AUTHORNOMICS Interview with Karrie Ross

In addition to book cover design, Karrie Ross also offers website design, branding, and consulting. Her client list is built of business leaders, entrepreneurs, authors, creatives, coaches, and artists of all kinds. Karrie is also a fine artist with artwork in homes/hotels/commercial and retail spaces around the world. She wrote an award winning book on Parenting, premise of coaching parent/coaching child; creating a conscious connection. Karrie also developed a Test/Quiz Plugin for WordPress Powered websites. She is the developer of Be A Smile! which features a line of characters named the Bebuddies and an amazing bee named BzzzBee. Karrie writes books on many subjects for her website, The Life Dialogue.

What first got you interested in design as a career choice?

In high school there was an advertising art class and we got to make all the signs for the school…I thought this would be fun. And then one year, I won an award from the Bullocks Art Project; what better way to be encouraged. I had a fantastic art teacher.

When did you first start designing book covers and author websites?

I’ve always, well, for a very long time, been fascinated with book covers. My father was a collector of Sci-Fi books and they lined the walls of our two-car garage. When I was very young, before I could read, I would smell them, touch them, and sit for hours imagining the stories inside based on the cover image.

Then, throughout my graphic design career, book jobs just came to me and in the late 1990s I started paying more attention to the industry and by early 2000s I was designing many books.

The websites came a little later when WordPress was developed and made life a lot easier for all of us…but the concept and organization of a website is still one of the most important parts and for the author to have access and know-how to make changes anytime they want.

I consult and train on how to create not only the website but the full web-presence and brand.

You’ve been involved with projects for corporate giants like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Microsoft, and even Disney. How do you keep from getting overwhelmed by the vast size of your potential impact? How do you approach such huge projects?

The projects you mention were from another lifetime, when I owned an agency in Beverly Hills with my late husband. However, to answer the “getting overwhelmed”. I really have never thought of that aspect of the projects I’ve worked on. I do know that what I do changes companies and people’s lives, no matter if it’s just an advertisement for a magazine or an annual report. My creativeness is directed to motivate a response…and since I come from a position of well-meaning, there is no overwhelm (worry) about the impact it will make. And in answer to how do I approach such huge projects, I do it with care and organization. I really enjoy being a communicator, project manager as well as creative director.

I currently keep busy with consulting, branding, designing books and am also creating promotional materials such as banners, websites, posters and any printed materials used to accompany the book.

In your experience, how much influence do smaller details like color and font choice have on the overall look of a book cover?

I recently received an email from a student asking for the “quick, how to” to designing a book cover so that all the parts look like they go together, and when I responded with “go to a book store and look, observe, figure out what you like and don’t like” she was not happy. It’s not easy and there is no instant answer of how to make the title look like it belongs with the images, although the font and color help with this.

Mind you, this is a challenge for me too… it sometimes takes hours/days to get all the parts to blend and balance and I’ve been doing this for over 40 years. Sure sometimes it all comes together quickly but most of the time, hours or days.

What kinds of trends do you see in terms of cover design? Do you think a cover should be designed differently if going directly to Kindle only? How does designing covers for electronic books differ from print versions?

Trends… right now it’s all over the place with so many people who don’t know graphic design copying what has been done before, and badly. Causing the world to go backwards in what is perceived as “good” or “acceptable” design for book covers. It will eventually even out but until it does…it’s running a muk. As far as e-book covers, for me there isn’t much difference as to how I approach their design. The basics of cover design are applied and each layout is considered at a smaller size.

What inspires your book cover designs? Do you read the written work before you start the design process?

My experience inspires me and I do lots of communication with the author, and do skim the book.

What is your process for designing the ideal book cover that fits the author’s work and expectation?

Communication. Life experience. Confidence.

What kinds of tips do you have for authors looking at designing their own website? Their own book cover? In your opinion, what are some key pieces that make a website more aesthetically pleasing?

