About ebook covers

I once read that the most important thing people consider when they are buying a book is its cover.  The second most important thing is the descriptive text or sales copy.

So when I published with the current cover of How To Take Over The World I knew I was taking a risk.  It's probably going to change in the next few months, so here's what it looks like now.

It's colorful, eye catching and I think exciting.  I also think the lightheartedness of this cover takes some of the weird factor out of the cover.  But some of the feedback I've been getting (from otherwise happy readers) is that the cover doesn't really match the content of the book.  The current cover suggest comedy, like Dave Berry's stuff or Pinky and the Brain, and that's not really what How To Take Over The World is about.

I was a little worried about that potential disconnect when I first published.  The worse case scenario is that the jazzy cover that the book is currently published with is scaring off potential, serious minded customers.

I'm considering a redesign.

My next project

I remember a few years ago looking in vain for a good, lightweight book about conversation.

Making small talk, persuasion, body language and related topics all seem to get relatively little coverage in today's press, and I just couldn't find any decent 'how to' style books explaining the art of making and enjoying conversation.

There were books for salesmen, and plenty about public speaking, but not any that contained earnest instructions about up close, interpersonal communications.

So that's what I'm writing about now.

Choosing a standout subject to write about

  by  stevendepolo 

Right now there is a glut of low quality nonfiction books on the Amazon market.

A lot of them are pretty awful looking, many of them have MS Paint crafted covers, typo ridden descriptions, and uninteresting subjects.  That means newer writers who care about the quality of their work are tasked with rising above a tide of crappy ebooks if they want to find a readership.

One great way to start to exceed these lowered standards is to choose a unique topic.  I consider my first ebook, How To Take Over The World, to be a good example of this strategy.  The subject might not have sweeping mass appeal, but there are definitely people out there who are attracted to it, and I enjoyed writing about it.

Sure, there's more to success than just picking a neat subject, even a newbie like me knows that.

You need a decent cover, diligent proofreading, and solid research backing up your words.  Eventually, after you have the basics down, you probably need to do some self promotion.

But all of that is moot if your subject is boring and over covered.

The roots of our politically shallow culture

While I was writing How To Take Over The World it struck me just how politically disinterested popular culture is.

I've realized there are a lot of reasons for this, but none of them are any good:

1. Consumers don't like being exposed to political ideas or positions they don't agree with. 
2. Advertisers are sensitive to the messages they associate themselves with.  
3. Including political insight in popular entertainment is both difficult and risky.  

See, it's about profit, not informing and educating.  The profit motive isn't necessarily a bad thing, it doesn't need to work against a vibrant and exciting popular culture, but as of right now it clearly does.

It's just good business sense to avoid offending any of the many over-sensitive and permanently outraged members of your viewership.

Really, pop culture is whatever the mass media produces, and the mass media produces what the majority of the market prefers, not what some want or need.  That's why even news programming is so remarkably reluctant to cover governance, the simple horse race is easier to report on.  Even the parts of popular culture that are supposed to care about the political process (cable news, talk radio, ect) mostly reduce the sprawling actuality of the American process to a PR battle.

A neat little proofreading hint

  by  Niccolò Caranti 

I came across this idea a few years ago, but for no good reason promptly forgot about it soon after.

When you're tired of writing and fatigued from editing, it's tough to give your work a thorough proofing.  You read your writing, but in that state of mind the brain just doesn't do a good job of telling you what's actually on the page.  When that happens, you miss typos, and typos frustrate readers.

So try this: Read your own work out loud before publishing.  For some reason verbalizing what I've written always helps me catch embarrassing mistakes.

Political Neutrality is Destroying Pop-culture

  by  danxoneil 

I'm still thinking  about how odd it is that politics and pop-culture rarely intersect.

I don't think its always been that way.  I seem to remember Saturday Night Live used to take political stances, and the old-school late night TV guys got behind candidates and causes.  Hell, once in a while a song with a message got onto the charts, or a marginally ideological hero took to the silver screen.

Letterman and Leno still take sides now and again, but they're dinosaurs now.  The young guns, Kimmel, Conan, and that irritating chirpy one, they all avoid anything political like the plague.  They make thoroughly neutral TV, full of brain dead skits that appease (not appeal) to both conservatives and liberals.  Hollywood does the same thing, you still have your loner protagonists and evil doers, but even when the world is being saved nobody ever says what its being saved from.

The great social debates of our time are nearly completely abscent from our pop-culture, and pop-culture is the only national conversation that exists.

Politics and Writing

I'm the sort of person who has too many hobbies.

I like cooking, reading, and hiking.  I enjoy playing golf, lectures are always fun, and protests are exhilarating to witness.  Sometimes I'll run through a Python tutorial, or try to muddle through an introductory HTML exercise.  I have an underutilized easel in my bedroom.

See, I've always liked too many things, and I tend to want to be too many things.

So a few years ago, when I finally realized what I actually love, I found myself surprised at how little overlap there was between my twin passions in the real world.

I'm fascinated by the political process, and I'm transfixed by good writing.  After  a few years of understanding my passions I've noticed the two don't come in the same package often enough.  Occasionally I'll find a compelling piece over at Longform, and every now and again I'll pick up a political thriller and find myself lost in a narrative.

But good writing and political conversation should go hand in hand all the time, in both fiction and nonfiction. It's a question of frequency.