Category: bittersweet

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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I was just reading through Miranda’s last post about the book cover for Bittersweet, and it reminded me of WHY we partner with others as we bring a book to life.

Even for die-hard self-publishers who feel they are 100% going it alone by writing a book and immediately uploading it to Amazon or other services, they too are relying on a partner for publishing, distribution and marketing. Heck, maybe some of these tools tend to be more “silent” partners in that they won’t argue with you, but as an author, you are making a conscious choice as to who helps your book navigate the world. Oh, and who gets a cut of any potential revenue!

The best argument for this comes from John Green in an acceptance speech where he passionately talks about publishing as a collaborative activity:

While a big part of me values independence, I find that more of the magical moments in life are those that are shared. Why? Because it opens up those wonderful moments such as the one Miranda experienced where a publisher creates the book cover of your dreams.

Congrats Miranda!
-Dan

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I have writer friends who have very clear ideas about what they want their book covers to look like. But I hardly ever do. This might sound strange to hear, but when I write a whole world to life, I have a very hard time imagining an image that could encompass and point to and expand the world of that book. So in the weeks leading up to getting Bittersweet’s cover from Crown, I spent a lot of time kind of racking my brains about what I wanted the cover to evoke, and coming up with vague terms: mysterious, lurking, scary, beautiful, lush.

Winloch, the summer estate where most of the book takes place, is a primarily wooded, beautiful tract of land right on Lake Champlain, so I imagined a cover would probably incorporate that landscape. But beyond that, I couldn’t see it.

I’ll tell you what I was scared of: a faceless picture of two pretty girls with their feet hanging off a dock. I find it’s easy to slap a cover on any such book that happens to be written by a young-ish woman (I’m still young, right? RIGHT?) and features a young female character, but I was hoping for something, well, more universal. Not because I don’t think women’s fiction is fantastic, but because that’s not what Bittersweet is, and I worried about how easy it is to be slipped into a category simply because of what a book seems, in description, to be.

When it boiled down to it, I wanted a cover that would announce, regardless of my gender, or the main characters’, “This book is big.”

 

And I definitely got it! I couldn’t be more thrilled with how this book looks, even though I never could have dreamed up this look on my own. Still, the instant I saw it, my breath caught and I thought, “that’s it!” It has that certain ineffable something I dreamed my cover would have but couldn’t name.

I love this series in the New York Times that traces book covers through their various drafts. And I’m so in love with Victor LaValle’s paperback cover for The Devil in Silver that it almost makes me drool.

 

What book covers do you love? Why do they speak to you?

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Today I got the front and back jacket design for the ARC’s of Bittersweet. I’m so in love with how this book looks, so in love that, completely alone in my house, I purred “I LOVE YOU” at the screen. Yes, that’s embarrassing.

There are so many difficult moments in the marathon of publishing a book; it feels fantastic to just experience a purely celebratory moment.

And then I realized that even though the cover is already up on Goodreads, I hadn’t officially announced it! So here’s the cover of Bittersweet. I hope you love it as much as I do!

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I had a rough spring, and I spent the six months since not taking especially good care of myself. A french-fry became a large order of fries; one glass of wine every few dinners became a glass or two every single night. Now, I’m all for eating my feelings- I actually think it makes a lot of sense to nourish yourself when you’re feeling sad- but it was time to draw a line in the sand.

So I’m in my third week of Body Back, a combined exercise/ nutrition program run by my friend Anna Catherine through her Brooklyn Fit4Mom franchise. I’ve got five and a half weeks to go, and I’ve never exercised so hard or eaten so well as I am right now. I’ve also never felt better, or more confident, or prouder of who I am. Food tastes good again. And when I walk into a room, I’m smiling.

Feeling this way has gotten me thinking about how any of us who are “public” figures lead with our selves. It’s easy to slap on make-up and a nice outfit and smile, but I’m starting to realize I’m finding it rewarding to imagine coming to a reading, say, not with the sense that I’m tricking everyone who’s there into thinking I’m something “better” than I am, but with a real sense of confidence that I’m bringing my best self to the table. This change is internal. For me, it’s about owning what I’m disappointed about (or ashamed of), and doing something about it, so that I can feel genuine about my love for myself.

The line between personal and professional is very thin in the writing realm. People want to know “you.” I used to believe such a link between book and writer was hogwash; that a novel is written to exist separately from the person who wrote it. In an ideal world, that is the case, but we aren’t living in that world.

I want people to read my book. And I want to be proud of myself. As we get closer and closer to the publication of Bittersweet, I’m feeling good about knowing a little more about who I am, and what I’m capable of. I can’t help but think that will make my connection with readers that more genuine, because it’s honest and so much more interesting than perfection.

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.

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by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I’m learning that it’s always going to be easy to shove this author platform stuff to the side.

First it was the final draft of Bittersweet (July/August). Then it was the copyedits (early September). Then it was the four theses I had to read and comment on for Columbia (late September).

It’s not as if any of those tasks count as procrastination- they are definitely work! But I’ve noticed that because they take up so much time and energy, they are easy to retreat into and to use to justify my avoiding self-promotion (and those projects I’ve wanted to take on because I believe they will ultimately benefit my author platform). Even my blogging here has taken a hit.

Now that I’ve gotten the major tasks of my fall out of the way (at least as far as I can see, although I know there will be a first pass on the manuscript, and there will be unanticipated tasks as well), and before I start writing my next book, I’ve decided I need a more concrete schedule, so that I require myself to get done what I must, especially on this author platform stuff.

I have four full workdays a week. On three of them, I have the house to myself. The fourth day, the kiddo and the husband are home, so I have to barricade myself upstairs if I’m going to get anything done. I love Joyce, the coffee shop around the corner (where I wrote most of Bittersweet), but I can’t spend all day there, especially now that I’m trying to eat something besides butter and flour all day long.

So, my proposal to myself is a minimum of 2 morning hours, at home, to do creative work. These two hours will start my day off, and be spent in guilt-free pursuit of my actual writing. After that, I’ll have lunch here at home, and then I’ll head out into the world (aka Joyce) for at least two hours of author platform work. What will that work consist of? To name a few ideas:

– Solicit entries to FriendStories- reaching out to friends, colleagues, and others I believe might be interested in contributing

– Study the online presence of other writers I admire/ consider colleagues to get a clear sense of what I want my author presence to look like

-Research online platforms I’d like to become involved in/ write for with an eye toward promoting Bittersweet

-Redesign my website with a new bio, design, etc.

-Write pieces that I’d like to submit to online and print outlets in anticipation of the Bittersweet publication date of mid-May

That’s just to name a few! When I look at all that work like that, I know it’s important, and that I can’t just keep sweeping it under the carpet. I’m doing this author platform work because I believe in it, and I know I have to do it. Now I need to build it into my schedule so that it becomes a habit, and so I can begin to embrace it as part of my everyday life.