The Moth and the Bear II: The Crossing
It’s supposed to be a bear-like monster, so it shouldn’t look good… but it still shouldn’t look that bad.
The Moth and the Bear II: The Crossing
It’s supposed to be a bear-like monster, so it shouldn’t look good… but it still shouldn’t look that bad.
Oh, Nathan, dear, sorry, but this time, I feel I have to disagree with you. The whats-its font, that Caslon…is that Caslon Antique?–isn’t perfect, (and the less said about the font used for the series title, the better), but I rather like the art. Yes, yes, tastes vary and all that, and I defer to your artist’s eye, but I really don’t think this one warranted inclusion. Bad fontage, but the artwork? I like it. Bring on the lashes!
I will agree with you in everything except:
Agreed. Is that his……ear?
But really, everything else in the image is fine.
Well, yes, okay. I freely defer on the ear, which does seem….IDK, mutated? Irradiated? No idea. But I really like the rest.
The thing that bothers me is the image being inset with all those lines.
Well, yes, that’s not brill, either. It’s really sad, this one…so close but…
Hi! So I probably shouldn’t be poking around here, but in keeping up with SEO I stumbled in, and I’m curious what you guys have to say! Especially about font. I’m a self-taught hobby artist and writer and my budget is a sinkhole, so I’m voracious for any and all free critique offered! (and yes, Ruyak is a bear-monster. Oh, and thank you Hitch, I’ll tell him to ask his doctor about his ears)
Do you guys actually have any helpful advice to offer here, or do you just enjoy mocking people? Because the more I poke around and look at your other posts, the more it seems like the latter.
Helpful advice, when it occurs here, is a bonus. The general philosophy at LBC is that indie authors have many resources available to them for constructive critique before publishing, and once they’re asking money for their output on Amazon etc., they’re subject to the same level of criticism and snark that anything is in the great worldwide marketplace of ideas.
The flipside is the sister site to this one, CoverCritics.com, where indie authors can submit their covers for crowdsourced critique BEFORE publishing it.
Ah, I see. So for those of us unlucky enough to experience the humiliation of finding our work on this website, we are expected to next time gratefully present our darlings for critique before publishing.
You’ve come into my place of business, taken my project down from the wall to shit on and giggle at, and you expect me to look for critique next time? From you?
You know, the reason I don’t usually pursue critique outside my extremely niche circle of followers is because my story and characters are a little strange, so I know it’d be easy for a stranger (especially a professional) to A) misinterpret the work and B) say something that breaks my flimsy confidence.
You’ve managed to not only achieve both, but also prove my fears correct. So actually, I’m not interested in anything you or your ilk have to say.
Hope you all enjoy yourselves. I guess everyone has to get their kicks somewhere.
WAAAAAAH.
Actually, I *didn’t* expect you to look for critique. I expected you instead to whine about the big bad world that just doesn’t understand you instead of looking to improve your craft and marketing. Points for me, I guess.
Grace:
To be realistic and fair, is it truly better–think about that word for a second–better–for your book to languish, on Amazon, B&N, iBooks, et al, unread, with people just glancing at the cover and continuing on, rather than buying it? Or even at least looking at the LITB (LookInsideTheBook)?
I’m genuinely not trying to be a jerk when I ask that. When you publish a book–you take a file, a manuscript, and a file for the cover–and you say to the world “here, world, the hell with you, I AM a professional writer and now I’m a professional publisher, and you should pay me money for the privilege of reading my work,” it’s not the same thing as taking your as-yet unborn “child” to a crit or writer’s group, or a set of beta readers, etc. You hope/expect/pray that those critters or betas, writing buddies, etc. will be kind to you. They are, after all, helping you out–they’re giving you–GIVING YOU–a free service. You are indebted to them, no? They are there to help you rise to commercial, professional heights.
But in the Wild–when published, in other words–that no longer applies. You’ve made a statement. You’ve said that your work is good enough for us to pay you for the privilege of reading it. That paradigm has shifted. YOU will earn money, from us, for the right to read your commercially-qualified work. Right?
Yes, finding your cover here on LBC is hard. Reading bad reviews, on Amazon, is bloody hard. (Everyone, absolutely everyone, gets them. That’s part of the rhino-hide that you need to grow before you publish, by the way. BEFORE.)
I’m sorry that this shakes your confidence. But, it’s a sign that you need to spread this a bit further, stop asking people who will wrap you in a cashmere shawl padded with cotton candy, and protect your feelings before they protect the integrity of your work. Put on those infamous Big Girl Panties with fire retardant and let ‘er rip. If you didn’t use a crit group, beta readers, people to read your work that don’t love you, don’t care about you, won’t protect your feelings, you probably have ‘stuff’ in the book that needs excising, killing, or refining too.
Authors/writers really are like diamonds–not because they’re so goddamned valuable (as we’ve now well and truly seen) but because they need so much goddamned polishing to make them seem nice and shiny. That’s part of how you get there, how you get good.
Let me ask you this–you come to my shop and you ask me to provide you with a commercial edit, let’s say, a line-edit, for your book. You pay me, you get it back and it’s….meh. Not even really mediocre–you immediately see stuff that should have been fixed. When you come to me, I say with a shrug, ‘well, Annie did that. She’s new. She’s still building her confidence. You don’t mind, right? I mean…I don’t want to rattle her tree and make her pony up the work that she should have done, to earn that money. We’ll do better next time, as her confidence builds. And well, she put her heart and soul into it, all her emotions.”
Do you leave it at that? Do you, the paying customer, give a crap or a toss about Annie’s emotions? Is that what you paid for? HER emotional well-being?
Do you just allow me to keep the money, for the less-than-completely done work? Or do you rightfully demand either your money back in full and/or that we perform the work rightly? Why is being a PUBLISHER any different? Why are self-publishers somehow exempt from the usual rules of commercial businesses? You are damned right you’d ask us to fix the damned work. So too should all publishers–all “self-published writers,” remember that now, they are publishers and if you are telling the world that your work is worth OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY, then you should do everything in your power to make it so. Protect the customers’ money first and your emotions second. Sorry, but there it is.
And lastly, for Christ’s sake, the cover isn’t awful. We all said that. The ear isn’t…it’s distracting. Get it fixed, republish it and move on to your next book. That’s it? ONE lousy comment or two, about that thing’s ear, and you’re crushed? Get up, put on those fireproofs and get with it. JUST FIX IT. This is far from being the end.
sigh.