Most basic tip for doing their own design is to be honest with themselves if they can do it or not. What is the time vs. cost and is it to their benefit to hire a professional, if even for consulting. It’s not easy to pull the necessary information out of ourselves that makes for a good cover; it’s not just about the imagery and fonts, it’s the back story. Websites need to be easy to follow and appealing in color and layout.

For more of this interview and others, please visit our blog at http://www.andreahurst.com/category/blog/

AUTHORNOMICS Interview with Jennie Shortridge

Jennie Shortridge has published five novels: Love Water Memory, When She Flew, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe, Eating Heaven, and Riding with the Queen. When not writing, teaching, or volunteering, Jennie stays busy as a founding member of Seattle7Writers.org, a nonprofit collective of Northwest authors.

As an acclaimed writer of five novels, a writing workshop coach, a founding member of an authors’ collective, and a musician, how do you manage to juggle all of those and remain successful?

That you think I am juggling all these things successfully is lovely to hear, but I think it’s a bit of an illusion. When I’m particularly busy organizing a Seattle7Writers event, I’m not writing as much as I should be. When I’m in full-on writing mode, I turn down teaching opportunities and other fun gigs. There are times when it all works out, and other times when I feel pulled in too many directions. My husband and friends and family get to hear all about it, of course! But my mantra is: Everything is happening exactly as it should be; relax. I want very much to do all of these things, and I’m stubborn.

Your latest novel, Love Water Memory, is out this month and is inspired by an interesting news story. Can you tell us a little more about this book and how it got started?

I read a Seattle Times story in 2007 about a man who’d gone missing from Olympia, and turned up in Denver on the TV news. He had amnesia and they were asking if anyone could help identify him. His fiancé went to get him and they got married, though he didn’t remember her. He said something like, “I didn’t know her face but I knew her heart.” That intrigued me. I wanted to know more, so I did a bunch of research and wrote a fictional story to figure it all out.

Your band, The Rejections, created some music specifically for Love Water Memory. Have you done anything like that for your other novels? What made you choose to connect music to the novel? How was it an enriching process?

In Love Water Memory, the amnesiac is a woman, and one of the first ways she begins to feel glimmers of memory is through playing the piano. Music becomes her portal to her former self, so incorporating music felt very natural. Our band does cover songs, and we chose a few that evoked the emotion of the book. A musician friend in Denver actually wrote a song called “Love Water Memory” (so cool, and a beautiful song). All the songs are on my website for readers to download and listen to. And yes, my very first book, Riding with the Queen, was about a musician (two, actually, though one was long dead), and I wrote songs as those characters and performed them at readings and made them available for download. What I love about connecting stories and music is that the music becomes another way to experience the story, another way “in.”

As the title suggests, the use of water permeates the book, from Grady being underwater to Lucy being found in water. What was your inspiration for using this as one of the themes in this book?

Good metaphors come about organically, I think. Water was not originally in the plan, but Grady was a swimmer, and as his story became more apparent, so did a lot of different connections to water, for all of the characters. Water is the source of life, right? So, once I realized that it was all connecting, it also became a part of the title (which woke me up at two in the morning, twice, so I had to use it.)

How has promoting Love Water Memory been different from promoting your previous novels?

Honestly, I just have a lot more support from my new publisher, Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster. I’d been hoping to find a house that offered that, and I really lucked out. They’ve been lovely and are really behind the book. I do the same amount of work I’ve always done, out in the world, online, etc. but there are others out there now pulling for the book, too.

What is your favorite part of being a writer? Your least favorite? Do you feel writing gets easier with each novel you release?

My favorite part of being a writer is writing. I love being in a big long story over many, many months and sometimes years. I love the discovery process. I love getting to know the characters, uncovering secrets, making something ugly not quite as hard to be with through understanding more about it. Does that make any sense at all? My least favorite part of writing is the pressure that can come from being a published author. When’s your next book going to be done? Are you writing? How many books have you sold? Why aren’t you on Oprah? Can you help me get published, too? It gets overwhelming at times. And no, writing doesn’t get any easier, ever. If it did, well. It might not be as interesting any more!

