MONDAY MUSING: CATCHING THE EYE OF THE READER

How do you get new readers to not only discover you, but also plunk down their hard-earned money to read your stories?

You want to give them something provocative to keep them interested for longer than three seconds (according to marketing research) so they’ll consider buying the book.

I'm a very visual person. One of my pet peeves, as any who have known me the past five years will attest, is shoddy cover art. I feel strongly about it and have written articles about the importance of professional and competitive looking cover art—especially self published authors. You want your cover to catch the eye and induce the reader to pick up your book.  If one goes through all the time it takes to write a good story, have it properly edited both for story content and grammar/typos, WHY would they slap a crappy(and obvious) photoshop picture on the front and call it a cover? 

Earlier this month, Kat Sheridan shared an interview with L.B. Beckett, author of Guild of Spies. The cover art was imaginative and eye catching. It's beautiful. It doesn't scream *amateur* or self-published. Judi Fennell, Formatting 4 U, designed the cover and I asked her to share the process of such a project and the importance of cover art from a marketing standpoint. 

One of the biggest start-to-finish projects I've worked on recently was L.B. Beckett’s Guild of Spies. This story is an epic steampunk-speculative fiction-action/adventure-thriller with some romance. As you can see, it doesn't fall into any specific genre, so when it came to doing the cover, we were dealing with a wide-open frontier.

But this also allowed us to combine the genres. L.B. Beckett wanted to have an Asian influence, as that is prevalent in the story. Looking at the back cover copy, reading through some of the chapters, and my own knowledge of online marketing (finalist spots in 3 American Idol-like competitions based on vote-getting) and branding, I started looking around for a steampunk feel.

A lot of cover generation is hours of sifting through images. Now, I can do that for a client, but my time is money, or a client can do that for themselves (with direction from me toward a few websites I like to use) and save themselves some cash outlay, though giving up that much time isn't always what people want to do when they could be writing. Up to the client.

To add to the scope of this project, because the book is so long (184,000 words), the author wanted to offer the book as either a full-length novel at one price, or two shorter novels at a lower price. Oh, and we were doing a print book as well. That’s four different cover steps.

We had to look at it from both a branding viewpoint and a marketing one because we didn't want reader to feel that there were three different stories in this series. It’s one story, just delivered in different reading options. Therefore, we wanted continuity across the books, but with a noticeable difference.

I found three different backgrounds all in the same color scheme and feel, so that was one hurdle overcome. I utilized the title and author name graphics across all of the books, and took that Asian element—the phoenix—and kept it, but moved it around. We could also add the Book 1 and 2 titles in a consistent place so readers would be able to identify which book they’d already read.

We had a tag line, too, something that summed up the story:

In a country of secrets, even a spy has her limits…

I tried putting that on the cover, but with all the gears and gadgets and words, it was too much. This was a tough decision from a marketing standpoint because you want to give readers that hook. You want to give them something provocative to keep them interested for longer than three seconds so they’ll consider buying the book. At least, that’s the though process for traditional publishing. But we’re in a new business model and what’s worked in the past doesn't necessarily work now.

Branding was a bigger focus for this story. Keeping those books identifiable for the readers. So we put the tagline on the back. Now, on the digital versions you won’t see it. That is, you won’t see it on the cover. You will, however, see it in the interior. So we've got our hook and it’s included in the online description.

When it came to marketing, we made sure to include “Book 1 of 2” for the half books. We looked at price point—what would encourage a reader to buy a bigger book at a bigger price when they could “sample” the first part of the story for a lesser one? We also included excerpts to the other half of the story at the end and a link to find out where to buy that other half. So now, if a reader finishes Book 1, The Open Hand of Tem, he/she can read what happens in Book 2, The Hand of Tem Closes, and then have a link to buy the book. One stop shopping made simple.

As you can see, there’s a lot involved in getting a book to the readership. But you know what? It’s the same thing for a print book traditionally published. Discoverability has always been a hot button—how do you get new readers to not only discover you, but also plunk down their hard-earned money to read your stories? And how do you keep them coming back?

$2.99 is the price point at which authors will earn 70% royalties. A lot of authors are using that price point to start out to see what happens with sales; I’m going to ask you to consider price point carefully. If everyone is putting something up for $2.99, where’s the differentiation in the marketplace?

More and more I’m finding my clients raising their prices as a symbol of quality. I've experimented with pricing and I can honestly say that my sales have increased with the price point. 

Perception is nine/tenths of reality.

Guild of Spies - An Interview with Author L.B. Beckett

Sia, thank you for letting me be a guest hostess today! 

Today you are going to learn a new word and be given a perfect example of it. 

The word is “uchronia”. The “u” part of it comes from the word “utopia.” Most folks think that means “a perfect world”, but it actually comes from the Greek “ou” meaning “not” and “topos”, meaning “place." So, “not a real place.”  The second part of the word comes from “chronos”, meaning “time”. So “uchronia” means a place that doesn’t exist and a time that doesn’t exist. Think of JRR Tolkein’s Middle Earth as a good example of it. 

Uchronia also applies to the new novel, Guild of Spies, by L.B. Beckett. In a time that is vaguely turn-of-the-century/Victorian, the secretive, vaguely China-esque country of Tem decides to finally allow visitors from the Western world. The first delegation consists of a politician, a minister of trade, a cultural minister, a historian, and a translator. 

And of course, a spy. 

Dian Von Camff, ostensibly a dilettante “lady adventurer,” finds herself in a land where politics and intrigue are woven into the very fabric of life, where rituals and customs must be strictly observed, the slightest whim of the Emperor must be obeyed, and the “Hand of Tem” is everywhere. Her “minder” in this dangerous new world is Counselor Sen Ari, a man with secrets of his own.

I was fortunate to interview the author and delve further into this work of intrigue, secrets and romance.

KS: What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?

LBB: Most of the book was fun to write, honestly! Just as a little bit of background: I wrote Guild of Spies a number of years ago when I was between more “serious” projects—which is to say, ones that I thought might get me published and get me started on a real writing career. The problem was, I didn’t know what that next “serious” project was going to be—I just didn’t have any ideas at the time. I’d learned enough about writing to realize that like most skills, you need to practice, so I decided that I would write this book purely for fun and to keep my chops up. I wasn’t putting any expectations on myself other than to write every day. So the whole thing was kind of a romp.

There were a lot of scenes that I enjoyed writing. I think where the whole thing really took off was from that first scene between Dian and Sen Ari, the first of their many conversations that take place on several levels at once. I loved writing anything with the Emperor, especially that very dark moment when Dian is called to his observatory in the middle of the night. The second meeting between Dian and the Minister of Rituals was a lot of fun, because he’s very polite, but obviously not a nice person. A lot of the “action” of this book takes place in conversations, and all of that verbal fencing was a kick to write.

KS: I love the place and character names in this book and the fact that some of them are what I call “Easter Eggs,” meaning they have a layered sort of meaning. For instance, the delegation is from “Albion,” which is an ancient name for England. You also have countries named Aquitaine and Khalabad. How you came up with these names? And why “Tem”?

LBB:  I wish I could tell you that I had some master plan or intellectual construct for the names, but the truth is, I just made them up as I went along. As mentioned, this was a book that I wrote for fun, just to write without a lot of expectations, and a part of that was avoiding research (which is usually a large part of my writing process). So, I set it in an imaginary place, where I could do whatever I wanted without having to respect actual facts or real history. I picked names that had the sort of resonances that I wanted for the places I was making up. With “Tem,” I just liked the way it sounded!

KS: What exactly is “The Hand of Tem”?

LBB: The Hand of Tem is several things at once. It’s a faction of fundamentalist extremists, sort of like the Taliban, that becomes an unofficial militia and creates a lot of chaos in Tem. What isn’t known is the extent to which The Hand of Tem is a genuine grassroots movement and to what extent it’s being manipulated by powerful forces in the Temish government.

KS: Dian Von Camff is by nature (and necessity), aloof, distant, an observer (making her the perfect spy!). Councilor Sen Ari Of Tem is a man of rules, rituals, and secrets. What makes these two perfect for each other, and how did you get them to “open up” to each other?

LBB: It was a challenge. When I was beginning the draft, I honestly didn’t know how much of a romance there would be between the two of them, how it would develop, what their feelings toward each other would be. Both of these people are very guarded, and they both have hidden agendas. Both have reasons to pursue each other to advance their own interests. So their relationship of necessity had to develop slowly. It starts with a mutual attraction, but acting upon it would be extremely risky for both of them. It advances because of a shared secret that binds the two together up to a point, but still, neither one can be open and honest with the other. The lack of honesty and trust, while understandable, leads to some devastating consequences.

Beyond attraction and beyond manipulation, they’re drawn to each other because they have a similar approach to life—both are close observers who rely first on analysis rather than emotion to make their decisions—or, that’s what they tell themselves. In reality both of them have a lot of passion that they try to cover up. Dian’s aloofness and distance cover up a deep well of anger and the truth about her life before the Guild. Ari’s loyalty and devotion to duty cover up a rebellious streak and a love of power games, of winning.

What draws Dian to Ari is that he’s smart, he’s funny, and he seems to genuinely respect her, in particular her strength and “spirit of adventure.” That’s the part she’ll admit. What she’s less likely to cop to is that he’s a man who seems to want to take care of her, and she’s had very little of that kind of support from the romantic partners in her life.

What draws Ari to Dian at the beginning is that she’s absolutely not a woman he should get involved with—a delegate from a foreign nation traditionally considered an enemy of Tem. One of the ways that Ari’s rebellious streak expresses itself is in an attraction to women that are going to get him into trouble. We find out as well that living and working in the viper pit of Temish politics, he’s lonely and isolated, and it’s very tempting to open himself up to an outsider. Also, Dian is smart, she’s interesting, she challenges him, and she knows about a world outside Tem that he’s very curious about but has never gotten to experience.

Whether this mutual attraction and compatibility is enough to transcend their very different backgrounds and conflicting loyalties is something that you’ll have to read the book to find out!

KS: Guild of Spies is a BIG book, but it’s worth it for the delicious unfolding of the intrigue. Reading it reminded me of a Japanese tea ceremony, where every slow gesture and ritual holds a deeper meaning. It’s available in two parts, “The Open Hand of Tem” and “The Hand of Tem Closes,” but I’d advise going ahead and getting the combined version, Guild of Spies, because once you start, you’re not going to want to stop!

• What other examples of "uchronia" have you read? Do you find made-up worlds as appealing as I do?

In a country of secrets, even a spy has her limits...

The Guild recruited Dian Von Camff when she was little more than a child. She’s served this secret organization ever since, performing covert missions to advance their Grand Conspiracy. Now she’s been given her most difficult and important assignment to date—infiltrate an Albion diplomatic delegation to the reclusive Imperial Kingdom of Tem.

Once in Tem, Dian finds herself surrounded by strangers who play dangerous games at the highest levels of power. Chief among them is Counselor Sen Ari, a Temish official who takes a special interest in Dian. But what are his motives? When Dian saves the life of the Emperor himself, she becomes enmeshed in subterranean plots whose objectives she can only guess—and even the best spy the Guild has might not be good enough to survive the unleashed fury of the Hand of Tem. Purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble.