Leveraging Cost-Effective Lettering Effects In A Quality Book Cover Design

02 Dec

admin |  December 2nd,2011 | Writing / Editing |  No Comments »

First and foremost, a quality book cover should engage the potential buyer.

If you take the time to observe the book covers for those books on the New York Times Bestseller List, you will discover that nearly all of those cover designs employ some type of custom lettering. Custom lettering takes time, and design time costs money–usually lots of money.

Although it is usually not cost effective to spend thousands of dollars to hire a custom graphic designer for your book cover until you know you will sell a few copies, you can however get some fairly high-quality effects with just a few hours of design time.

Here is a recent JuggernautPress.com cover design in which this concept is put to practice:

Can you see how the lettering has been manipulated to emphasize the concept of the book?

First of all, the main title letters are overlapping in a way that gives the impression that each letter is ATTRACTING those letters beside it.

The next design element employed here is in the subtitle. When a viewer first encounters the design, their eyes are naturally drawn to the main title, and this is where the letters are attracted to one another. Note that a 3D effect has been implemented to make the main title appear slightly in the distance. The viewer’s eyes acknowledge this and then move immediately to the subtitle: “The Secret Is In Your Mind.” Notice how the subtitle words are perceptively much closer to the viewer than the main title. When the eyes travel from the title to the subtitle, the effect is that of the subtitle coming closer, because it is positioned closer to the viewer–as though the subtitle is ATTRACTED to the viewer. This second effect also engages the reader subconsciously, and it does so in a way that is relevant to the topic of the book.

We offer book cover design services at very affordable prices. For example, approximately 6-8 hours of design time went into the subject cover. You can find our book cover design pricing here: www.BetterCovers.com

For quality book design services, and other publishing and editorial services, contact us at: www.JuggernautPress.com

When Constructing A Quality EBook, Make Sure To Propogate The Branding

11 Oct

admin |  October 11th,2011 | EBooks, Graphic Design |  No Comments »

To construct a quality eBook, first understand there is an organic relationship between graphics and text–and you must respect this relationship. Most electronic books weigh too heavily on the side of text, primarily because the creator does not spend enough time fine-tuning the presentation. To keep the reader’s attention, there needs to be an appealing balance between the text on the page and the graphics.

Consider the following design, and the basic branding elements it contains (from a recent Juggernaut Press project, client website still under construction, we will update link when available).

The basic elements of this cover design should also be present in the interior of the eBook. Now consider a few pages from the eBook interior:

(click picture to enlarge)

The font and design colors, and the basic design elements, are present in the interior of the eBook. They are not overpowering and only present enough to convey the same look and feel.

Many eBook designers spend little or no time on the design, and the result is a flat, boring presentation. I suspect they are only interested in getting the money from the client and moving on. Remember, your client may be relying on your product, and the success of the product may determine the success of the client. If you want repeat business, you need to go the extra mile and create a high quality product. If you fail to do so, your client may not be there for the next project.

We have completed hundreds of projects, and we know that spending the extra time and effort will pay off in the log run. So spend however many hours you need to ensure that your eBook product is of utmost quality, and the interior reflects the same branding as the exterior.

www.JuggernautPress.com

A Good Graphic Design Conveys a Story

16 Aug

admin |  August 16th,2011 | Graphic Design, Story Structure |  No Comments »

To create a top quality graphic design, you should incorporate the basic elements of STORY. Consider the following book cover design from a recent Juggernaut Press project:

What story does it tell you?

To understand the overall story it projects, consider the visual messages or symbols included in the design. First of all, we have a female figure in a seductive pose. Next we have an open doorway. We also have a heart, and a rainbow.

The female is also a shadow rather than a real figure, which is hidden. This projects the idea of the title word “hidden.” The doorway is a symbol of new beginnings and passage to a new world of information and opportunity. The heart is the everlasting symbol of love (and sex).

The rainbow symbolizes something benefited–a pot of gold found at the end of the rainbow. Rainbows are also elusive as anyone knows who has ever tried to follow one. They move with the angle of light, and this is sort of like a pick-up artist chasing a woman. In this case, the rainbow is FIXED on the cover of the book, implying that all the potential reader needs to do is purchase the book and they get the gold at the end of this rainbow.