For more of this interview and others, please visit our blog at http://www.andreahurst.com/category/blog/

AUTHORNOMICS Interview with Andrea Hurst

You’re both a literary agent and an author. Which came first and how did you get into the industry?

I got my start in writing and publishing over 25 years ago, when my first nonfiction book, Everyone’s Natural Food Cookbook, was published. Since then, I’ve worked as a literary agent, a developmental editor, a writing coach and instructor, and an advisor for other self-published authors. The Guestbook is my novel.

As an agent, where do you see the publishing industry heading?

The industry is in a bit of a standoff right now. Authors who publish independently are seeing more and more success and have even made it to the New York Times Bestsellers List. That being said, these successes are comparatively rare. It used to be that traditional publishers were the “gatekeepers,” the ones who made sure of the quality of materials being released. With the rise of self-publishing, the public has come to fill that role more, choosing what they will send to the bestsellers list.

Since I’ve worked with both traditional and indie publishing, I have a pretty good idea of the advantages and disadvantages of both. With traditional publishing, you generally get more exposure and better distribution, especially in book stores. The downside is that you lose some control of the book, you have a long wait until it comes out, and you earn a smaller piece of the royalty.

With indie publishing, you have full control and you take full responsibility for what you put out. This can be either good or bad. Hopefully, you will take the time and use professional help to put out the best book possible. The upside is you get to design your own cover, pick your own title, get the book out fairly quickly, and receive a large portion of the royalties.

Last year was a big year for you with the release of your new novel (The Guestbook), literary conferences, and MFA classes you taught. What are some of your plans for 2013?

On the agent front, I have several big projects I will be pitching this year, and I am very excited to move forward and continue the agency’s pension for representing great books. We also welcome our new agent, Margaret Bail, who represents commercial and genre fiction. She will be at several writers conferences this year if you would like to meet her. Check out her profile at http://www.andreahurst.com/literary-management/about/margaret-bail/. Our agent, Amberly Finarelli, has returned to work after having twins and continues to sell multiple-book deals for current clients only.

On the teaching front, I will continue to do webinars for Writer’s Digest and speak and instruct through various conferences listed on our website and for the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts MFA in Creative Writing program. I am excited to teach for their new Publishing and Editing track as well.

The agency is working to form our own imprint, Hurst House, to work directly with clients we take through the Kindle Direct publishing program.

On the writing front, I am in the finishing stages of my current novel, Always with You, and plan to release my second book in the Madrona Island Trilogy.

Constructing a novel is no easy task. How do you motivate yourself to write and keep writing? What inspires your writing?

Even with a fulltime literary business, classes to teach, and two dogs to take care of, I still try to make time to write almost every day. I am determined to follow my own passion for writing. Of course, that’s not always so easy to do, but I find that on the days I get at least two hours of writing in, I feel much more human and happy. What has recently helped my writing was the book 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, by Rachel Aaron, which is a pantster’s dream for plotting. I highly recommend it.

What were some challenges of releasing The Guestbook? How has it been a rewarding experience?

It has been a very challenging, but also extremely rewarding, experience for me.

Being a literary agent, I try to have my finger on what’s popular with readers and what I can sell to publishers. I knew my book had a strong readership, but I also knew that, as a first-time novelist in this genre, it would be a hard sell to a major publisher. I was also very interested in learning first-hand the whole process of indie publishing and therefore chose that route so that I could not only use it for myself, but for my clients in the future.

