Pub Rants

Category: client books

Cover Tweaks for HOTEL ON THE CORNER

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Blogging next week might be erratic but I’ll try and hop on to give you the scoop from all my meetings.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? CARUSO by Paul Potts

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of sharing the cover for Jamie Ford’s HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, which releases on January 29, 2009.

Often AREs go out with a plain cover (sometimes blue paper) but RH did the galleys with the actual color cover. Lots of AREs were mailed out for early reviews, feedback, bookseller comments, etc. Now based on that feedback, Random House decided to do a few tweaks. Now I find the whole cover process fascinating so I thought you readers might as well.

For HOTEL, RH decided that the maroon filigree was a bit too heavy and de-emphasized the title. They wanted the title to be more prominent and in bigger font.

So, here’s the original cover.

Here’s the final cover with the tweak.

Publisher’s Weekly Best Books Of the Year

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Now this is news I could have every Monday Morning!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS by Barenaked Ladies

Just got an early peek at this week’s PW magazine and the Best Books of the Year is their cover story. In PW’s words, “Once again, we take the opportunity near year’s end to review the year in books, highlighting the very best of what American publishing had to offer in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comics, religion, lifestyle, and children’s.”

And guess what? NLA has a client book on that list!

Huge congrats to Sherry Thomas for her extraordinary debut that made the list (as well as having the cover featured in the article!). PW reviews a lot of books in the course of the year and to be one of five titles to make PW’s list in that category, well, you don’t have to take just my word for it that the novel is good.

Click here to buy.

The Demon’s Lexicon Cover: Behind The Scenes

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Happy Halloween!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? GHOSTBUSTERS by Ray Parker

It’s not often you get a glimpse of the behind the scenes discussion about a cover but there were quite a few interesting points for this one.

1. Cover image. Did we want iconic (a la TWILIGHT) or did we think that had been done to death?

Now, I have to say that I’m often drawn to iconic image covers but when you look around on shelves right now, there are an awful lot of them.

So when the Art Director suggested actually having a model shoot to do an image of Nick for the cover. We were intrigued (nervous too because how often does a real human depiction of a character seem right?). We reviewed the models in contention before the cover shoot took place (it’s a hard job, I know, but somebody has to do it!).

For Sarah Rees Brennan, this model was hands down the winner. It was pretty dang close to the Nick she envisioned.

2. Demon Mark. This plays a huge role in the story so Sarah did a nice drawing of how she envisioned it in her head. S&S didn’t end up doing anything with the image but they did play around with the idea.

3. Talisman. If we had gone the iconic image route, I imagine this would have been featured somewhere on the cover. S&S designed the beautiful talisman themselves and created it for the cover shoot. Here’s a close up shot.

4. The Menacing Birds. The Art Director just loved them so we knew they’d make the cover. There were, however, several variations of them but here you see them in their final form.

Sneak Peek: The Demon’s Lexicon

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I just walked over to my early voting location to hand deliver my ballot and drop it into a secure ballot box. Now all we can do is wait until Tuesday.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? IN THE DARK by Billy Squier

Okay, I’ve been dying to show this cover to the world and guess what? You blog readers get to see it first.

Mark your calendars! THE DEMON’S LEXICON releases on June 2, 2009 and S&S has already announced a 100,000 initial print run (and since they “announced” it, I can share this info with you!).

From RITA Nomination To Hollywood

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: You know you are having a busy day when your stomach starts telling you that you need to eat lunch. You swear you’ll get to it after just one more thing and the next time you look up, it’s 3 in the afternoon.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? BEVERLY HILLS by Weezer

I don’t often cross reference to another blog post of mine but this story I shared on Romancing the Blog last Friday is too good not to repeat here.

The post obviously hits the target reading audience for that Blog but it’s a good lesson to put here as well. If an award is prestigious or important enough, it’s worth the time and money to enter. You might just win or it might open another door you hadn’t even thought of. Just ask my author Kelly Parra.

From my Oct. 17, 2008 post—and here’s the link.

Have you been thinking about entering your novel into the RITA awards? Have you been waffling because you’re crunched for time? Let me remind you that the deadline is fast approaching (Dec. 1!) and regardless of how little spare time you have, this is a contest you don’t want to miss.

Why? Because I can tell you first-hand the power of a RITA nomination. It can land you in Hollywood.

I just closed a major motion picture option deal for my author Kelly Parra because of the double RITA-nomination for her young adult novel GRAFFITI GIRL. Yep, you heard that right. My author didn’t even win this year’s 2008 RITA but she’s winning in a whole different way (although she was very sad not to take home that beautiful statue).

This past July, several movie producers decided to check out Romance Writers Of America’s National Conference. Obviously, they gave special attention to any work nominated for the prestigious RITA award. Several weeks later, this producer got in touch with us. One call to my film co-agent and a week later, we had spanking new film option. This in turn is generating new excitement by foreign publishers in Frankfurt (as I write this).

All a year-plus after initial publication of the novel. And to top off the good news, Kelly’s new novel INVISIBLE TOUCH is releasing this month and this film interest is igniting excitement for her second novel. In fact, you should check out her cyber launch on The Secret Fates Blog.

So let me ask this question again. Have you been thinking about entering your novel into the RITAs?