Visit us at www.juggernautpress.com

The Importance of STORY

27 Feb

admin |  February 27th,2011 | Writing / Editing |  No Comments »

During my career as a writer, I’ve ghostwritten several hundred books (all non-fiction) and I’ve read many more than that. From all of this, one thing resonates as the most important component of any book (or anything at all put down in writing actually):

STORY

What do I mean by STORY?

Let me illustrate. My first career job was as a project manager in one of the biggest and “best” (in terms of culture) multi-national corporations. I made lots of money, enjoyed good benefits, and I had a promising future.

But sometimes I felt like just another cog in a giant impersonal wheel—like my creative spirit was being stifled. During my ten years there, certain things happened that helped me understand that I did not belong there. Like the day my manager was giving me feedback on a training manual I had just completed. As managers go, he was a guy I did not care for much. I think this was primarily because he was not very open and I always wondered what he was thinking. In his quietness, I always felt like I had to talk to break the silence, and then I felt sort of awkward revealing myself since he didn’t often reveal his own feelings or thoughts.

“I really don’t know where you learned how to write,” he said, “but this is really good. I’ve read it twice and I have to say that I really like the writing.”

He was turning the pages of the manual as he spoke. “Something about it makes it a pleasure to read.” And he laughed like he was surprised that a training manual could affect him like that.

It was one of the only times I had ever seen him show emotion. He was truly excited and I could sense it in his words and body language. Looking back now, I see this as one of several defining moments in my own personal story. It helped me open my eyes to the fact that I had to leave that corporation. I had to leave all that security behind and strike out on my own…

It was part of my STORY.

So what do I mean by STORY?

In short, I mean a narrative that is grounded in emotion.

If you don’t infuse ALL of your writing with STORY, then you will likely lose your audience…and fast. Unless of course you are creating a training manual. But even that can be done using the power of STORY—and it should be if it anything more complicated than an assembly guide.

Why infuse a training manual with STORY?

Because it makes the reading experience more pleasurable, so why not?

How Best to Sell and Distribute Your Electronic Products

31 Aug

admin |  August 31st,2010 | Internet Marketing |  No Comments »

As with physical products, there are many ways to sell and distribute electronic products. You can simply list them on your website and have buyers send you an email when they want to buy. But really, why would you ever do something so simple when there are so many less expensive–and less cumbersome–ways to sell and distribute electronic products?

The answer might be because you may not know of any other ways. If so, I am going to show you one of the many ways you can do it.

Set Up a PayPal Buy Button
You can set up an account on PayPal in only a few minutes (if you don’t already have one). After you have a PayPal account, you can generate a Buy Button with the correct price of your product, and you can place this button on your website next to your product. PayPal even offers a shopping cart feature you can use for multiple products.

The advantage of this method is this: you can do it very simply and quickly. If you have ever researched shopping carts, then you know how complex they are and how many hoops–electronic, physical, and monetary–you need to jump through to get it done.

Online shopping carts require term agreements and all sorts of other messy things. It can get to be a really real quagmire when you try to compare all the different shopping carts given all the different features. You will also encounter a more complicated issue with interfacing the shopping cart to your site. You need a more complex (and costly) relationship with a web programmer for one.

It goes on and on, but when the rubber hits the road, it all comes down to this:

Most, if not all, new Internet Entrepreneurs have little or no understanding of how their product is going to perform online, so why spend a gazillion dollars setting up a monolithic shopping cart system just to find out?

The disadvantage of PayPalling it is that you are making “pals” (in the financial sense) with PayPal, and maybe you don’t want to do this. Because they are not regulated like normal financial institutions are, PayPal can cause serious problems for your business and you may have no recourse other than to close your (online) doors. PayPal dodged all of that regulation stuff (for the most part) because Internet Commerce evolved so quickly that the regulators could not put the normal regulatory “stranglehold” on them (sort of like Microsoft in the computer business). PayPal got huge before anyone in the regulatory world realized it. Now they are literally the “King Kong” in the online transaction world.

