Stars, by Emily Winslow

I write about my sweetheart a lot, and also my boys. I love them to pieces. But I fear I’m a bit of a broken record on those subjects, so I challenged myself to choose a different subject for this week’s subject of “Love,” and the implication it carries, on February 14th, of romantic love in particular.

A long time ago, in college, I was madly in love with a friend. It never worked out, and if it had I’m pretty sure it would have been angst-filled and argumentative, but there it was. I was desperate for him.

From this perspective, it’s hard to call it unrequited “love,” because I think now that love is the kind of thing that grows from being together, not just a wish to get together. But never mind the semantics–love, crush, infatuation. I was in over my head.

The wanting-and-not-having was painful, but it was also a blessed relief. My college years at a conservatory were a huge challange. I was overworked, emotionally stretched, and dealing with serious disruption in my life outside of school. Wanting someone was distracting, and hopeful, and life-affirming, even when not having him hurt terribly.

This is what I felt, and wrote, 18 years ago:

STARS

I’m not who you want
but however far I may be from your desires
I am in my own place
a sun
Please be at least flattered
by this fire loving you
Though I may seem to you smaller than a penny
and common in the pin-dot sky
I am a fire
and I do love you

February 8th, 2010 | Posted by Emily Winslow | 2010 Debs, Emily Winslow, The Whole World | 5 Comments

News Flash — February 7, 2010

Deb Maria is getting ready for her very first official book signing! It’s set for Saturday, February 13th at Borders in Westbury, NY from 2-4pm. Maria will speak about her experiences in the wacky world of publishing, and sign copies of “101 Ways to Torture Your Husband,” which of course makes the PERFECT Valentine’s Day gift! Follow the link to purchase from Borders Books: http://www.borders.com/online/store/Home

Deb Alicia is very happy to receive the following endorsement from Rachel Simon, bestselling author of Riding The Bus With My Sister: “Simply from Scratch is a sweet story of regeneration and hope, delivered by a writer of generous spirit and great heart.”

Deb Sarah will be signing copies of The Opposite of Me at a number of bookstores in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, including Barnes & Noble in Bethesda and Politics & Prose. Check the “events” link on her website here for details! She was also just quoted in the Gazette newspaper  about the upcoming Gaithersburg Book Festival, where  Deb Sarah will be a featured speaker along with Alice McDermott!

And … we’re so thrilled we could just squeal! The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, by Alumni Deb Tiffany Baker, debuted on the NYT Bestseller list this week at #29! It’s out in paperback now, click here to buy it online.

Foreign rights for Alumni Deb Eve’s FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA have just sold in Poland. Audible.com will soon be releasing the audiobook.

February 7th, 2010 | Posted by admin | 2010 Debs | 2 Comments

Covers: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Please welcome Mary McDonald to the Debutante Ball! Mary has been a bookseller for eight years at The Learned Owl Book Shop in Hudson, Ohio, where she organizes author events, writes promotional materials, designs ads, finds people “that green book that was on Oprah last week,” and sells her favorite books with joy and abandon to the nicest customers in the world. She sometimes writes things here.

***

Mary’s Bad Marketing Awards or: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Okay, they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. They also say you are what you eat, yet so far, I bear only the most glancing resemblance to a frozen pizza. I’m a bookseller at a little independent bookshop in Ohio and I am here to tell you that I judge books by their covers All The Time. My customers do too, and I often find myself recommending a favorite novel to patrons, saying, “Pay no attention to the cover. It’s not that kind of book.”

Publishing houses have marketing departments and art departments and all sorts of people to figure out what sort of thing they should put on the front of their books. But we’re all human. And sometimes things go wrong. So, if you’re a writer, this is a cautionary tale: Do Not Let Bad Cover Art Happen to You. It’s also a big “Go Team” shout about new and about-to-be-released books that I love, with covers I am proud to display.

New in Paperback, from the Department of If It Ain’t Broke:

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin) is a dark, almost gothic tale set in the wilds of Wisconsin at the end of the 19th century; it’s got a hook that doesn’t let go and beautiful language to boot. When A Reliable Wife came out in hardcover, I knew it would make a great book club selection and eagerly awaited the paperback. There was Nothing Wrong with the way the hardcover looked. Alright, maybe it does start to look a little like a sinister Christmas card if you stare at it too long, but still.

The cover they’ve chosen for the paperback looks like a trashy romance, except … not trashy enough. Now, I like a good bodice-ripper, but if that’s what you’re after, you’ll be sadly disappointed in Goolrick. And if you want what this book actually is (a serious, historical novel about two fascinating and tortured souls, set in fin de siècle rural America), you’ll likely pass over this oddly lit Photoshop creation.

Hardcover Winners:

Girl in A Blue Dress: A Novel Inspired by the Life and Marriage of Charles Dickens, by Arnold Gaynor (Crown). Yes, I know it was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. But one look at the cover makes me feel I know all about it without having read a page. A woman in a pale (blue) dress sits at a writing desk, her head on her arms, probably weeping. The simple addition of a sub-sub-title would make it complete:

Girl in a Blue Dress
A Novel Inspired by the Life and Marriage of Charles Dickens
A Good Time Was Had by None

Border Songs, by Jim Lynch (Knopf). I love Jim Lynch. I loved The Highest Tide. I can’t wait to read Border Songs, but the cover keeps making me say things like, “eegh…” and put it down. I know Walton Ford is a great contemporary artist. I know his meticulous observations of the natural world are something that Border Songs’ narrator shares. I know the publishers were very happy to get his work for the cover. Here’s the thing: I’m from the Midwest, and maybe the rest of the world is just a smidge edgier than we are, but when I hold out a book to a customer, saying “I just love this author — this is his new one,” and they shrink in horror from the freaky bird carnage on the front cover, a bookseller starts to consider the merits of a plain, brown wrapper. Really, what would have been wrong with a nice Audubon?

Because I Believe in Positive Reinforcement:

The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson (Doubleday). Hooray! In its new paperback incarnation this wonderful novel no longer looks like it should be called Young Vampires in Love. The world has been made safe for democracy — or at least for book clubs, who would not touch this with a ten foot pole before. The Gargoyle remains my favorite novel of 2008, when it was released in hard cover. Several years ago, someone asked me who the Great American Novelists of Our Time were. Where were the Hemingways, Fitzgeralds, Cathers and so on? I think they were hoping for a group moan-fest. At the time, I pointed to Foer and Chabon and Atwood.* Today I would enthusiastically include Davidson. 

Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son, by Michael Chabon (Harper). A giant ticker-tape parade should be thrown for Michael Chabon’s latest. These essays make us think not only about what it means to be a man, but what it means to be a part of this wacky mob we call mankind. Overall, the pieces in this volume are about growing up — not in a this-is-what-happened-to-me-when-I-was-a-child kind of way (though there is some of that, too), but in a what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-adult kind of way — about how we must invariably disappoint the people we love, and how we learn and grow and become even better at doing that. And how sometimes, in a moment, it all turns out so beautifully right.

My two favorite essays are about a writers’ workshop and Christmas. They make me want to run out and hug people on the street, they’re so good. You’ll have to see for yourself. Go read it right now.

On the subject of covers: The good people at Harper got this exactly right. There were so many really spectacular ways to mess this up, and they succumbed to none. A tool box (or a box of hammers, if you’re feeling snarky) would have been cliché (or insulting, respectively). And the cover does not sport a single lawnmower (points for that!). Nor does the art make one reluctant to read this on a plane.** The super-title, “Manhood for Amateurs” would, with the wrong art, have the potential to leave your seatmate thinking that you are in need of a how-to guide (if you are a man) or are contemplating a sex change (if you’re a gal). Their choice of cover is attractive and visually interesting to (I think) both sexes. Hurrah for Harper!

Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You:

Both of these come out in July and are as beautiful inside as out.

The Blind Contessa’s New Machine, by Carey Wallace (Pamela Dorman). This is a rare jewel of a book. Wallace’s language transports you — not just to a small, Italian town in the 1800s but to the inner world of the blind contessa who lives there. As spare and elegant as a line drawing, it is a story of the costs and joys of imagination. The characters haunt you long after the last page. And its cover art is not bad either. Bright and different, this novel will be as visually distinct from its neighbors on the shelf as its contents are superior. I like it — can you tell?

The Blue Notebook, by James Levine M.D. (Random House). I read this in an evening. I could not put it down. It’s the story of a young girl sold into prostitution in Mumbai at age 9. At 15, she has a notebook and has begun to tell her story. The Blue Notebook is a novel, but Levine did research for the Mayo Clinic interviewing homeless children on the main drag of prostitution in Mumbai (known as “The Street of Cages”), and so his characters are (quite literally) achingly real. He’s donating all U.S. proceeds from the book to International and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children.

You might imagine that this is a book designed to “make us aware” of yet another horror far away — inducing feelings of guilt and helplessness in equal measure — something you “should” read, but would so much rather not. Instead, it’s a remarkable work of art. Fascinating and shocking, but more than that — a story of invention and genius, The Blue Notebook makes you long for the narrator to keep going, to write more.

The faience blue cover with the scarred notebook of the title fallen open to a middle page is well suited to the story. It would have been easy to make The Blue Notebook look like a “women’s novel.” The gender-neutral cover will encourage all readers to discover the treasures inside the binding.
*Canadians count! And Davidson also hails from our neighbor to the north.

**For more “Covers We Are Ashamed to Take on Airplanes,” see my Rant on Romance, Or: Put It away, Fabio – I’m sitting next to the VP of Sales.

February 6th, 2010 | Posted by admin | 2010 Debs | 4 Comments

We’ve covered that already by Deb Joelle

Being the Friday Deb means that I get to blog about a topic that you’ve all read about four times already. Every Deb’s post is different, of course, and they’re all interesting, but it has been challenging as a writer to still be interesting by Friday! Not that I’m complaining, I kinda love the challenge.

That said, when I saw this week’s topic, a bunch of spins and twists on Covers started rolling around in my brain. My husband’s a singer/songwriter and when he sings a song someone else wrote, that’s called a cover (or covering a song). I thought I could write something clever about that. Or perhaps I could tell you how on certain days, I just feel like pulling the covers over my head instead of writing (TMI, right?). But then I really thought about what the topic is supposed to mean, and I feel such deep love for my book cover that I knew this was not a time to be funny or different, but a time to just celebrate my sheer luck of the draw. And my publisher’s…you know…genius when it comes to choosing.

To say I loved, adored, was thrilled, and jumped up and down with joy when I saw my cover would pretty much be an understatement. I did all those things for DAYS! In addition to liking it so much, it was also a HUGE relief. The general public tends to think authors have a lot to do with their covers. But as most of you reading this probably know, the author really doesn’t have much input at all, if any. However, even the realists among us still have expectations, and hopes, and dreams for our covers and that can be a recipe for heartache if you don’t get what you think you want.

I am pretty sure that one of the reasons I loved my cover so much is because it looked a lot like I had imagined it. Only WAY BETTER! The main thing the artist did (Hugh Syme) that I never would’ve thought of, was make it look a bit futuristic. It seems obvious when you think about it because the book is set thirty years in the future, but even if it had occurred to me, I wouldn’t have known how to add that element to my imaginary cover in my head. I was so happy when I saw it I contacted Hugh via email to tell him thank you. He said I was the first author who had ever tracked him down. If you love your cover, tell your artist!

The response by bloggers to the cover has been very positive too, so I am pretty sure it’s not a case of a mother thinking her hideous child is gorgeous because she’s too blinded by love!

You’ve all seen it because I actually got it quite early, about ten months before my release, but here it is again, anyway!

February 5th, 2010 | Posted by Joelle Anthony | 2010 Debs | 13 Comments

Judging a book by its cover

Being blunt is one of my gifts.  Some would say it’s more of a nuisance, but I don’t know how to be any other way.  I consider myself a “Simon” instead of the sugar-coating (now departed) “Paula.”  I just don’t see the point in beating around the proverbial bush,  shrub, or small hedge.  I speak my mind and save myself a lot of time and needless aggravation.  Oftentimes, I don’t get what I want, but at least everyone knows exactly how I feel and there are no mis-understandings.  Bloodshed maybe, but I’ve since gone for counseling and its worked wonders.

Since I got the green light to write my book 101 Ways to Torture Your Husband, I had visions of an hip, edgy, eye-catching, cover.. something that screamed sexy, empowered female, and agonized tortured man.  I expressed my ideas to my editor who was apparently scribbling smiley faces all over a pad during our phone chat.  You see folks, (and aspiring writers take note) while your editor and publisher “welcome” your ideas, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will actually “USE” any of them.  That was a tough lesson to learn.  One sunny morning in September I received an email from my editor with the words “your cover” in the subject line.  I was on the air doing a morning show and I was pretty slammed, so I decided I would wait until after the show to open the attachment and really savor the moment.  The second we wrapped up the show I locked myself in a private studio and was ready to be wowed.  What happened was the complete opposite.  The first words out of my mouth were a very disappointed “THAT’S  IT??”

I couldn’t help it, I immediately called my agent who had also received the email.  The traitor picked up my call and joyfully announced “I love it! The cover is fantastic!”  I simply said “I HATE it, it looks like an ad for a 50’s diner.”  That conversation led to a high-level, early-morning, stress-inducing, 3-way conference call.  I stuck to my guns, I spoke my mind, and in the end…. the 50’s lady won out.  Since then, my cover has significantly grown on me.  I even dig the retro colors I initially found so offensive.  The book is selling much better than I ever expected, I just graced the cover of the British Sun, and I’m hopefully going to sit down with the ladies of “The View” to discuss torture.   

I guess those darn book people knew what they were doing. 

February 4th, 2010 | Posted by Maria Garcia-Kalb | 2010 Debs | 6 Comments

Aprons, Paul Newman, and oh yeah, book covers

The SIMPLY FROM SCRATCH cover is being created as I type this. I understand an apron might be featured; appropriate, as my widowed narrator takes to wearing her late husband’s old grilling apron around the house.

An apron is a kind of uniform, perhaps as much a symbolic one as one born of necessity. What I mean is, I always get a new sense of mental focus when I pull an apron over my head, anticipating the meal I’m about to create.

I’d go so far as to compare tying on an apron to applying war paint — or to “puttin’ on the foil,” if I may quote from Slapshot, which happens to be my favorite Paul Newman movie and my favorite hockey movie. If your approach to cooking is anything like mine, you must prepare yourself for battle, just like a hockey goon before a game.

Speaking of hockey, my first apron was a Montreal Canadiens apron. I bought it at the gift shop at the fabled Montreal Forum in 1991, a few years before that storied old sports arena was gutted and converted.

I also have a sturdy Wachusett Records apron, gifted to me by Benj Lipchak — forever friend, producer of my piano music, and founder of Wachusett Records.

And my mother gave me my other two aprons. One is handmade and based on 1940s patterns; the other — the one I reach for most often these days — is deep red and hides stains, which is good for me, because I’m pretty messy.

So, I’m curious: What does your apron look like? Where did it come from? And what does it inspire in you? (Dread, joy, creativity? Or …?)

~Alicia Bessette

My vintage apron ... thanks, Mom!

February 3rd, 2010 | Posted by Alicia Bessette | 2010 Debs | 23 Comments

Deb Sarah’s book coverS!

The Opposite of Me almost looked very different.

My novel is about twin sisters who couldn’t be more different – or so they think. My publisher, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, originally picked a cover that featured the two sisters standing next to each other, with their hair woven together into a single braid. It was an arresting picture – which might be why another publisher chose nearly the identical image for the paperback version of the Julia Glass book I See You Everywhere.

So in the Atria Spring 2010 Catalog – which had already gone to press before the Julia Glass book came out – my original cover is featured. But on the very day that my editor sent the catalog to me, she also included my completely new cover. And guess what? I like it much better! Something about it really speaks to me. My two sisters are side by side, staring out at the ocean, wrapped together in a single oversized towel. They’re bound together, yet psychologically apart; they’re each lost in their own thoughts, clearly not connecting to one another.

So thank you, Julia Glass, for steering me toward my perfect cover!

Now I want to know about you: How important are covers to you when choosing a book? I think they’re critical; when you wander into a bookstore, something has to make you select one book over the others vying for your attention, right? But tell me if I’m wrong.

I don’t believe covers can trump word-of-mouth recommendations. Personally, I never would’ve picked The Help based on its ho-hum cover. But I’ve had so many people recommend it to me that you can bet I’m snatching it up the next time I see it in a bookstore.

Another key selling point to me – again, I’d love to hear if others feel differently –  is the blurb on the book cover. And I’ll never stop thanking the incredibly talented and generous Jennifer Weiner, the #1 bestselling author of Best Friends Forever and In Her Shoes, for reading an early copy of The Opposite of Me and giving me a rave review (you can read it here). Having her endorsement featured prominently on my book cover will make people who might’ve otherwise passed it by pause and pick it up.  (And speaking of Jennifer, she’s lobbying to get her new pilot picked up by ABC, so if you like her books as much as I do, you’ll want to sign the petition here to see her characters on screen).

I’ve also recently received the Spanish and German covers for my book, which is incredibly thrilling. You can see them here if you’d like.

Do you have a favorite book cover?

February 2nd, 2010 | Posted by Sarah Pekkanen | 2010 Debs | 14 Comments