Why are you waiting? Hop to it.

The Other Colorado Book Award Nominees

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Today was a travel day as I’m out of town for a week.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? FADE INTO YOU by Mazzy Star

With all the excitement last night (and the rather late hour when I wrote my entry), I totally forgot to highlight the other two worthy nominees in Kim’s category. We were up against some tough competition with BOXING FOR CUBA by Guillermo Vincente Vidal and OBIT by Jim Sheeler.

And check out some of the press coverage in the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post. In the RMN, Kim’s win for NO PLACE SAFE is the headline!

NLA’s Colorado Book Award Winner

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Just returned home from the awards ceremony and the post-celebration.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? Nothing at the moment.

It’s official! An hour or so ago, Kim Reid won the Colorado Book Award for her memoir NO PLACE SAFE.

I cannot tell you how proud I am and how pleased I am for Kim. If you haven’t picked up this wonderful book, it really is worth the read.

Kim Reid with the Colorado Book Award

The Power Of Books

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I don’t know why but regardless of how much I accomplish on Friday, Monday morning is about catching up on emails and what’s happening for the rest of the week.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? WINDSWEPT by Bryan Ferry

My author Shanna Swendson got the coolest email from a social worker last week. Apparently, Shanna’s ENCHANTED INC. series helped a stroke victim. The social worker had gotten a call from a woman who had been caring for her elderly mother. This caller’s mom had recently suffered a stroke that had caused the mother to lose her sight and the ability to use the left-hand side of her body. The daughter was really worried because after the stroke, her mother had become depressed and unresponsive.

Then one day the daughter picked up the first book in Shanna’s series, Enchanted, Inc., and begun reading it aloud to her mom. Part way through the story, her mother starting perking up, paying attention, and became animated enough to ask about what happened next. The daughter reported to the social worker that her mom’s outlook since has totally brightened.

How cool is that? As Shanna says, “it’s not exactly a miracle cure, but it’s still touching to realize you’ve had that kind of impact on someone.”

I imagine it’s emails like this that inspire writers to write.

Getting Ready For Frankfurt

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I need a good neck stretch or back massage. But TGIF!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? WHAT’D I SAY by Ray Charles

I spent the day working on getting my foreign rights co-agent ready for Frankfurt (which is just a few weeks away).

So what have we been doing? Well, first we establish the list of the clients/titles that will be shopped there. Basically we just make sure that any project we hold World rights for is on the list. We also make a list of projects that the publisher holds World for. We’ll certainly field interest for those clients so we make sure we have the Publishing House’s contact person so we can share with interested parties at Frankfurt.

But the rest of getting ready is making sure that our co-agent has all current info in hand.

On the checklist:

1. Final cover and final flap or back cover copy of any featured title.

2. Final manuscript—in page proof PDF if we have it yet but most often it’s the Word document—final sans copy edits.

3. All reviews, praise, and latest news for any client title. This is the most time consuming. Sara has been putting that together all week but there were literally events happening as of this week—like a film deal I just concluded for one of my YA authors.

I needed to make sure that info had been disseminated.

4. Confirmed release dates for all upcoming titles.

5. Made a list of foreign rights already sold for each title.

6. Made sure the marketing plans for all titles had been forwarded on as well.

There’s probably something more that I’m forgetting but that pretty much sums it up.

Frankfurt here we come.

YA Is All About Asking The Right Qs

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: It’s time for sleep I think.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? LOVE SONG by Sara Bareilles

I didn’t start this blog week with the thought it was going to be an all Ally Carter litfest but it’s really turning out to be.

Maybe because I’ve got Ally on the brain. You see, I just finished reading the final copy-edited version of book 3 in the Gallagher Girl Series. Yes, it has a title but I don’t think that has been revealed as of yet so I’m not going to share.

This might sound odd but when an agent has a hugely successful author, one of our greatest fears is whether the author can live up to her previous books. For my part, there will always be a special place in my heart for LYKY because, of course, that book was the first. Kind of hard to top–especially when I think of the scene where Macey comes to the rescue in a golf cart. Truly, one of my favorite YA scenes of all time.

But then for book 2, there was the whole Josh versus Zach and it’s hard to top the dance scene.

And then there’s book 3 in the series. All I can say is that hands down, this is Ally’s best book. And I’m not just saying that because I’m the agent. It really is her best work. And just to be a tease, you might want to go out and rent Cary Grant’s North By Northwest. I’ll say no more.

But my blogs don’t tend to be pointless so why am I waxing poetic about Ally tonight? Because I was just over at her blog reading about the wrong questions aspiring young adult writers were asking at a recent conference Ally attended and I couldn’t help but think about my own YA workshop at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers this past weekend. I, too, thought the attendees had good questions but ultimately they were asking the wrong questions. They were focused on the minutiae. How long should a YA novel be? What is and what is not allowed in novels for this audience? How do I write a novel that will be a bestseller? (And the truth is there is no way to answer that question—as I’ve discussed this week).

For me, aspiring writers often want the magic bullet point list—as in if they do XYZ, that will guarantee success.

I’m here to tell you that there is no magic list. Sorry to disappoint. But there are the right questions to ask. So go and find out what they are and what the difference really is between writing for adults versus young adults.