Cover Talk with Carmella Van Vleet

I love talking to debut authors. Our experiences are so similar, yet so very different, that every one of us has a new story to share. Everyone says that the moment you get your cover it really hits you - you're an author. The cover is your story - and you - packaged for the world. So the process of the cover reveal can be slightly panic inducing. Does it fit your story? Is it what you hoped? Will it sell? With this in mind I put together the CRAP (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) Interview.

Today's guest is my fellow Ohioan Carmella Van Vleet, here to talk about the cover for Eliza Bing Is (Not) A Big, Fat Quitter in which a preteen girl struggling with ADHD must stick with a summer taekwondo class to prove that shes dedicated enough to pursue her true passion: cake decorating. Available from Holiday House now.

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

Sometimes I use clip art to create my own covers, but for this particular book, I didn’t. I was reasonably open to just about anything. The only thing I was really concerned about was it being too girly. Especially since I’d written it so teachers could read it out loud without alienating half of their class. The other thing I was concerned about was a having “cake” cover. (There’s a cake decorating aspect to the story.) Not that there’s anything wrong with cake or baking covers. But I was really hoping the publisher would focus on the martial arts aspect.

Well, shoot. Apparently I DID have some pre-conceived ideas about what I wanted after all!

How far in advance from your pub date did you start talking covers with your house?

 ELIZA BING IS (NOT) A BIG, FAT QUITTER wasn’t coming out until February, but I was attending a book event in November (with some of my other titles). I wanted to be able to print out some bookmarks or at least have some kind of sign about the upcoming title, so I contacted my publisher and started bugging them. (Nicely, of course.) As it turned out, the art was just about ready so I didn’t have to wait long. The publisher sent me a file so I could see it and use it.

Did you have any input on your cover?

Nope. None at all. I tried to get it into my contract that I could see and approve it, but it didn’t work out. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my publisher to do a good job. (Because, frankly, they do this all the time and know what they’re doing.) But as a 3rd degree black belt writing about a girl taking up taekwondo, I wanted to make sure any uniform on the cover was accurate. Many people think a dobok (taekwondo uniform) and a gi (a karate uniform) are the same thing. Dobok collars are different, too, based on the person’s rank.

Thankfully that wasn’t an issue. And even if it had been, I’m confident my publisher would have been open to my input. They don’t want a mistake any more than I do.

How was your cover revealed to you?

My editor sent me an email with the cover attached. Her note said, “Here it is! Smashing (no pun intended), isn’t it?”

I told it was and to please let the artist know how thrilled I was with it. I think it has a “Ramona” feel to it, which I love because the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary were the first books I remember reading on my own.

Was there an official "cover reveal" date for your art?

After the editor sent to me, I asked if she had any problem with me sharing it on my website and all that. She didn’t, so I posted it and began sharing it pretty much immediately. I didn’t have any big “cover real” or special promotional event. I know other publishing houses and authors like to do that, but *shrug* I’ve never done that.

How far in advance of the reveal date were you aware of what your cover would look like?

I had no idea what it would look like before my editor sent me the file with my cover. But it was four months before the actual release date that I got to see it and share it.

What surprised you most about the process?

This is my 17th book and what surprised me the most about the process is how scary it (still) is while you’re waiting to see your cover for the first time! We invest so much in the writing and we know - right or wrong - how important covers are in attracting readers and selling books. The whole process is nerve-racking. I didn’t know just how anxious I’d been feeling until I saw it and like it. There was this big feeling of relief. I’m not going to lie to you, a couple of my books have covers I really don’t like. (And no, I won’t tell you which ones.) It can affect how excited you are about the project.

Any advice to other debut authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

First, try not to invest too much energy in what you think the cover should or will look like. Most of the time, it’s something that’s completely out of your hands anyway.

Second, I know you know your book better than anyone else in the world, but your publisher has likely been selling books for a long time. Trust them to know what they’re doing.

And finally, take some time to process the cover once you do see it. You’ll have a gut reaction and that’s fine. If you love it, congratulations! Go celebrate. But if you hate it, wait and get other people’s feedback before you go complaining to your publisher. Sometimes it just takes a few days to grow on you or for you to appreciate what the artist did. I know several authors who’ve had legitimate concerns about their covers. And in each case, they were able to calmly articulate those concerns to their publisher and have the cover changed - even first time authors. So no panicking allowed!

