One of my son’s was just visiting with his wife and daughter (and grandchild-to-be). He was asking me about my author journey and where I was at. I explained to him about waiting for the layout and how I expected to hear back some time in the next week. I also told him about the covers and how I was waiting now for round two. One day after he asked me I now have the new set of covers in hand and the first draft of the internal layout.
The new covers looks great. I got another set of 5. One cover is completely out of the running for me but then there are the other four which I have personally ranked. Now its time for some assistance. Using a hand picked group of people from several of my target demographics (wow, sounding really professional here) I got ratings from 1-5 on the covers. Wouldn’t you know that for some people, the cover that I absolutely hated was either top pick or in the top 3. Another rule of thumb is to listen to your audience. Well, my top two covers were in the top two for most of the reviewers. There was a third cover in the mix that I was able to eliminate based on lack of popularity among the masses. So going with the top two covers I polled an even more paired down grouping of reviewers and they picked the cover that I would have considered to be the runner up.
All was not lost. Looking at the cover there was a way to make it number one. It would need a few tweaks. So I went back to the graphics team and explained what the tweaks were and what I would like to see. I’m waiting for for a response back on them to see if I like what I actually suggested!
But, since I also received the interior layout… TAG! I’m “it” again. Time to go through the layout and see how things looks and make sure that all of my content is as I expect it to be. Once I approve the copy after this round of reviews, it becomes the final authoritative draft and any changes that I need to have make are outside of the scope of what is included in the contract. Being really careful here.
- Share: