Reading | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, September 22, 2011

It seems ebooks are getting all the press (virtual and otherwise!) lately. Ebooks and e-readers are all the rage – instant gratification! Large type, if you want! More choices! Tons of cheap and even free books! No restrictions on length, whether you’re reading a four-page flash fiction piece, or a tome to rival War and Peace. No e-reader? Read ’em on your phone or even your computer! What’s not to like?

Yet despite all the advantages ebooks offer, plenty of people still prefer to read a good old fashioned paper book. The smell and feel of the paper! Pretty book covers that look cool on your bookshelf or coffee table! Read ’em in the bathtub – and if you drop it, no expensive electronics to replace! Heck, no expensive electronics to buy in the first place! Browse in the bookstore or the library! Used books! No worries about dead batteries! Despite all the gloom-and-doom reports of ever-decreasing sales, paper books are still with us, and aren’t going away any time soon IMO.

Quite a few independent publishers are forgoing print altogether and publishing only in e. After all, print typically involves a setup fee, and print also requires some knowledge of print graphic arts, which is a whole different animal than on-screen graphics. It’s definitely a lot more work to produce a print book, even though the setup fees have gone way down in recent years, and there’s no longer a need to warehouse and ship – Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, and the like are still happy to fulfill that role for a piece of the action.

Time's Enemy in print - available soon!

Out of all the people I’ve talked to who’ve expressed interest in reading Time’s Enemy, about half of them next ask, “Is it available in print?” So as someone with graphic arts experience, I really have no reason not to offer this, and to that end, I uploaded my book to a printer last Saturday. My proof arrived on Wednesday, I approved it on Thursday, and it should be available on the e-retailers in the next week or so. When that time comes, I’ll announce it here!

So where do print books come from? If you’re an independent publisher, they most likely come from one of two printers: CreateSpace (which is owned by Amazon), or Lightning Source (which is owned by Ingram, the largest print book distributor in the U.S.). CreateSpace (henceforth referred to as CS) is definitely the easier of the two as far as setting up the files for printing, and they have a lower setup fee as well. But Lightning Source (LSI) has some major advantages in other areas, and after some major deliberation, I went with LSI.

Most of these differences won’t be apparent to the reader. One of them is how authors are paid – basically, CS requires a larger portion of the book’s price go to the retailer, meaning the author and publisher make less money, while the reader’s cost doesn’t go down (usually – sometimes the retailers will discount). Books produced by LSI are automatically included in Ingram’s catalog, which may make it easier for them to be ordered by bookstores and libraries.

The most apparent difference – at least with my book – is that LSI offers a matte cover, whereas other print-on-demand providers offer only glossy covers. Until LSI offered it earlier this year, only big publishers’ books had matte covers. A lot of readers probably don’t care, but it gives a book a “richer,” higher quality look and feel IMO.

So what about you – do you notice things like glossy or matte covers? Does the “feel” of a book matter to you? Print-on-demand books are typically printed on heavier paper, which obviously makes the book heavier, but also adds to that “richer” feel. Is this something you notice or care about? Inquiring independent authors and publishers want to know!

by Jennette, September 15, 2011

Time's Fugitive book cover I design my own book covers (sometimes my graphic design background comes in handy), and was pleased to finish this one last week. Time’s Fugitive is the sequel to Time’s Enemy, and is slated for release as an e-book in December. Depending on how print book sales go for Time’s Enemy, Time’s Fugitive will also be released in print, about a month after the digital release.

Covers matter a lot to me, never mind the old saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” People do. I know I do. Authors published by big publishing houses usually have little to no input in cover art. There are a lot of bad covers. By “bad,” I mean poorly executed, unreadable, or just plain ugly. They happen to independently-published books and to those from small publishers, but they happen to big-time published books, too – the three-armed woman on Christina Dodd’s Castles in the Air is probably the most classic example. Then there were the notorious, ugly “nekkid Poser people” that seemed to appear on every other erotic ebook for a while. I’m glad that trend went away! Designing my own covers means I don’t have to worry about any of that. If a cover misses the mark, I can easily upload a new one, with the only cost being my time and any stock photos I have to license.

I totally grabbed this book because of the cover!

Even if you’re paying someone, there are some great cover artists who provide wonderful covers for very reasonable fees – I’ve seen as little as $100. I’m not looking for cover art work right now, but if you’re an independent author and you’re looking for cover art, I recommend my cousin and fellow author, Sheri McGathy. Sheri also does copy editing (including mine).

The Writers’ Guide to Epublishing did a good article about cover art a couple weeks ago, and the commenters (mostly or all authors) pretty unanimously agreed that good covers sell books, and bad covers can hinder sales. What do you think? Whether you’re an author or a reader, do you care about cover art? Has a cover ever made you pick up a book (and buy), or conversely, has a book cover ever made you not buy a book you otherwise might have?

by Jennette, September 6, 2011

Longtime friend and crime fiction author Jim Winter is interviewing me on his blog today – please stop in and say hi!

by Jennette, August 18, 2011

I’m not talking about story details; I’m talking about little, visual details – graphics, chapter headings, fonts.

