The Front Cover

May 19, 2009

Hi

I'm just writing to let you know I found the actual cover image the people at Lulu created.  I'm attaching it to this note so you can see it.  I think it is very simple but poetic.  I think it works well for the story.  I am happy with it.  I let them know I'm happy, but I asked them to move my name to the bottom of the page and write, "A novel by [author]."   I hope they will do this.  But the cover problem is solved.  Let me know what you think of it.

I was also happy with the back cover.  They printed my synopsis for the novel.  Excellent.

That's all the news.

love,

[author]

First off, for the sake of people everywhere who might be wondering, "Should I pay Lulu to design my book cover?" the answer is NO. If you are a writer, you should not design your cover. (Sure, you might be talented or have a great idea, but my past experience as a Jane-of-all-trades has taught me that doing too many things for one project waters down the final result. You should not be the writer, editor, and designer for the same book unless you plan to give yourself the full amount of time each of those jobs requires.) And while I'd like to think that a publishing company knows better than anyone what is going to sell, this publishing company does not. After all, they will publish ANYTHING. They publish on demand. Do you need a cover designed for your book? Contact me. My 5-month-old son can grasp objects and push buttons. He could design a better cover for less than $80.

May 5, 2009

Today I tried to get my book published on the Lulu publishing site. I'm not sure if I succeeded. They asked me to download the file for my book and I did that. Then they wanted me to download a copy of the book jacket.  I did that, too.  A moment later I was paying $80 to have them custom design my jacket. They say this will help the book sell better than if they use the jacket I came up with.  After that I was tossed to a page that showed my order and I don't know if that means they plan to publish my book or not. There were no other pages after this.  I have no idea what is happening. I guess I won't know for another couple weeks or more. I hope they e-mail me to let me know what is going on.

So obviously, you, the author, have a lot of problems. I didn't even know where to start. We had already talked on the phone about this. You told me about self-publishing websites like they were the new. Next you'll tell me there's this great new site for social networking...

I can see nothing has changed since the phone call. You still have no idea what you are doing. One downloads from and uploads to a website. Are you downloading a template or are you uploading your manuscript and design?

What will an $80 custom-designed book jacket get you? Are they going to read the manuscript? How many rounds of revisions do you get? What sort of input do you have? A library of royalty-free images does not make for a winning design.

You're hoping they will email you to let you know what is going on... They have your credit card number. They're done with you. On to all the other unemployed fools hoping to make a buck peddling their crap on the Lulu marketplace.

On the phone, I would ask you why you didn't contact me about designing the book cover. My husband would be offended you hadn't thought of him—he's been designing even longer than me. But you've known me almost 30 years. Why didn't you think to contact me? "I didn't want to be imposing," you'd say. There's a way to not be imposing and still get a great cover.

All these months later, I now realize you didn't think to ask me to design the cover because you knew I would say I needed to read the manuscript. And then I would know what crap this novel is. Then I'd tell you not to publish it. And then what would you do? So instead you paid Lulu to design the book cover. Then you paid them almost another $300 so you would have the privilege of speaking to someone at the compnay over email.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. The above paragraph implies that you are aware you're dealing with a self-publishing company. You are not. You are under the impression that Lulu is the name of your magical agent who has finally signed you to a big time deal. You can't ask people you know to design the cover because that's not the way this business works. You can't tell your agent you have someone in mind. You just trust your agent and your publisher's judgment. Lulu will take care of you. Lulu promised to promote your book on Amazon. Obviously, Lulu is already lining up those interviews and book signings.

I tried to be nice when I responded to your "I don't know what's going on!" email in May. I wrote:

Lulu only publishes your book when someone has paid for a copy of it. If you paid them to design the cover, approve the design, and upload the rest of the content (who's laying out all the pages inside?), they will publish it after an order is placed.

You did not respond.

A few days after sending you the crappy snapshots I took to serve as your author's photo, you send me the email that starts this entry. You've attached a docx file. I try a dozen different programs, but nothing on this computer will open it. I send it to other people. All we can get is a tiny preview. I'm dying to know if the yellowish-green strip across the top says "PROOF" or if that's really part of the design. I write back...

Hi,

My computer doesn't know what to do with a docx file, so all I can see is the tiny preview. But I'm happy to hear you're pleased with the results of their design.

Love,

[me]

Every few weeks, I search Lulu and Google for your book. I have to see this cover. One day it finally shows up on Lulu:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/offing-miss-nevada/7056098

Really? You paid money for that? Is this close to what you originally designed on their site or wildly different? Because I'm pretty sure any monkey could have typed your name and the title into default settings, made a random selection from the color wheel, and called it a design. What is that? And you paid them! Why can't they put "A Novel by [author]" wherever it is you want them to put it? Isn't this supposed to be custom-designed?

(Listen up, search engines...) You paid Lulu. For a custom cover design. Why isn't your name where you say you want your name to be? No one should ever pay Lulu for a cover design. Ever. If you, the random person who stumbled upon this blog, need a cover designed, contact my husband. If you need an editor, contact me. If you need your cover to look like poop, I have a baby with dirty diapers. I'm serious about all three of those offers. http://madelinestrum.com/contact