Since PayPal has no regulatory oversight, they can shut your business down in a mouse-click. Suppose a terrorist in Klackistan buys a product from you and PayPal decides to investigate you for money laundering; during the investigation, you have to declare bankruptcy because PayPal has frozen your account and you have no cash flow. If you believe the many accounts posted on the Internet, such things have happened.

If King Kong has a fit, rightfully or wrongfully, you can get smashed.

No questions asked (actually, you might ask them, but–unlike with a bank–no one has to answer).

Anyways, back to your PayPal buy button. If you don’t mind being pals with a big money monkey, you can set up a quick and easy PayPal button, and you are in business. I know of about 5-10 other ways to sell and distribute products online, all with advantages and disadvantages depending upon the nature of your product/business.

For now, a PayPal buy button is the quickest and easiest.

www.juggernautpress.com
www.bettercovers.com

The “Ultimate Bible” of story structure, Robert McKee’s book, STORY

12 Aug

admin |  August 12th,2010 | Story Structure, Writing / Editing, Writing-Fiction, Writing-Nonfiction |  No Comments »

If you want to understand story structure, you might consider reading what I would consider “the ultimate bible of story structure,” Robert McKee’s, Story. Although many books aspire to adequately address the subject of story, many fall short.

To be successful, fiction and nonfiction should be infused with the basic elements of story.

Here is a good book review of Story:

STORY by Robert McKee
New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1997

Spinning a good tale requires a bit of magic, so rather than present a recipe or stock method for story construction, Robert McKee outlines the key components shared by all good stories. While this book is primarily aimed at screenwriters, the points it makes apply equally well to novelists. A former Fulbright Scholar, McKee has been teaching classes on this subject to packed halls around the world, his students producing such works as The Color Purple, You’ve Got Mail, The Deer Hunter and Forrest Gump.

McKee outlines the different story forms, but points out that if you want to write for a living you should avoid the avant-garde and follow the classical design structure emphasized in this book; it more closely mirrors the human mind, and other story forms just don’t sell as well. He believes that most of what Hollywood produces is mediocre or worse, and he challenges the seemingly insurmountable odds of getting a screenplay produced. People intrinsically recognize a good story and if you build one you will beat the Hollywood odds; it’s a seller’s market when the product is a well-structured story.

According to McKee, there is only one true story, the quest, and all stories take this form:

‘For better or worse, an event throws a character’s life out of balance, arousing in him the conscious or unconscious desire for that which he feels will restore balance, launching him on a quest for his object of desire against forces of antagonism.’

Five key elements are required in a well-constructed story: the Inciting Incident, or the event that launches the protagonist on his quest; the Progressive Complications encountered on the quest; the Crisis Scene, or final choice that completes the quest; the Climax Scene, or last action beyond which the reader cannot image another; and the Resolution, or tying up of lose ends.

McKee believes that the phrase “character-driven story” is redundant as all stories are essentially character-driven. True character is concealed behind a façade of traits and revealed only when real pressure—brought on by increasingly difficult plot choices—peels away that façade. Plot and character mirror one another and when you change character, you must change plot accordingly.

A well-constructed story leads us into expectation, makes us think we understand, then cracks open reality, creating surprise and curiosity and insight, sending us back repeatedly. On each trip, we gain a deeper understanding of the characters and their world.

In McKee’s words, “The protagonist can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make him.” Fully realized and satisfying antagonism only occurs when the primary value at stake in the story progresses through the limits of human experience. For example, in a story about injustice, the protagonist should not simply be the victim of a crime; he should also undergo tyranny. The antagonism should be powerful enough to make a legal action illegal, prosecute and punish the protagonist for it, and then declare the action legal again. This would be injustice masquerading as justice. McKee terms this extreme “negation of the negation” (a phrase borrowed from dialectics). If, on the other hand, love is the value at stake in the story, the negation of the negation would be “hatred masquerading as love,” a far more interesting antagonistic force than simple hatred (as exemplified by the mother character, played by Mary Tyler Moore, in the movie Ordinary People).

To date, Story has sold more than 100,000 copies, underscoring its popularity; and it would be a valuable addition to the library of any serious novelist, screenwriter, or nonfiction writer.