I’ve been thinking about these details a lot because now that Time’s Enemy is out in digital format, I’m starting to work on the print version.

There are a lot of extra considerations to make when planning a print version. There’s a lot more to creating a print cover, but there are also many decisions for the book’s interior. Foremost is which font to use for the body text? And yes, there is life after Times New Roman. I considered Garamond, Palatino, and Book Antiqua, but finally settled on Caxton. It’s a really pretty font, is sort of a combination of old style with a modern flair, and gives the page a nice, even “color.” The main thing you’re looking for is readability, and for body text that’s going to be printed, that usually means a serif typeface. For those unfamiliar with graphic arts terms, “serif” means the typeface has little brackets on the ends of the letter strokes. All the fonts I’ve mentioned above are serif typefaces. Sans-serif fonts (i.e., fonts without serifs) include Arial, Verdana, and Trebuchet, and are better suited for headings or on-screen reading, such as web pages.

The print version of Time's Enemy is set in Caxton, with right-justified chapter headings

The next consideration is display type, or what font to use in chapter headings and on the book’s title page. This is a good place for decorative fonts, and book designers can have a lot of fun with these. For my print book, I’m leaning toward Belwe, which is the same display font as the title on the book cover. Chapter headings are typically centered, but not always, and I liked the way my chapter headings look right-aligned, with a thin border beneath. Some books spell out “Chapter One,” while others just say “One” or even just have the numeral: 1. And finally, some feature small graphics, or glyphs, beside, above or below the chapter heading.

example of chapter heading with first line italics

Robin D. Owens' Heart Thief has a lovely little glyph under the chapter heading, and the first line in italics. Threshhold, by Sara Douglass, featurs drop caps and a nice glyph above the chapter headings

Another thing to consider is how to treat the initial characters and/or line of text in a chapter or scene. Drop caps? First line in italics? First line in small caps? I’ve seen all of these done by big publishers, and it’s a nice way to set off the beginning of a chapter or scene. I didn’t care for the way drop caps looked in my book, and small caps wasn’t as uniform in appearance as I’d like, so I went with italics. Of course, there are other considerations like page size, margins, headers, and so on, but those are subjects for anotherblog (or several).

Threshhold, by Sara Douglass, featurs drop caps and a nice glyph above the chapter headings

Then there are glyphs. I loooooooove glyphs – those little, deccorative images that sometimes display with chapter headings, or between scenes. I didn’t think they’d be practical to do in eBooks, but then happened upon a wonderful book with awesome little glyphs between scenes, so I knew I had to have them in my book, too! What’s really cool is when the image directly relates to the story, as is the case in both of Cate Rowan’s books, as well as mine.

The scimitar is an important prop in Cate Rowan's Kismet's Kiss

A tiny Saturn Society logo separates the scenes in my books

If a book is typeset in an unusual font, or has glyphs separating scenes or with chapter headings, I notice. I figure this is due to my background in graphic design, but maybe not – do you notice little details like this? Got any examples to share of particularly attractive chapter headings, or scene separation glyphs?

Oh, and by the way, these are all awesome books! For some reason, I’m either into fantasy romance right now, or maybe those are just the kind of books that are more likely to feature these design details. Pretty pictures or not, Heart Thief, Threshhold, and Kismet’s Kiss are fantastic books. If this is your kind of story, I encourage you to check them out. And of course, I’d love for you to check out Time’s Enemy!

by Jennette, August 11, 2011

One unwanted gift. One great wrong. One chance to make things right…

When a freak accident leaves Tony Solomon with the ability to travel in time, he becomes an unwilling initiate in the Saturn Society, a secret society of time travelers. Wanted by the Society for a crime he hasn’t yet committed, he seeks help from Charlotte Henderson, the woman whose life he saved decades before he was born. Loyal to the Society, Charlotte faces a terrible choice-condemn the man she loves and to whom she owes her life, or deny her deepest convictions by helping him escape and risk sharing his sentence.

Time’s Enemy is available for Kindle, Nook, and a variety of ebook formats on Smashwords and other retailers. I’m also going to offer a discount coupon for Smashwords that will only be announced here, so check back soon, or better yet, subscribe!

Buy Time’s Enemy at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Smashwords | All Romance eBooks

Print edition coming soon

On another note, Sheri McGathy’s short story “Promises” is now available in the Kindle Store as well! Many thanks to Sheri for letting me use her story as a guinea pig to learn Kindle formatting. If you enjoy epic fantasy and are looking for a quick read, give it a try! “Promises” is also available at Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, as well as iBookstore, Kobo, and other digital retailers.

by Jennette, August 4, 2011

A few weeks ago, writing friend Carey Corp emailed me, with the subject line “Help!”

No, her email hadn’t been hijacked by spammers. She was trying to produce the cover for the print version of her successful YA paranormal romance, The Guardian. She’d done a nice job putting together the cover for the e- version. And isn’t a cover for a print book simply a matter of adding a back and spine to the ebook cover?

Carey found out it wasn’t when she uploaded her print cover to CreateSpace, only to receive a message that it didn’t meet required specifications. After another try, and another reject, she emailed me.

Carey remembered that I worked in graphic design for over ten years before turning to web design, and later programming. And back when I was active in the field, print was still the thing. I was actually one of the first people in the Dayton area to use computer-prepared files for full-blown, four-color printing films, so all of the issues CreateSpace identified in their emails to Carey, were familiar to me.

The modifications I made were minor as far as appearance was concerned, such as adding another set of wings to the spine – I love little details like this! Reworking the rest with higher-resolution photos took a few hours in Photoshop, tweaking color density, printing to a PDF, then emailing to Carey. When I didn’t hear back within a few days, I figured no news was good news – and it was! See her take here.

I am not a big reader of Young Adult fiction, but going by the description, this is something I would have devoured when I was a teen. A lot of Carey’s readers are adults, too, and the more I read this description as I reworked the art, the more intrigued I became – I might just have to pick up a copy! The Halo Chronicles: The Guardian (Kindle version) THE HALO CHRONICLES: The Guardian (Volume 1) (Print version)

Do you enjoy YA fiction? And, do you pass on a book if the cover’s not quite professional? (I’ll admit it – it takes a lot more to get me to buy if the cover’s less than appealing.) If you’re an author, ever try doing your own cover? As a graphic design professional, I’m a big proponent of “don’t try this at home” but for some, it can work out well. What do you think?

by Jennette, July 28, 2011

I’m currently working on revising Time’s Fugitive, my second time travel romance, and sequel to my upcoming release, Time’s Enemy. Like Enemy, the first draft of this book was written a few years ago. What’s surprising is how many things in the world around us have changed since then – things that now need to be changed. For example, I have a scene where a character’s car breaks down, and the young driver and her passenger need to walk for help. Yes, they have cell phones – it wasn’t written that long ago – but what I now need to account for is the fact that many late-model cars (including the one they have) now come with some kind of navigation system, which also includes a way to call for help. This needs to be revised so that there’s a good reason they can’t just press the red button on the rearview mirror and get help from OnStar. Another book of mine features computer technology – including national security-sensitive software that goes missing. In the original book, written over ten years ago, the software was on a removable disk cartridge, like a Zip Disk. (Anyone remember those?) In a recent revision, this needed to be changed to be on a USB flash drive.

This reminded me of Stephen King’s The Stand – which I first read in the late 90’s, after it had been updated from the original version published in 1976. Definitely a book I enjoyed, despite a few details where not enough attention was given to updating. In the original version, characters drove across a post-apocalyptic U.S., preferably in the largest vehicles practical – in most cases, station wagons.

In the 90’s version, these characters were still taking station wagons.

Huh? In the 90’s I remember, there were a heck of a lot more minivans and SUVs than station wagons. Not to mention, a 4WD SUV would be much more practical than a station wagon, especially for driving off road. And cell phones? I don’t remember if they were mentioned – they might’ve been, and there was no power, hence no operable cell networks. But the characters used CB radios to communicate – which hit their heyday in the mid-70’s.

So think about those updates when you’re revising an old novel – I still enjoyed The Stand, but little details like this did take me out of the story, and remind me I was reading. So if the contemporary American heroine in the book you’re reading is in trouble and she’s not using her cell phone, you might flip to the copyright page, and see if you’re reading an old book. Otherwise, there’d better be a good reason that heroine can’t just call for help, or you might have an Update Fail on your hands.

Does it bother you to read books where the details are outdated? I’m willing to forgive it if it’s an old book, but otherwise, it might just be sloppy writing. What do you think?

by Jennette, July 7, 2011

My husband invented a new verb today: Cozi. As in, “I won’t forget anything at the store, because I cozied it.”

Cozi is a noun - a great, online organizer. Did you know it's also a verb?

Cozi is a free, online organizer, and it’s awesome. It lets you set up a shared, family calendar so everyone knows when the kid’s music lessons are, what days Dad has to work (my husband’s hours are irregular), and when the critters need to be taken to the vet. Cozi also lets you set up To-Do lists, Shopping lists, and add things to a family journal. So if I think of a writing-related task I need to do while I’m at work, I can log on to the Cozi website and add it to my To-Do list. Even better, I can do this on my smartphone with the Cozi app, if I’m out and about, and not on my computer. No more worries about an unexpected chance to stop at the store, and forgetting something – it’s on Cozi.

Having worked in a marketing department for close to ten years in my previous life as a graphic designer, I’m probably more cognizant than most people of the proper, and not-so-proper use of trademarked names. While I’ve been guilty of asking for a Kleenex when the box clearly reads “Puffs,” I’ve never Xeroxed anything on a copier made by Konica-Minolta, and here in Ohio, a Coke is always Coca-cola (though I have ordered rum and Coke from a bar that served Pepsi products, because no one orders a “rum and cola”). I try not to cringe when someone mentions a “Romantica” novel that wasn’t published by Ellora’s Cave, or talks about making their own “book trailer.” Those are trademarked terms: if the book wasn’t published by EC, it’s simply erotic romance (or romantic erotica), and that book video is only a book trailer if it was produced by Circle of Seven Productions. Don’t even get me started on “iPhone” – I have a Droid, thankyouverymuch. My husband has an Android phone – his runs the Android OS, but it’s not a Droid-branded phone. Only Apple smartphones are iPhones.

So it follows when someone says they “googled” something on the Internet, I always got just a teeny bit annoyed. Because my understanding was that “Google” is a noun – a trademarked, proper noun at that. And what if the person was using Yahoo or Bing? (I know, I know, does anyone? Someone must, or else they wouldn’t still be around.)

After my husband’s turning Cozi into a verb, I was curious about that other, insidious noun-that’s-not-really-a-verb and decided to google the term “google.” Guess what – it’s in the dictionary. As a trademarked, proper noun… and a verb.

The Xerox corporation has made no secret of the fact that they’d much rather you photocopy, rather than Xerox, those tax papers for your mortgage processor, but in Google’s quest for Internet search domination, they have no problem with people googling stuff on the Internet. They’d much rather you google something than yahoo or bing it.

So it looks like I have to get over that one. As for Cozi? I’m glad my husband’s willing to use it (he’s not too fond of computers), so I think I’ll just quietly let him cozi whatever he wants.

Know of any funny verbs that aren’t really verbs? Or words you thought were only nouns, but actually are verbs? Please share!

by Jennette, June 30, 2011

I’m talking about word count, or length of a story. If you’re an author trying to sell to a traditional publisher, then yes, it matters quite a bit. Traditional publishers have guidelines, and most include a word-count range. Too short, and you’re not giving readers enough story for their money. Too long, and your book’s going to cost the publisher more to print and ship, and fewer will fit on the rack at the grocery store (or space allotted on a bookstore’s shelf).

image of books & ebook reader With ebooks, printing, shipping and shelf space are no longer applicable. A longer book may take up a few more bytes of disk space, and a couple more seconds for the reader to download, but disk space is continually becoming cheaper, to the point that it’s negligible. With increasing bandwidth and cell phone network capacity and speeds, download speeds don’t matter so much either. Where most publishers of genre fiction hesitate to take on books much longer than 100,000 words (epic fantasy and historical fiction being the main exceptions), publishers and sellers of ebooks aren’t operating under the same constraints. Likewise, few readers will plunk down enough cash for it to be worthwhile for a publisher to print a single novella or short story, but with production and shipping not part of the equation, ebooks are a viable medium for short fiction. So does word count matter?

I say it does, but for different reasons. When a reader buys a book from a physical bookstore, s/he can pick it up, flip through the pages, and judge by the thickness of the book, the size of the print, and the amount of white space on the pages how long this book will take to read – or more importantly, how good an entertainment (or informational) value the book is for the asking price.

The reader has no way of telling this for ebooks, unless the online retailer or publisher includes it in the book’s product description. Often, a reader shops with a goal in mind – not necessarily of a specific book, but for something to read while waiting at the kids’ sports practice, or while walking on the treadmill, on vacation, etc. – and might want a story to fit the amount of time available to read. If the reader was expecting a novella she could read in an hour, only to find when the hour’s up that she’s only halfway through it, that could be a bit jarring. Or worse, when the reader’s looking to be entertained during a long flight, only to have the story run out halfway through it, with nothing new to read and no wifi/cell connection with which to download something else.

The main situation where this is a problem is when the reader feels s/he hasn’t gotten a good value for his/her money – for example, many readers consider $2.99 a fair price for a novella, but would feel ripped off if they expected a full novel or novella, only to get a short story a fraction. In fact, I’ve read of many an ebook author getting dinged with 1-star reviews for this very reason – the reader expected a full novel, but got a novella. Sadly, in some cases, this was clearly spelled out in the book’s description, and either the reader failed to notice, or didn’t even read the description. In other cases, it wasn’t noted – and IMO the reader is justified for feeling cheated.

So what do you think – does size matter with ebooks? Or does it only matter in relation to price and value? I normally prefer longer books, but lately I’ve been enjoying some darned good novellas while on the treadmill. What about you?