Polly Holyoke on Second Novels

Welcome to another of my fabulous acronym-based interviews. The second novel is no easy feat, and with that in mind I put together a series of questions for debuts who are tackling the second obstacle in their career path. I call it the SNOB - Second Novel Omnipresent Blues. Whether you’re under contract or trying to snag another deal, you’re a professional now, with the pressures of a published novelist compounded with the still-present nagging self-doubt of the noobie. How to deal?

Today's guest is Polly Holyoke, author of The Neptune Project. When she isn’t writing, Polly loves reading, camping, skiing, scuba diving and hiking in the desert (where she quite stupidly got herself bitten by a rattlesnake). She lives with three rescue dogs, two spoiled cats and a nice husband who is tolerant about the piles of books all over their house.

Her fantastic debut, The Neptune Project, has been nominated to reading lists in both Maryland and Texas. It releases in paperback - today!

Is it hard to leave behind the first novel and focus on the second?

I didn’t have problems with this issue as The Neptune Challenge is a sequel to my first book, The Neptune Project. I had the plot for the sequel all planned out before I submitted the first book in the series, so it was fun and easy to dive back into the story (so to speak)!

At what point do you start diverting your energies from promoting your debut and writing / polishing / editing your second?

Ah, now this was harder for me. I was overwhelmed by how much promotion all my fellow debut authors seemed to be doing through social media. I had to learn how to use much of that media from scratch, and that was very time consuming. If they are serious about selling and promoting their work, I think writers should be building their social media platforms before they start submitting their manuscript. If I’d been more familiar with that side of promotion, I could have focused on writing my sequel earlier. I did make my deadline, but it was tight, and that was partly because I was so distracted by trying to promote the first book. 

Your first book landed an agent and an editor, and hopefully some fans. Who are you writing the second one for? Them, or yourself?

I still write the story I would have loved to read when I was twelve or thirteen. That approach seems to working for me because I keep running into enthusiastic fans that age who hug my book and announce that they’ve read The Neptune Project five or six times already. 

Is there a new balance of time management to address once you’re a professional author? 

Absolutely, but I still haven’t found the proper balance. One could spend an infinite amount of time on promotion. Now The Neptune Project has made the Texas and Maryland state reading lists, I’m also getting lots of requests for school visits. I love teaching and presenting at schools, but I’m finding it’s really hard to get much writing done on school visit days. I’m also a mom and a wife, and making sure I do those jobs well along with producing new work and promoting the old is one tricky business.

What did you do differently the second time around, with the perspective of a published author?

For so long I’ve wanted to be a published author, but during much of my debut year, I was way too stressed about the small stuff. A few months ago, I put a post-it note on my computer that says, “Enjoy the ride,” and that’s exactly what I’m doing these days!

There's No Such Thing As Writer's Block (Maybe)

Don't shoot the messenger, but this is what I believe.

Just like you, I've sat down to a blinking cursor on a blank page and been terrified that this time I won't be able to do it. The words won't flow, the plot won't come, the characters are just going to stare at me, hoping for direction. And every time, once I get my fingers warmed up and I type two or three pages of crap that I have to write first, I'm able to get to the good stuff buried underneath. This is why I say there's no such thing as writers block.

It's actual name is procrastination.

And the actual name of procrastination is fear.

We put off writing because we're afraid of the blank page, the dormant characters, the crappy dialogue that we're sure to produce. We're afraid of the plot kink that hasn't quite worked itself out yet, so we put off having to deal with it by jumping on Twitter, checking out Facebook, or surfing Tumblr for just a few more minutes.

I always tell new writers that they can't be afraid to suck, but I think that established writers need to be aware of that as well. Sucking is part of the process. No one has ever produced a first draft that anyone other than their mom would praise.

We ambush ourselves with self-doubt, whittling away precious minutes with ultimately useless activities, then tell ourselves that we'll write tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be more time. But the single paragraph that you write tonight puts you one paragraph ahead for tomorrow, and the three sentences you tack onto it during your lunch break gives you a head start on the evening. All those short paragraphs written in stolen moments, and choppy sentences you forced out of yourself before going to bed can be massaged into a coherent narrative when you're editing.

So don't be afraid.
Write the words.