How the Cover Sells the Book

A good billboard is never more than a few words—the theory is that if it's something quick to read and easy to remember, it will come to mind naturally when people need it. The front cover of a book is the same; we want something fast, simple, and aesthetically appealing. The back cover copy is more complicated. It needs to be longer than a mere phrase, but just as eye-catching.

The front cover and the back cover are a team that sells the book. Without a good front cover, no one will pick the book up. Without a good back cover, anyone who picked it up will put it down instantly. A bland, emotionless set of sentences will repel as fast as a clever cover attracts. A good back cover is like the smell of fresh baked cookies or chocolate cake: irresistible. The copy needs to appeal to the reader, to draw them in, to say, "This book is written by someone like you for someone like you about something that you care about. You will benefit from reading this book." And just like that, it's in the shopping cart.

If you can do one well, you can learn to do the other well. Make your front cover like a billboard—and your back cover like the smell coming from a pizza shop.

When Life Gets Writer's Block

Every author has a system of dealing with writer's block. Some push through it, writing every word that comes to mind, regardless of sense or structure. Others stop working, taking the block as a sign to mean that it's likely that nothing important is going to be written at that moment. Many have cards that they look at when they're out of ideas that are full of, well, ideas. Writers block is the woe of every author—the mind-numbing sensation that nothing you write is going to mean anything, and none of your ideas are good. Sometimes it lasts for only a moment, sometimes it lasts for weeks; and though there are some solutions that pull the mind from the painful arena of inactivity, there's nothing that positively works every time.

Sometimes life gets writers block. You're living along at a good steady rate, doing your thing, and suddenly the looming cloud of painful bewilderment moves in, numbing all your emotions. Nothing makes it better. There is no medicinal solution that works. You're doing all the right things, but it doesn't fix the problem. You just have to keep living.

And sometimes, you just have to keep writing, and remember the reason that you love to write. Because, outside of writers block, there is writing; and the words are flying out of your brain faster than you can put them on paper.

And miracle of miracles, you like them.

Introducing

It's easy to spend a lot of time wasting time to justify being too busy to do the things that matter; focusing on the bells and whistles instead of the engine and the brakes. And when the time comes, excuses, even though they don't satisfy anyone, are still always allowed. But, at the end of the day, having a real product to show for your work is better than a pocketful of accessories that you spent time putting in order. Like this blog. It's easy to choose a hundred different templates, fonts, colors. The look is an easy way to avoid focusing on the content. But, when it boils down, what's valuable is what it's all about and what it does, rather than what it looks like.

Introducing: A blog about what it's like to be a self-published and always publishing author, striving for success, but working towards significance.

Join me on the challenging journey of creating something that matters.