March 2006
Kevin Scott Collier - Picture your characters, then describe them
“Picture your characters, then describe them”
By Kevin Scott Collier
As both an author and an illustrator of books, I have a unique perspective about how illustrators work with writers. What astonishes me most when I accept an assignment for another writer as an artist that many have no idea what their characters should look like.
In a way, as an illustrator, I prefer that. As it allows me to be creative and help shape the appearances of the writer’s cast in chapter and picture books. I like be to assigned a book to draw where I have input.
I do think writers should visualize more when they are writing. They often describe scenery, and physical attributes regarding most characters, but I believe few writers can see a picture in their mind. The cast has names, and individual characteristics mostly based on personality. But what would a writer do if a police artist were to sit down with the writer and say, “OK, tell me what this character looks like.”
Would a face appear? Would the way the characters carries themselves emerge as a visual? If a female is said to have “long blonde hair,” how long is it? How blonde is it?
An illustrator will bring a face and colors to your characters, but if you are the writer, try doing this while you are writing your book. Don’t just describe them on paper; see them in your mind. Believe it or not, your story will become more full as your cast will now move to personal level.
One of the cool things about creating my own illustrations for the characters I write about, is I know whom I am writing about. I can see them. They have taken on a life, and often their images influence what they will say or what they would do.
So, while you may not be an illustrator, try to picture your characters clearly in your mind to the point they speak to you. Once you have an image that goes beyond a description in text, you have become an artist whether you are one or not.
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Kevin Scott Collier is the author of
http://www.kevinscottcollier.com
April 2006
Tom Rent - Traditional vs. Self-publishing
There is no greater feeling than holding a book in your hands with your own name on the cover. I don’t know where this desire comes from, but it’s a feeling many people seem to have. Whatever the reason, realizing your dream of becoming author has never been easier. Let’s look at both the traditional publishing approach as well as self-publishing.
Traditional Publishing. Traditional publishers publish essentially all the books found in today’s large bookstore chains. These books generally have impressive covers and flawless printing, and thus are the envy of new authors who want this quality for their book, not to mention the wide distribution bookstore chains can provide. Unfortunately, only 1 in 300 manuscripts by new authors are selected by traditional publishers to become a book.
Many manuscripts are rejected simply because they just won’t sell. Publishers want profits, are therefore are looking to sell many thousands or even millions of copies. Few authors can convince a publisher up front about such huge sales potential. You either need a proven track record as a published author or have a compelling or popular story, such as growing up as a Kennedy.
But let’s say you do find a traditional publisher who is passionate about your book. All you have to do then is simply sign a contract and forfeit all the rights to your work. In return you will receive a small advance payment of about $5000 to finish your book, and receive a small royalty payment for each book sold, usually 5% or so.
Once the contract is signed, the traditional publisher invests their own money in the book. They edit it and create the cover art as they desire. They print as few or as many as they desire. They establish distribution and do marketing as they desire. You are only involved if they feel you need to be involved. You might not like how they edited your book, or the cover art, or the way they are promoting your book, but remember, it’s really their book now. Reality is that with traditional publishing, you have to take the good with the bad, but most authors still long for such a traditional deal.
Even with over 500 traditional publishing companies in the USA, for many authors, landing a traditional publishing deal has never happened even after many years trying. For them, and for many new authors, self-publishing is still a good alternative option.
Self-Publishing. Self-publishing is a broad term. The basic difference from traditional publishing is that with self-publishing the author pays most, if not all, of the costs to be published. This clearly has its advantages, such as it allows the author to retain publishing rights and allows the author to have control over how the book is printed and promoted.
But the downside is significant too. The author may have to pay thousands of dollars up front to get their book published, and they may have to pay all the costs for the printing, warehousing, and distribution of their books. Marketing can cost thousands of dollars more. All of this can be cost prohibitive, and many times the author never even comes close to getting their money back. But it still is a guaranteed way to get published.
Historically self-publishers used vanity presses. Vanity presses are full service publishers, who will publish, print, promote, and distribute your book for a very handsome fee. You pick them instead of them picking you. With a vanity press, the author pays for everything including the management fees, editing fees, artist fees, printing fees, and warehousing fees. They provide as much or as little service as the author wants to pay for. Two of the most established vanity presses still in existence are Dorrance Publishing in Pittsburgh and Trafford publishing in Canada.
Subsidy presses are another option for self-publishers. Here the small to medium sized publishers selects the books they will publish, but the author and the publisher split the costs and the profits. The publisher is happy to share the financial risk with a new author, and the new author benefits by having a better chance of getting published without funding the entire project themselves.
Some authors also self-publishing by preparing their book to be printed by a local printing and binding company. This is one way to control every step of the process and to control costs. This method takes a good deal of knowledge and skill, but you are in charge of it all. Marketing is a challenge here, but marketing is a challenge with every self-publishing option.
The last and most popular self-publishing method is Print-on-Demand (POD). POD utilizes digital printing technology that prints and binds one book at a time, and in most cases, the book isn’t printed until the customer orders it! This approach eliminates a lot of costs, particularly in warehousing and waste. With established POD companies, authors prepare their book contents using a word processor program matched to the POD companies formatting specifications. Authors can chose a various book sizes and they can even supply the cover art for the book. The costs for POD run from zero to several thousand dollars depending on what you want. Authors retain all rights and are usually in charge of marketing. The most popular POD companies are Lulu, Publish America, Author House, and Book Surge.
A serious downside of POD is that currently large bookstore chains will not carry POD books since they are used to being able to return unsold books to the publisher. POD companies don’t have warehouses to store returned books. You can however special order many POD books through these bookstores, so that’s a start.
It is interesting to note that in 2004 over 180,000 new book titles were published in the USA. Of these, a POD company published the most new titles, 4800. The largest traditional publisher released just 3500 new titles that year. The flipside of this story is that only a handful of POD books to date have sold over 5000 copies, a number most traditional publishers start at for a new title print-run. But given more time, this likely will change as POD catches on across the industry.
I hope you enjoyed this article and I’d encourage you to pursue your book-publishing dream. In the meantime, have a good read.
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Tom Rent lives in Lakeville, Minnesota and is the author of a line of humor books called Comical Captions. You can visit his website at www.comicalcaptions.com
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