For more of this interview and others, please visit our blog at http://www.andreahurst.com/category/blog/

AUTHORNOMICS Interview with Emily Keyes

Emily Keyes is Contracts & Foreign Rights Manager at the L. Perkins Agency as well as an acquiring agent. She is passionate about YA and teen novels, therefore acquiring in that area. In addition, Emily is looking for a wide-range of commercial fiction including women’s fiction, contemporary romance, fantasy, science fiction, paranormal and historical. Emily is actively expanding her client list and open to submissions. As a Contracts Administrator at Simon & Schuster, Inc. and a writer for “The World Almanac for Kids,” Emily forged her knowledge of many aspects of publishing, bringing that experience to her current position. She is a graduate of the NYU Publishing program.

As a literary agent, what are you looking for when you read a query letter? What makes you request a manuscript?

Obviously, I’m looking for something that sounds like a book I want to read—the way a reader browses in a bookstore. I’m also looking for something I haven’t seen before or feels like a fresh take on the genre. There are so many books out there (both published and unpublished) and I think the real trick is standing out from the crowd somehow.

What can you tell us about the current and upcoming trends in the book market? Are some genres and subjects more likely to sell than others?

With trends you have to remember that books being sold now aren’t going to be out for a year or two. So if you are seeing a lot of one genre in the stores, then editors and agents have most likely moved on already!

For YA, I still see a lot of dystopian and paranormal books, and those trends are mostly over. To sell one, it has to be exceptional because there are so many. Right now editors are asking for contemporary YA, science fiction YA (with real science) and I’ve gotten more requests for more middle grade too.

I don’t work with as much adult, but the “Fifty Shades”-inspired books are almost over.

Are the trends that are selling different in the foreign markets? How so?

Yes. Each country is different. It is interesting to see what plays in each market. I love YA but there are countries that don’t get it—maybe because they don’t have a strong youth culture, who knows? For example, my Japanese subagent asks me for historical romance and those are pretty difficult to sell in the States. So there are different tastes in each country the way different readers have different tastes. It also depends on whether or not a country has a strong digital market yet—many don’t—because that increases the number of books that can be made available.

You mention that you have a passion for YA books. What are some of your favorite published books in this genre?

Oh gosh, that’s hard. I got into YA because I never really forgot those books I read when I was younger, you know? So I suppose my favorites are those books I read when I was a kid that really stuck with me. Where the Red Fern Grows is one I remember having an intense sobby reaction to.

These days I like YA that is smart and fun but still meaningful. The Fault in Our Stars is a good recent example, or anything by Sarah Dessen, Stephanie Perkins, Deb Caletti, or Elizabeth Scott. This year, I’ve also loved Code Name Verity and Never Fall Down.

For more of this interview and others, please visit our blog at http://www.andreahurst.com/category/blog/

AUTHORNOMICS Interview with Kristen Lamb
originally posted: February 5, 2013

Kristen Lamb is the author of the #1 best-selling books We Are Not Alone—The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer. Her methods are responsible for selling hundreds of thousands of books. She has helped all levels of writers from mega authors to self-published unknowns attain amazing results. Kristen is the founder of the WANA movement, the founder and CEO of WANA International and creator of WANATribe, the social network for creatives.

As an expert on social media marketing, what are your three biggest recommendations for authors looking to promote their books and build a platform?

Don’t promote, and don’t market. That is old paradigm. When gatekeepers existed to stem the flow of information, marketing and promotion were effective. Now we live in a Huxleyan deluge and we are drowning in information and non-stop advertising. The human mind, to combat the overload, literally learns to “unsee” content it views as part of the problem—namely too much advertising and promotion.

People are tired of it and, frankly, they no longer see it. Social media is governed by social norms, so too much promotion (which is very little, actually) is frequently dismissed or resented. Focus, instead, on forging relationships. I strongly recommend writers to have a good blog, and I teach blogging very differently than most. The way I teach writers to blog harnesses their strength and creativity as storytellers, this way the audience grows to love their writing voice.

People are on social media to connect, to socialize, not shop. If they were, they’d be on the Home Shopping Network, not the social network. We are wise to remember this when crafting our author brand and approach. Simply talking to people and caring is worth a lot and people respond positively to authenticity.

What advice can you give to authors who are hesitant to use social media? Is there one social media outlet you’d point them to above all others? How much time should an author expect to devote to social media?

The genie is out of the bottle, and writers must use social media if they hope to sell books. Discoverability is an absolute nightmare. Additionally, when I was in sales, we had a saying, Fish where the fish are. Billions of people are actively engaged in social media. They aren’t lounging in bookstores or at the local library as part of a reading group. Sure, there are people there, but 1) every writer is trying to sell to the same 5% of the overall population in need of informing or entertaining and 2) with the advent of tablets and e-readers the new generations of reader will be on-line. We need to meet them in their comfort zone, not ours. Who cares if someone only buys one or two books a year if they are YOUR books? There are hundreds of millions of those people.

How much time? As much as necessary. This is a job, and there are a lot of reasons this career isn’t for everyone. As of 2004 (BEA statistics) writers had a 93% failure rate. Most authors sold less than a thousand books (all kinds of publishing, traditional and non-traditional). Of the authors who did traditionally publish, only 1 out of 9 ever saw a second book in print. Writers had a staggering failure rate and most failed to make enough money to write full-time. Social media has given authors the opportunity to break free of these hellish odds. Singers would all love to just sing and artists would all love to just paint, but the arts are a business, too. Social media is now part of that business.

If you do social media the way I teach, maintenance takes less than 30 minutes a day. Blogging will give a tremendous advantage, but that can be done in a couple hours total per week. The question we have to ask is How badly do we want the dream?

Marketing plans, mailing lists, algorithms, tweeting non-stop to buy our book take a lot of time and they have a dismal ROI (return on investment). The WANA way is slower, but it has deep roots and is resistant to major upheavals in technology (um, MySpace?) because it is founded on relationships and content that connects to people.

How can the success of social media promotion be measured? How can a person tell that his/her efforts are making more of an impact than garnering “likes” and followers?

No matter what anyone tells you, it can’t be measured. There are too many variables and humans are infinitely unpredictable. “Likes” and number of followers are meaningless numbers. There are services out there that can sell me a thousand likes on my Fan Page for $50 or 500 Twitter followers for $100. These are vanity numbers that make us “feel” productive. This is like holding up the Houston phone book and claiming to have a “half a million friends.”

I teach how to do more with less.

One of the reasons I do like blogs is that you can measure how well your messages are being received. How many genuine comments? How many unique visits and subscriptions? You can also see how many people are spreading what you have to say. If your blog has been tweeted once, try again.

We would all love some magic formula, but there isn’t one. I hear all this nonsense about tweeting at a certain time of day, on a certain day, and all I can think is, Are these people tweeting or ovulating? Just step out and engage. If you do it correctly, you won’t be alone. Others will respond positively and repost, retweet, etc.

Real power in social media is by spreading NOT linearly, but logarithmically. You may only have 1,000 followers, but I have almost 8,000. You don’t need to have 9,000 followers to reach 9,000 people. I can RT you.

You just need to make friends and post stuff they want to share. Within the span of a few reposts, you can hit hundreds of thousands of people AND others are more likely to pay attention to the content, because it is a referral. Someone is essentially saying, "Hey, check out this cool thing I found."

For more of this interview and others, please visit our blog at http://www.andreahurst.com/category/blog/

AUTHORNOMICS Interview with William Kenower
originally posted: December 10, 2012

William Kenower is the Editor-in-Chief of Author magazine, an online magazine for writers and dedicated readers. He writes a popular daily blog for the magazine about the intersection of writing and our daily lives, and has interviewed hundreds of writers of every genre. He also hosts the online radio program Author2Author where every week he and a different guest discuss the books we write and the lives we lead. To learn more about William, go to williamkenower.com.

