Cover: Under Shōko's Bed II

Laura Duffy sent the final cover pdf files for Under Shōko’s Bed today. They were waiting for the ultimate page counts after my book designer finished. 

This last step was mostly waiting on my end, but it also included what has been the most troublesome part of preparing the book for publication, writing the cover blurbs. I fear that if the book has a weak link, it is the blurbs, the brief paragraphs about the book and me that are supposed to pique the reader’s curiosity and get them to start reading or, ideally, to buy. 

The very short bio includes no writing credentials. What credentials I have are all related to my academic career, not my literary side hustle. But even that bio was easier than describing the novel. The key problem is that the first chapter contains a mystery I cannot divulge in the blurb. That mystery, revealed at the end of the first chapter, drives the rest of the story and its characters. How do I introduce the book without giving all that away?

Of course, there had been a blurb for Under Shōko’s Bed here on the website for three years. Somehow, though, in my mind, what was on the website was only temporary. I could change it at any moment, and indeed I have a few times. Putting it onto the cover of the book, in print, seems so much more permanent, even though with print on demand I can change the electronic file the book is being printed from. It’s funny how the mind works. Anyway, the book cover now has the necessary introductions. I only wish I had a subject pool I could draw on for experiments to tell me which concepts would have been best. My academic training pushes my mind in that direction. The literary part of me is simply supposed to feel what works. And I suppose it does, to some extent. It just doesn’t always lend as much confidence as I would like.

Cover: Under Shōko's Bed

Under Shōko’s Bed has a cover that’s not homemade anymore. I found my cover designer, Laura Duffy, on Reedsy.com. She had excellent recommendations, but the thing that swung me in her direction, besides a great portfolio, was her promise to read the book before designing the cover. Under Shōko’s Bed is an eccentric tale, and I worried about what might both represent the text and create enough interest that a browser might pick up the book (either physically or virtually) and read a little. Without that first fleeting interest, I will get very few readers.

I like that this cover is unusual. There are no other books out there that show feet from beneath a bed. I think it has an element of mystery. And the novel begins that way, as the reader wonders through the first chapter just what is secreting itself under Shōko’s bed. I hope the question will be enough to pique more than a few readers’ interest.

A hermit's life

I don’t have COVID-19 yet. Neither does anyone in my immediate family. Some are saying the U.S. will see a vaccine by Thanksgiving. That seems almost hopelessly optimistic. I’m not sure how Japan is doing on vaccines. My classes are all online, and the university has decided that will go on for the rest of the year. I am a hermit. It’s time to connect with some other hermits. It’s time to finish something.

I finished my first novel, Under Shōko’s Bed, months ago. For a long time, I was vacillating over whether to look for an agent and a publisher (as my editor suggested), or self-publish, as I had originally decided. A couple of things have made me shy away from the traditional publishing route. The first was the reaction I got to my first round of agent queries: silence. The second was my editor’s feedback on my second novel, Neyuki. It includes violence and sexual exploitation, and my editor doubted that in today’s climate, any American publisher would pick it up. It is also a book set in Japan, written by a foreigner (even though I’ve lived here for over twenty years, and if you should write what you know, Japan is what I know). I suspect interest in such books is narrow. A publisher is unlikely to want to squeeze into such a niche market. It’s also possible that even if someone took the book on, they would expect me to create buzz for it. If I will be creating the buzz anyway, I might as well just self-publish.

I want the book to be professional, though. I have worked with an experienced editor, but I still feel the need to hire a final copy editor—who is probably shut in somewhere because of this virus, a hermit like me. That will be expensive. Then there is the cost of hiring a cover designer, another likely hermit. This being my first novel, I would also prefer to work with someone on the book design, possibly a third hermit. Then I’ll need a fourth, a proofreader. None of these hermits will have taken vows of poverty, so all of this will push the cost high enough that I will almost surely lose money on the book.

It will be a great book, though.

So this month I plan to find a copy editor. Once the text is set, I will find someone to do a cover for it and possibly have the same person either do the interior or give me an InDesign template so I can do it myself. I want to get the book out in the fall. It will be a major challenge, as my other six novels are calling to me. There’s a lot to do. But when someone asks me how I spent my COVID isolation time, I will have a personal accomplishment to crow about.

Cover critique

I had a bit of fun last Thursday (April 11).  The website where I found my editor for Under Shōko’s Bed, reedsy.com, broadcasts hour-long sessions where one or another of the cover designers with whom they work gives critiques of book cover designs.  I submitted the ones I posted here on April 1 for Under Shōko’s Bed and Neyuki, and Neyuki was one of the twenty or so that the cover designer, Micaela Alcaino, chose to critique!  (https://blog.reedsy.com/live/cover-critique-micaela-alcaino/ at about the 28 minute point)  Micaela said she loved the image, but suggested I use a narrow font, all caps, for the title and make it red.  She did not specify what shade of red, so as I reworked it, I chose a hue I thought would bring out the color beneath the frost on the woman’s lips.  Micaela also did not specify whether the author’s name should also be all caps, but all the comparable covers she showed had the authors’ names in caps, so that is what I went with.  What do you think?  Would this cover make you pick up the book and look it over?