Category - Admin Stuff

Another calling-me-to-task message, submitted anonymously but, y’know, bravely:

I looked up a couple of your books to check out their covers, Ethnic Albanians, and Liahona, and I just want to say, they are beautiful. They are beautiful because they are your babies. You created them and you love them. Who is anybody else to say they are ugly? I challenge you to put them on this website, however, and watch as the haters tear them to shreds, as they did my cover. Book covers are art, and art is subjective, is it not? I wouldn’t mind so much if you displayed different covers that you think might need some help, and tastefully point out where improvements might be made. However this site seems to be a haven for haters to congregate and post nasty comments. And they seem to feed off of each other. I have been in the center of a ring of bullies before while they took turns pushing and taunting me. This felt the same. The very name of this site is offensive. As a fellow author, I cannot fathom how you could possibly justify this negative forum. I wish you only the best in your endeavors as an illustrator and author. But please, please, please, stop promoting hate.

Let’s break this down:

Firstly: They are not “beautiful because they are [my] babies.”  I believe the word you’re looking for is “competent.”  I did pass both of the covers you reference to others to review; if there had been criticisms, I would have changed them, because “my babies are beautiful because they are mine” is a counterproductive attitude.  (It’s the same philosophy that informs good writing: Get it edited.) Any by the way, Liahona is my cover, but it’s not my book; the author hired me to design the covers because he understood that his skills didn’t lie in that area.  Would that all authors were that self-aware.

Secondly: Ah, “Art” — how many atrocities are justified in thy name!  Any particular book cover may or may not be art; however, the function a book cover isn’t as fine art, but as marketing.  A book cover’s purpose is to influence potential readers positively, and to attract the readers who would enjoy the contents of the book.  If the book cover does not do that, then — all other artistic considerations aside — it has failed. It is bad design and bad marketing, because it does not do what it was meant to do.

Thirdly: “I wouldn’t mind so much if you displayed different covers that you think might need some help, and tastefully point out where improvements might be made.”  Allow me to point you to CoverCritics.com, a site (which I also run!) for that express purpose: to provide helpful feedback on covers before they’re published.  Indie authors are welcome to take advantage of that feedback; heck, I plead with them to get it.  The problem isn’t a dearth of constructive criticism in the pre-publication stages, but an unwillingness on the part of self-published writers to consider that, as you so helpfully put it, their babies are ugly  The assumption around here is that when one publishes a book, one is alleging that the published material is appropriate for public consumption in the marketplace of ideas — that the author/publisher is declaring, “This work is fully worthy of your time, consideration and critical thought!”

Despite that, you will see several commenters on this site who offer constructive opinions regarding covers that they see as “near misses,” or who opine that a cover appeals to them even though others assess it negatively. Far from “feed[ing] off each other,” they are perfectly able and willing to express individual opinion.

You would also see, if you looked further, authors and designers who are grateful for (a) an honest response to their own work, and (b) the general cautionary education they get here  — a firm grounding in what not to do.  Just because this site does not exist to hand out a Certificate of Achievement to all participants does not mean that it serves no worthwhile purpose.

Fourthly: “Haters” and “bullies.”  Yes, the standard name-calling against everyone who doesn’t participate in the “Everyone gets a trophy!” ethic.  Funny how criticism is hateful and bullying, but calling others haters and bullies is neither hateful nor bullying.

Fifthly: “The very name of this site is offensive.”  Thank you for this occasion to pull out one of my favorite Bloom County cartoons:

Remember, kids: Just because you are offended does not make something offensive.  It just means that you are a special snowflake who is in danger of melting in the sun.

Sixthly: “As a fellow author, I cannot fathom how you could possibly justify this negative forum.” I’m sorry that you’re so constricted in your understanding of others, and I hope that you manage to broaden your horizons.

Seventhly: “But please, please, please, stop promoting hate.” Without admitting your premise (as I really don’t believe that any useful definition of “hate” covers what you have described), I’ll counter with my own pleas:

Please, please, please, stop labeling as “hateful” anyone who disagrees with you.

Please, please, please, stop sending brave yet anonymous messages to bolster your feeling of (self) righteousness.

Please, please, please, stop publishing book covers without getting strong, critical, objective assessments of them (in other words, not your Aunt Tillie who loves everything you do).

Please, please, please, stop shooting the messenger.

(And just for context: Even with my literal babies, whose birth I attended in all four instances, I did not think they were beautiful because I loved them. I loved them, yes, but I also acknowledged that they looked like all newborns do: like red, wrinkly turds.)