cover designs. And some designers who work in different countries where the cost of living is not so high, and they are prepared to actually give you really quite amazingly good cover designs at a really reasonable price.
[00:21:07] So those are some of the ways in which you can make sure that it doesn't cost you a ridiculous amount of money.
[00:21:14] Matty: One thing that I had not thought of before, but I was so excited about this realization that I've mentioned it a couple of times on the podcast already, but the idea that image design and typography are sort of two different skills. And so I thought of it because you were mentioning the fact that designers who are working in other countries where the cost of living is lower can often be less expensive, but oftentimes English isn't their first language. And I know with one of my designers, I almost put a book out that had a typo in the back cover text, because English wasn't his native language.
[00:21:48] And not only just the correctness of it, but I do think it is a completely different skillset. And I feel really fortunate that my current cover designer for the Ann Kinnear books is very good at both of those. But if I were spinning up a new series or going to a new designer, I would definitely consider having somebody do the design and then, I actually feel like I would have more of a flair for typography. I don't have any flair for the visual design part but working in some other way on the typography part, so you're sure you're getting the best of both worlds.
[00:22:21] Orna: Yeah. Any creative kind of ways of approaching it that makes sense, it's the joy being indy, do whatever works for you best. And some of us are working with very tight budgets, especially at the beginning. So this is an area where you can spend thousands if you're not careful. You do need to be careful, and you do need to remember that it is just the function of the cover to sell the book to the reader and to get their interest. So not to overspend is important.
[00:22:52] Matty: I wanted to grab a couple of my books because I wanted to use them to illustrate something.
[00:22:57] One was your comment about getting on a cover designer's schedule early. And I definitely found that with my current designer for my Ann Kinnear books, and I'll describe it so people are listening can follow along. So this is the cover that I ended up after I rejected the house on the hill with the creepy tree and the crystal ball.
[00:23:16] So it's a, a brass doorknocker in the shape of a hand. And I've had this rebranded a couple of times, mainly just by having the font changed. So when it first came out, it was a scripty font. And then there was this brief period where it was this kind of big, jagged font. And then, I just recently got it rebranded with this font that I think does a nice job of combining a classic look, but sort of retro as well.
[00:23:42] Orna: The whole cover, elegant is the word that jumps out at me. It's beautiful.
[00:23:47] Matty: Thank you. And I liked it because people who have the earlier versions would recognize this as the same book they have, but it's still freshened up. And then the nice thing about that was, once I'd established this, I just want, you know, I want a central design element, then it was very easy to basically just find photos. So the second one is a kind of similar thing in this case, it's the doorknob that's the central design element. I have one that has an aviation theme and so a broken aviation instrument is the central theme. And then this padlock has a connection to the story as well.
[00:24:23] And so, if I have to book my cover designer far in advance, I could be only partway through the story, and she says, okay, you're at the top of the list, and I can say, there's a padlock on it. And so it saves her time, and it saves me money because she doesn't have to start from scratch each time. She knows it's going to be this font and it's going to be this placement, and once we've decided what the central image is, it's a relatively fast process. So that ability to kind of repeat a design I think is a time and cost savings.
[00:24:57] And then the other book I wanted to show is the first of my Lizzy Ballard series. And I had gotten the designer for this from 99designs and I did an open contest. So with the Ann Kinnear books, I had a really clear idea of what I wanted the cover to look like. For the Lizzy Ballard books, I didn't have clue one what I wanted the cover to look like. And so I did an open contest and so I was getting a lot of entries and then I could vote and tell people which ones I liked and didn't like and ended up with one that I love. But I found it was very dark, and the subtleties that I loved about it in the design made it not successful as a book cover because it really faded into the background. And so fairly recently I went back to the designer, and I said, could you brighten it up a bit? And he came back with a cover that was brighter, and also, I think more consistent with the covers of two and three, which he also did.
[00:25:49] Being able to loop back and freshen up covers, I think, or regroup a little bit, if it's not working is important. What are some markers that people should be looking out for that would make them revisit a cover?
[00:26:04] Orna: Well, if you're not selling, if you're not converting, particularly if you know that you've had people land on your page but not convert, or land on your cover and not go any further, I think that's the big one. And I had that experience with the cover. When we changed the cover, it was an instant change. So I had commissioned the cover. It was a mother and a daughter story. I'd wanted a mother and daughter on the cover and the designer did exactly what I asked. And I liked the cover. They liked the cover, blah, blah, blah. Just did not work, just died a death. And we changed it and immediately the sales started. So it totally was a cover issue, and the replacement was completely different. It was completely different.
[00:26:50] If you're not selling, I would say, do look at your cover. First of all, also fresh in your descriptions, but do look up at your cover. And if it is vastly different to what's around it, so covers change over time. And if your book is looking very different in a lineup, you might want to think about why that is, compared to other books in its genre. And you might be happy to leave it, if it's selling well. And sometimes standing out can be a good thing. Not being the fourth red dress but being like different to can actually be a good thing.
[00:27:28] So there's no hard and fast rule about covers on, it's not a science, it's very much an art. And so it's very difficult to give absolute instructions about what does work and what doesn't work, because while you are going for a certain effect. It's an emotional response and it's not going to be the same for everyone.
[00:27:50] If you get feedback on a cover, people find it distasteful or inappropriate or whatever. I mean, if it's one person, not at all. But if you're getting regular feedback from people that they have to get beyond the cover and people will tell you that. It's something that readers will say to you. I really had to get beyond your cover. And I'm so glad that I did because blah, blah, blah. That might make you want to look at it again.
[00:28:18] And the other thing that happens is covers get stale. Like you, any book I've had that's been around for a good while has had a refresh. They've all been refreshed over time. I think you love it one year, but three years later, you don't necessarily cause it's like fashion. Why do we suddenly start wearing yellow? And you look around and everybody's wearing yellow, and you realize, oh gosh, I was caught again by fashion. It's like that, you don't know why these trends change, but they do change and your book, begins to feel stale. And if it's feeling that way to you, it's probably feeling that way to readers as well. So those are some of the multiple reasons why you might make a change.
[00:29:33] Matty: Are there any differences in advice you would give about cover design if someone is only planning on publishing an ebook or they want maybe different covers for ebook or print. Any distinction that people should make based on the medium in which the book is going to be printed?
[00:29:51] Orna: I think it's best to have consistency across audio, print, and ebook, and keep them consistent, generally speaking. If you're only doing ebook, then you can get away with a very simple cover. The ebooks, people don't have quite the same cover expectations, and they're not going to hold it in their hand. And digital audio is the same, not going to hold it in their hand. When a book is going into print, the cover, everything about the design becomes more complex, and will take more of your time, more of your energy to get it right. So with an ebook, you can get away with a simpler sort of approach.
[00:30:29] And I think you need to also decide, we had an interesting thing within ALLi with some of our covers where there was a discussion about making them more like self-help, self-improvement, or more like an organization's instructional books. Authority on the one side versus friendliness on the other end, which you're going to go for.
[00:30:55] And these are also the kinds of decisions that you have to make as an author whereby you might not be making the decision that is just about which cover is going to sell more. You might have other reasons why you will want your covers to convey something to the reader that you need to keep in mind. I think the most important thing with the cover is to have the confidence to go with your gut and then have the confidence to change it if it doesn't work out. But across formats, I feel myself that keeping it consistent is good.
[00:31:27] Matty: What kind of elements where you debating or considerations where you debating between the authoritative organizationally sponsored thing versus the self-help, and which did you come down on?
[00:31:40] Orna: We decided to go with the authority thing, for now anyway, because a lot of the books that we publish, they're not quick, fast reads. And we do have a short guide series, which are quick reads about one specific thing, like getting a book into libraries or getting your first reviews or ISBN, just short, sharp, just one thing. So we do have books like that.
[00:32:04] But our general guides tend to be quite longer, they take in a glossary, you know, the organization has done a lot of work, done a lot of research around best practice and so on. And we felt that should be reflected in the books as well as just saying, okay, we might get more sales if we had a more kind of sexy puppy picture or something on it but at the end of the day, it's like what you were talking about earlier. There is the expectation then, and you'd almost need to have slightly different books when they opened up, you know? So, yeah, we went for the authority in the end.
[00:32:46] Matty: I had to ask about rights because I couldn't really talk to you without talking about IP and rights. So when it comes to materials that are used in a book cover, what should an author keep an eye on and what do they need to keep tabs on or manage themselves versus what can they rely on a cover designer to keep tabs on and manage?
[00:33:07] Orna: Well, I think, as businesspeople, we need to keep rights issues to the front of our minds, always, in terms of respecting our own rights and also respecting the rights of other creative professionals, and so there is a fairly standard sort of rights set up with the images that are provided for your book cover. So your designer generally retains the rights but gives you the publishing licensing rights. And so you can do what you need to do as the author. Sometimes authors want to buy those rights out, in which case you should be prepared to pay more because, as I say, it's about respecting other creative professionals' work.
[00:33:52] Sometimes designers can get very uptight about what you can and can't do, but actually that's often because they don't understand book publishing and what is necessary. So, you know, reproducing postcards, posters, this kind of thing, you need to ensure that you have the rights to do all of the things that you need to do to market the book and use the cover appropriately within the marketing of your book. So these are all things that you need to be aware of as you go through the process. And really, the onus is on you as always with rights issues, to make sure that you're properly informed and that you're following best practices.
[00:34:35] Matty: I understand that it's still not all that common for an author and cover designer to have a contract, which kind of surprised me. Can some of these things, if in the spec that you provide to the cover designer, you include things in that email, let's say, like, I assume you'll pull visual resources from these sites, or just be aware, I'm planning on printing this on mugs and magnets. So, you know, I'm expecting to use it beyond just the book cover. Is that a reasonable step for authors to take to try to protect themselves on these things?
[00:35:09] Orna: Yeah, I think so. I'm a great believer in getting as much information as possible in upfront so everybody knows where they stand, and with anyone who's experienced these, there's very little that's going to cause any problems around rights because it's all very well worked out in terms of his normal best practices, very established. So there shouldn't be any issues. But sometimes you have inexperienced designers or inexperienced publishers who don't quite know what's what. So, yeah, once it's written down in an email, that's as good as a fancy contract to doubly signed and exchanged. Once it's written, it's there in writing and it's clear that you agreed. what your contract expectations were.
[00:35:54] The main thing I think is to educate yourself so you know what your expectations should be. And so you're going in with confidence that what you're asking for is reasonable. And if you have any questions about anything like that, ALLi can always help, so don't hesitate to ask.
[00:36:12] Matty: One of the things that I like about working with professionals through platforms like Reedsy or Upwork, those are the two primary ones I use, is that assuming you're keeping your communications to those platforms as they encourage you to do, you have a history of all of that. And so if there turns out to be some question, you can go back and say, no, on June 1st, 2019, I told you that I was going to be using this on t-shirts and mugs, and there isn't any question. That log will always be there.
[00:36:40] Orna: Absolutely. I think it's well worth paying the price for the split of marketplaces just for that alone. And they always have these safeguards built in to protect both you and the person you're hiring. As a publisher, you can find yourself hiring quite a few people across the seven stages of the process. So if you are using a platform like that, it's also much easier to keep track of what's going on than it is on conventional email.
[00:37:16] Matty: So we've talked a little bit about how you can get a good, high quality and professional exterior that's going to appeal to the readers that you want to reach. So we wanted to talk also about the other side of design, which is book formatting. And I think that this conversation has probably changed a lot over the last five years or so. I know for me, the way I go about this has definitely changed because of the tools that are more readily accessible to authors themselves to deal with this. Do you have recommendations or does ALLi have recommendations about how people go about this?
[00:37:49] Orna: It depends on what you want as an outcome. So most authors of straightforward text-based books, like novels or a straightforward type to nonfiction or something that doesn't have illustrations. And what most of us are looking for is the simplest, most cost effective, most non-noticeable interior. So if you don't notice anything too much about the interior because everything is just fine and it's not going to trip anybody up and it looks good. It's clean, it's crisp, the reader can read it and they're happy with it.
[00:38:24] And the tools are just amazing now. I mean, you can get just fantastic formatting for your ebook and there are no excuses anymore really, just brilliant, brilliant tools. You mentioned Vellum. I'm a Vellum believer as well. And it's fantastic software, but there are lots of them. And we have a directory of approved partners and formatters and softwares in there. And if you want something a bit more unusual, though, or if you do illustration books or you're a children's author or poet and your needs may be different, and you may need to hire a professional who will lay out the book in a certain way.