(Book review copyright, 2010, Juggernaut staff writers)
staff@juggernautpress.com

www.juggernautpress.com

The Quality of a Book Cover Design is Relative to the Target Audience

13 Jul

admin |  July 13th,2010 | Graphic Design, Internet Marketing |  No Comments »

When it comes to designing commercial book covers, quality is a relative term. For example, if you ask an Internet marketer what makes a quality book cover design and you also ask a New York publishing executive the same question, you will likely get very different answers.

This is simply because the target audiences are usually different. Based on our results (with the conversion rates on more than a hundred book projects), the Internet prospect usually responds better to graphics that are more colorful and have more flashy design effects—graphics techniques like embossing and gradients and strokes. When designing for the Internet prospect, you should create a design that comes alive and explodes out of the screen. You want to infuse it with elements that “shimmer” or move (think optical illusions). You want the book cover design to grab attention.

Since you are using a display screen to present your product, you can embellish with colors and lots of shimmer to grab attention.

Conversely, when designing a book cover for a more conservative prospect, possibly a C-level business executive, you need to give the overall cover a more conservative look and feel. Usually, these more conservative prospects are put off by flashy colors and infomercial-like presentations. They are more impressed by a book cover that looks more like a textbook. Avoid flashy graphics and limit your colors to three or maybe four at the most. You should use big conservative text and spaces filled with flat color.

If you follow these basic cover design guidelines, your conversion rate will be higher; we know this from experience.

www.JuggernautPress.com

When it comes to designing commercial book covers, quality is a relative term. For example, if you ask an <em>Internet marketer</em> what makes a quality book cover design and you also ask a <em>New York publishing executive</em> the same question, you will likely get very different answers.

This is simply because the target audiences are usually different. Based on our results (with the conversion rates on more than a hundred book projects), the Internet prospect usually responds better to graphics that are more colorful and have more flashy design effects—graphics techniques like embossing and gradients and strokes. When designing for the Internet prospect, you should create a design that comes alive and explodes out of the screen. You want to infuse it with elements that “shimmer” or move (think optical illusions). You want the book cover design to grab attention.

English Language—Duck, Bob, and Weave

27 Mar

admin |  March 27th,2010 | Writing / Editing |  No Comments »

Most of us go through life thinking the language we speak read and write is a static sort of thing, when actually it is constantly changing.

Consider the sentence: “Some may require followup a month after the sale, while others will require a followup immediately.”

HERE, followup is used as a noun. Since the dictionary does not define the word “followup,” I would hyphenate it. But actually a new word is evolving and being formed in our language. Remember, the English language—and any language for that matter—is a moving target, as are the grammar rules of the language.

If you doubt this, take a moment to read some Shakespeare, which is only several hundred years old. Note that many of the words he uses are outdated now and to understand his stories, you must do quite a bit of work deciphering all the subtle nuances in the words.

Language is moving, and at a pretty fast pace. Listen to the slang words of any teenager and watch them grow in popularity. At first, the words sound odd and out of place; but before long, the mainstream media has taken them up and we have included them in our own vocabulary. When a new word emerges, a sort of democratic process takes place with usage being equivalent to a vote. If the word gets enough “votes,” ultimately it is formally accepted into the language by being included in the dictionary.

Teenagers are not the only word generators in society; technology is the provenance of many. As technology evolves and new processes and objects (verbs like google and nouns like computer) emerge, words to describe them are added to the lexicon.

Think of “followup” or “follow-up” as a noun or adjective, and “follow up” as a verb construction.
- “She is going to follow up.”–verbish.
- “He is going to get some follow-up.”–nounish
- “He is going to a follow-up meeting.”–adjective.

Back to Shakespeare for a moment. Consider the following line from Twelfth Night, Act1, Scene II:

“Perchance he is not drown’d: what think you, sailors?”

Consider the word, perchance. Is it possible that this word started as two words “per chance.” Is this sort of like “follow up” and “followup”?

I think so.

staff@juggernautpress.com

www.juggernautpress.com

Secrets to Writing Great Nonfiction

26 Jan

admin |  January 26th,2010 | Writing-Nonfiction |  No Comments »

After reading the online reviews for the book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, by Christopher McDougall, and watching the author’s video (available on the Amazon page for his book), I have concluded that McDougall’s book is not just about running but it is also about life. This book is succeeding in the marketplace because it is “transformative” (my own word) and not just technical.