As a lecturer, writing coach, blogger, and Internet radio show host how do you still find the time to write? What keeps you motivated?

I set aside two to three hours every morning to work on non-Author writing projects, and then I spend about 30 minutes to an hour writing my daily blog/column. I do my best to keep the time commitment to Author under control. If it were to take over my life completely, I would begin to resent it.

As for motivation, I love what I do. I love to write, I love to write about writing, and I love to talk to writers

What types of books do you write? Do you have any new ones coming out in the near future?

I wrote fiction for many years, but I am currently finishing a memoir of sorts called No One Is Broken. I’ve been working with the agent Loretta Barrett on the project, and once it’s done – probably in six months or so – we’ll see where she sells it.

Also, I’ve assembled a collection of my essays (Write Within Yourself; An Author’s Companion), which I’ll be publishing soon, though I haven’t decided exactly when and with whom. All of that is being worked out.

Do you believe writing impacts our daily lives or is it vice versa? Why? Can you elaborate a bit more on why you think people write? Please share some of your insights on the joys and fears involved in being an author.

I could write an entire book on this subject – in fact, I have (see question 2). The central theme of my columns, my interviews, and my radio show is: “What it takes to write the book we most want to write is also what it takes to lead the life we most want to lead.” Life is creative. Every choice we make in life is creative, is another word on the blank page of our life. Writing has taught me that every single choice I make matters, that those choices ARE my life.

People write, in part, because they want to create deliberately instead of accidentally. Whether they understand it or not, they want the opportunity to ask, “What would I like to see more of in the world? How would I like to fill a blank page?”

The joys and the fears of writing have everything to do with that blank page. There is no right answer for how to fill it. The only right answer is what interests you most, what pleases you most, what inspires you most. No one can tell you if what you have written is correct or incorrect. Only you, the author, will ever know this. This is really true of our whole lives, but this fact is soon made overwhelming clear to a writer.

As a writing coach and lecturer, what are your go-to tips for aspiring writers?

Write the book you would want to read. You will find plenty of advice on the craft of writing out there, and most it will say the same things about active voice and showing and not telling and narrative arcs and so on. All of it is true and useful in its own way, but nothing will serve you better than writing the book you most want to write, the book you would most like to read. This connection to the work will provide the patience and curiosity necessary to write what we call “a good book.”

Your blog http://www.authormagazine.org/editors_blog/ is effective in both design and content. What tips do you have for authors or interviewers wanting to start or improve their blog?

As seen above, write the blog you would want to read. I wrote the column/blog I would want to read. I wasn’t reading this kind of advice anywhere, so I wrote it. What’s more, a lot of times I’m really writing to myself, writing what it is I long to hear. I know that if I share what I find most valuable there will be someone else who finds it valuable. This has proven to be so. The more I allow myself to share what I find valuable, the more the readership grows.

As Editor-in-Chief for Author magazine, what are your goals for publishing the magazine?

My goal is to create a place where writers can learn what it means to be an author – not just a writer, but an author. The writer writes the work, but the author is tasked with sharing it. The author gets the rejection letters and acceptance letters, read the reviews and deals with the editors and the agents. The author is the one who confronts the unknown that is other people’s opinions. Every author I interview is still learning how to live happily as an author. I hope the magazine provides a place where people can find support, encouragement, and a reminder that they are not alone in this journey.

For more of this interview and others, please visit our blog at http://www.andreahurst.com/category/blog/

Andrea Hurst, President, has over 25 years experience as a published author, developmental editor for publishers, and skilled literary agent. In addition to our work with high-profile authors and mainstream publishers, our team of industry professionals now offers assistance to writers we do not represent, but who are in need of expert literary guidance in their quest for publication. Whether you need help polishing a query letter or evaluating your manuscript, are curious about custom publishing or on the hunt for a top ghostwriter, we provide the tools and the expertise to succeed in today’s marketplace.