[00:39:07] I've heard authors say that they don't like using software because your book ends up looking like so many other books and readers don't like that. But to be honest, I don't think we just even notice that. A lot of the time, readers have not conscious even of design and formatting, unless it doesn't work or unless it is calling attention to itself for all the wrong reasons. I don't think readers tend to notice it. So I wouldn't let that be a worry, myself.
[00:39:36] So if you're a novelist, if you're a non-fiction writer who's doing a straight textbook, I really would recommend that you wrap your head around one of the many good formatting solutions that are out there, and you save yourself a ton of money. But more than that, you get the thing that the indy author loves, which is control. So if you pay a formatter or if you pay a typesetter for your print book, then that's it. You get the files; they have set up the files. You often don't know what tool they use to do it, and if you need to change anything, you have to go back and ask for it again. And you have to pay. And it's not just the money. It's also the inconvenience.
[00:40:18] Whereas if you have done the formatting yourself using one of these tools, then you just hop in and make your change. So if you find a typo or something, that doesn't require you to be sending files off to somebody else to get them to do and send it back, which is work they don't even want to be doing really. And I think that's our core recommendation really.
[00:40:37] But, if it's a specialist book, then it's going to need specialist treatment. And also, we have members who just love making really beautiful books, you know, so the interior is extremely important to them, and they want all the individual elements, and they take a real interest in making the book, which is very much part of their creation process. If that's you, then that's a different thing.
[00:41:05] Matty: When I weigh the satisfaction, I would get out of doing that with the time and effort, I choose not to do it, but I can understand why people would want to make that effort for a print book. But for an ebook, it just seems like trying to do it yourself. I don't know. I remember listening to a cooking show once and they said that they had tried to make Triscuits. I'm like, why would you try to make Triscuits? Like, just buy Triscuits. They're pretty much perfect the way they are. You don't need designer Triscuits.
[00:41:33] And I think of eBooks the same way. It's going to look different anyway, right? It's not like you do an ebook and then it's beautiful and that's how every reader is going to see it. No, it's going to be different if they're on a phone or an iPad or a Kindle or a Nook or how big they've made the font or which font they've selected. So I imagine there are people who are focused on that for the print book but are willing to let it go for the ebook. Or are they also spending that much time on the ebook as well?
[00:41:57] Orna: Again, depends. So you're absolutely right I think again, when it comes to a fairly straightforward book, but if you're a children's author, for example, you will take a lot of interest, more and more. It wasn't an issue for a long time, but now kids grow up, you know, they're born with iPads in their hand. So you may find yourself spending just as much time on the ebook design and making sure as much as possible that it works the way you want it to work. And so on.
[00:42:30] So on there is fixed format E books also, which people are sometimes creating. So it does depend. There are certain kinds of textbooks that are heavily illustrated that people will take a lot of trouble on the ebook, just as much as own on the print book. And I think that's something we're seeing more and more as technology gets better and better, and the reading technology, I mean, more than the production technology. As it improves, then the same sort of care that's going into print books is now going into e-books.
[00:43:08] Matty: One of the other benefits that I see of a program like Vellum and many others I'm sure are that you press a button and you get all the different types of files you need so that you get an epub, you can get the files that depending on the metadata you've entered are specific to upload to Amazon, specific upload to Barnes and Noble, Google Play, all the different platforms. So that, for example, if you get to the end of an e-book and someone clicks on a link to get the next in the series they're being sent to the appropriate store, not some store they want to have nothing to do with.
[00:43:39] And one of those was always mobi files. So can you talk a little bit about, the brief history of mobi files and what the status of mobi files is today and how they're used?
[00:43:48] Orna: Yeah. I think mobi is probably on the way out. So it's not something to worry about. And new authors, if you haven't heard about it before, don't worry. And so mobi was, it was Amazon's proprietorial format, not was, it is, it's still very live. Don't get me wrong, it's still there, but you had to have mobi files for publishing on Kindle for some years and you no longer do, you can publish on Kindle using an epub file.
