Everything else, though, may be at the discretion of Marketing.
John Scalzi, Justine Larbalestier, and Miss Snark (in order of my clicking, not depth of coverage) are all talking about aspects of books over which their authors don’t always have control.
If you’ve been reading along here, you already know that writers don’t have any say over what the interiors of their books look like—I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been asked to incorporate an author’s requests into an interior design . . . except that I don’t have enough negative fingers.
And you know that they don’t usually get to choose—much less draw—their own covers.
Miss Snark points out that the author has shockingly little control over the title, and Ms. Larbalestier (awesome name!) adds to the list of uncontrolled substances,
- The jacket copy . . .
- Whether there’s an author photo or not
- When the book is published
- What format the book is published in . . .
- Whether there’s a signing in your town . . .
- The cost of the book
- Whether it’s available in your country
- Whether it’s available as an audio book
- Whether a movie is made out of it
Hot comments on both of those posts.
So who does get to decide on all this stuff? Well, punks like me get to pick the fonts, as you know, but the answer for most of those other items is often “Marketing.” Or, in the case of covers, to some extent it’s “the buyers for the big chain stores.”
I saw Barnes & Noble’s preference consulted only once back when I was involved in commissioning cover designs, and that was when we really, really, really wanted to veto an author’s terrible taste in jacket art (a mission in which the buyer was all too happy to assist). But I’m aware that this happens very often at real publishing houses.
Most of these decisions come down to money, and how much of that handy stuff your book is expected to make. And that, of course, goes back to the buyers for the big chain stores, as Anna Louise explained some time ago.
So if you didn’t know all this, now you have an inkling. Go read about it.
I thought the whole point of having your book published by a Big Name Publisher was getting professionals like you, who actually know what they’re doing, to design, lay out, and print the book. I mean, if authors are upset about how the Big Name Publisher takes away their control, they can always self publish. Whiners!
Hmm. I rather suspect that an author might say the point is to get paid, and maybe to have the book distributed and promoted, but I know you’re being facetious.
I feel that there’s a pertinent Making Light post to be linked to here, but I can’t think of which one it would be. In its place, therefore, I recommend Teresa’s recent paean to the IBM Selectric. Be sure also to click through to her fascinating earlier post about Linotype machines: Typesetting: when it changed.
Not that facetious, actually. Sure, distribution and promotion are big parts of getting published (although less and less the latter — most authors have to promote the hell out of themselves if they want to sell books, witness Cory Doctorow) and the goal, I suppose, is to get paid, if you’re lucky. But really, if you want a good looking book, you need a designer, right? And having a good looking book is one of the great pleasures of getting published. I imagine.