Transformative is a word I use to explain what a good book does when you read it.

Besides being transformative, the Born to Run book employs a good marketing strategy: it is based not only around the South American runners but also around revealing their SECRET. Revealing secrets is big business in the marketing world because it sells product (look at any sales page on the Internet or watch any infomercial on TV). And in general, the technical aspect of any good nonfiction book should have a “revealing secrets” element when it talks about the techniques that are the subject of the book.

Here is another example of transformative. Consider the book, Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat, by Forrest Griffin. If you read the sample pages on Amazon, you will find yourself being pulled into a very engaging story.

Why does it pull you in?

Because it is transformative.

Yet, before you click the BUY button, you might visit the bookstore and preview the actual book. I found it to be not as good as the first few pages because it seems mostly written for professional fighters or wannabe UFC fighters. Somehow, the author loses touch with me as a reader and the book becomes much less transformative because I am not seeking to fight people, nor am I interested in how to lose pounds for a fight, etc.. And these technical aspects are not infused with enough transformative elements to keep the book engaging for me. (Forrest, please don’t kick my ass). However, it is apparently a big success with fighter types.

This is key to writing successful nonfiction—or fiction—books about any subject, and the blockbuster bestsellers do it in a way that is engaging—all the way through—for almost anyone.

A Transformative Daydream

Most readers are reading to engage in daydreaming to some degree, and this lies at the heart of the transformative experience. Readers want to “root for the underdog” because in their own lives they are the underdog in some way, and hopefully the book—by inspiring them to daydream—helps them overcome the oppressive elements of their own world. At least it gives them hope.

Good nonfiction reveals a secret technique that can help the reader win their own personal battles.

The Got Fight? book opens with a story of a scrawny guy who beats up a jeep full of bully football players (actually, he scares them off because no matter how many times they knock him down, he gets back up). This is transformative because every reader in their own life is fighting their own personal version of a jeep full of bully football players, whether it be a coworker, a neighbor, a business competitor, a family member, or whomever is antagonizing them. This sort of underdog-winning story gives the reader hope that they too can overcome their own antagonists. The scrawny kid scaring off the bully football players becomes a sort of transformative daydream with the secret technique in this case being: don’t give up.

So how do you make your own writing transformative? You need to mix transformative experiences into your chapters whenever you can. Design them into the structure if possible. The words should connect to the reader in an emotional way. You might add case studies or your own reflections on life and how it relates to the technical aspect of your nonfiction. The technical material is only half the battle.

The Good Writing Duality

I’ll use another example to illustrate the concept of transformative. There are 2 components to good nonfiction (and this relates to fiction and to storytelling in general):

First you have the story element, or the transformative part.

Second you have the technique or howto section. This is like the plot.

To illustrate this duality, I’ll use a fiction example. Consider the movie TOP GUN (if you haven’t seen it, it is exceedingly transformative and was successful at the box office as a result). The transformative part is about a fighter pilot struggling with his own internal demons, who are putting him in conflict with the strict procedures required to fly a fighter jet. He loses his best friend and is not sure if his internal struggle/weakness caused the death. He also discovers that his father had a similar “affliction.” This internal struggle is the story element, the transformative part. The technical part of TOP GUN is about flying jets and killing Russians—that is the plot, the howto section, the secret techniques that win the battles to overcome the bad guys.

The Born to Run book is doing well in the market because it addresses both of these elements. It does not simply discuss the technical aspects of running—good shoes, warming up, etc.. It also reflects on life, and presents its nonfiction components as a “secret” being revealed to the world: Throw away your running shoes forever!

To write good nonfiction, much of the battle is developing a good editorial eye and overcoming the frustration you feel when you realize what you have written is not transformative. For the most part, when writers begin their writing careers, they focus on the technical aspects and not the transformative part, and that’s OK. It’s like they must first get it out of their system before growing into stage 2. Many young writers become frustrated and give up entirely, but if they continue working hard, they eventually stumble into the transformative stuff, or they get lucky and figure it out, or possibly they discover it in some other fashion—maybe someone tells them about it, reveals the secrets.

Staff@JuggernautPress.com

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