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Stayed up all night reading the rest of the "galley" for Virtually His. Nope, didn't finish but I think I'll be able to get everything done by date line. I caught quite a few typos and odd type-setting, so now I'm worried about how many I actually missed!
When I make enough money, I'm going to have to hire LEIHA to read my galley for typos and whatnots ;-). You hear that, Leiha?????!
Being an author, I'm, without saying, compulsive-obsessive about the oddest things. So I did a quick search about the color "green" on covers. I found two fascinating articles, one on fashion magazines and why they avoid GREEN and one written by the fabulous Stephanie Bond about romance covers in general.
Here's the ARTICLE about why fashion magazines studiously AVOID green--as in dress, background, lettering etc. Even though studies have shown that it may be just an urban myth, screams of horror still happen when green is used.
You get a bird's eye view on how marketing is run, anyway!
"Green!? It's the hottest color this season? OMG! NONONONOnononono! The sales of the magazine will go down! Green can't be the hottest color! Say it's not so! Get Christian D. on the phone for me! That Christian, pulling my leg like that!"
Here is Stephanie Bond's ESSAY ON ROMANCE COVERS. Again, the fear of green among authors and marketing.
Your task today: Look at your book shelves. How many green covers do you see? And they books you picked up because of the author or because you were trying something new?
Just wondering.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Green Green, You Uber Bad Color...
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6 comments:
Girl, just send that galley my way and I'll take care of it for free. I know, I know, I'm a great friend, you're welcome!
I don't see any green covers on my bookshelves but if it makes you feel any better, I dont have all that many books. I'm also someone who doesn't buy a book because of it's cover. I can't think of one occasion where I bought a book just because of it's cover. So I'm not the person to talk to, LOL. But I have great grammatical skills so send that galley my way and then I don't have to wait for the ARC, LOL.
My sister-and-law (and her mother) cannot stand the color green; It makes it really hard sometimes to buy presents, can I even get her a plant???
Anyway, I think the Bazaar cover is beautiful and it did win a prize. So I say green is good... Virtually hers might be the only green cover, but won't that make it more noticeable? I still think it looks berry nice!
(Oh, and my H, book printer extraordinaire, has never heard about green being a difficult color to print...)
Other than black and white the overwhelming majority are red. The green ones were bought specifically for a purpose just happened to be green, only one was a browsing pick. but at least the first book will do well! :) i dont buy a book cuz of the cover (i might avoid the hot pink ones or ones with mad makeout sessions on the covers) but it definately affects my browsing when i have no objective. Usually the spines, and i tend to more readily browse (other than red :) ones with matte finishes for whatever reason.
OK, read the 2 excerpts and now cannot wait to read the whole thing! Very cool! AND you know I'd be more than happy to take care of your galley. It would have a lovely home here on my shelves here in NZ!!!
I really do like the covers. The green cover makes me think of the The Bourne Identity which me and the dh re watched the other week, all dangerous and exciting!
Sarah
Ah Leiha,
I'll have to get you to proofread the galley some day!
Hi Laur,
I was looking my shelf and saw Cherry Adair's Edge of Fear, which was a teal color. It's not an exact green, though ;-). So green is not a scary color in Europe, huh? Or France, anyway, LOL.
Hi anonymous,
Thanks for chiming in. Now, see, that's what the other authors are talking about--that green gets skipped by the browsing eye! I'm off to Walmart tonight and I'll check out this theory...if I can find any green spines!
Hi Sarah,
Welcome to my blog! And am glad you enjoyed the excerpts. I'm really happy with the covers, seriously, so the whining is just mostly authorial obsessiveness. I think he's sexy too!
Jenn:
I don't know if you'll get this, since I'm a day late (had a snow day, west of Seattle), but I own well over 300 paperbacks, and wouldn't think twice about what color the cover is. I purchase by author, then recommendation (normally other readers), then browsing. The cover art on your new one is intriguing, and I think it will make peopple at least pick it up and read the synopsis.
Also, I'm not too shabby at grammer (I write, too, for a living - well, I'm a lawyer, so I suppose I advocate for a living), so sign me up to proof!
Cecily
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