[00:44:21] So mobi is, it's still in existence, but it's not something we need to worry about. And I think epub has become the standard electronic file and it’s cross-referrable. As you rightly say, Vellum provides the different ones for the different stores, but in theory an epub file travels across all the different requirements across the web. And if you can create an epub file now, you should pretty much be able to go anywhere with that file. and see it uploaded, and see it uploaded well.
[00:44:57] Matty:
[00:44:57] The one area where I find I still need mobis is when I'm sending in like an emailing copy to someone who's using a Kindle and they need to sideload it. Is that still a thing or is that kind of an old-fashioned issue to be worrying about?
[00:45:12] Orna: Well, it is a thing because lots of people have Kindles forever. Kindle isn't like similar technology that's changed after a year and which will remain nameless, you know, that you upgrade all the time. The Kindle readers, and readers generally, they come very attached to their reader. Kobo as well. You know, whatever your reader is, you become very attached to it, and you see they're very simple technology, so they don't tend to break. And so readers whose Kindle can only read mobi need that mobi file.
[00:45:46] Matty: The last thing that I wanted to talk about, well, actually there may be two more things. There are two more things. The next to the last thing I wanted to talk about was large print. So I know when I first started using an e-reader, I thought, oh, well, this is perfect. You know, the people who used to have to rely on the small percentage of books that ended up being offered in large print now are going to go to Kindle. That's so nice for them. And then, via our mutual friend, Joanna Penn, I was hearing that she was having good luck with a large print, and I decided to do that too, because the time investment and the money investment was fairly small. I just had to go back to my cover designer and ask for a large print version of the book. And I had to generate a large print interior that using Vellum. Is large print something that you continue to see being worth authors investing their time in?
[00:46:36] Orna: Yes. It's like so many things, when something new comes along and people think that's the death of an old thing. And we generally seems to happen as it sits in beside what was already there. And people don't move, and readers particularly are quite a conservative bunch. They're not quick to, some are, but there's a great big tranche of readers who don't read on ebook and don't ever intend to. So large print, I think like you, I completely agree, it's very little extra investment to create a large print edition, to create a hardback edition, using Vellum and all the other tools.
[00:47:16] So why wouldn't you? If there are readers out there who only like to read in large print or only can read in large print, so it's an accessibility issue as well, you're providing books for readers who can only read large print. They can't read small print. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you do that? We are seeing people doing really well with their large print books. Yeah.
[00:47:39] Matty: You had mentioned the other thing that I wanted to talk about, which was hardcover. So it's something that I keep considering. And the times that I've seen illustrations of other people who have gotten hard cover books, it hasn't been appealing to me because it's been just the cover printed on the cover, and it looks like a textbook to me. And it's like unpleasant flashbacks to grade school or junior high textbooks. But I understand that you can also get a dust jacket. I'm just curious as to your opinion on where hard covers are going. Is it worth it?
[00:48:16] Orna: Again, I think it is worth it. I think those kinds of things that you had, I think that's more a US thing, by the way, it must be something to do with US textbooks. I think it's more US associations outside of America. But the other thing is don't assume because you feel that way, that the reader feels that way.
[00:48:36] And again, it isn't a lot of money. It's not a lot of extra investment. And the thing about hardbacks is there isn't a rush to buy hardbacks in the sense that they generally cost more money and so on. But it can be really nice and showcase the thing. At some people accountably do well in hardback. So providing it as we're so lucky to have these print on demand tools that we can for very little, I mean, this sort of stuff used to cost thousands. You would have to that your minimum investment would be $2,000 to $3,000. And now that will be for a tiny book and then you had the whole distribution headache. We don't have any of that.
[00:49:20] Matty: Well, this is sort of a preview because our next episode is going to be on production, and we might be able to get into a little bit about where bookstores and libraries like to buy their books from and where they don't like to buy their books from.
[00:49:35] So Orna, thank you so much for that perspective on design. please let the listeners know where they could go to find out more about you and your work online.
[00:49:42] Orna: Sure. So I'm Orna Ross. I'm at OrnaRoss.com. And I'm also director of The Alliance of Independent Authors and that's an association for self-publishing writers and you'd find us at AllianceIndependentAuthors.org.
[00:50:00] Matty: Great. Thank you so much. And everyone should stay tuned for the next episode where we will be talking about production. Thank you, Orna.
[00:50:07] Orna: Thank you.