Publishing Monday: new workshops and Tudor goodness

I’ve just posted some new publishing and arts workshops over on my gallery page. Here’s the Cliff Notes version:

~ Workshops include: a reprise of our popular Publishing 101; an Introduction to Tarot; Children’s Books Basics; and an abbreviated version of my Bookmaking Bootcamp.

~ All workshops are personally taught by me. Class sizes are limited.

~ All of the workshops take place on Saturdays, to allow for out-of-towners to attend. If you need a place to stay, my neighborhood in Brooklyn is a hotbed of reasonably priced bed-and-breakfasts located in stunningly gorgeous Victorian homes. On the workshop info page, I’ve included links to several located a short walk from my gallery. It is simply stunning here in the spring too—cherry blossom trees and gardens galore.

Learn more about these workshops and other upcoming events here. Have any questions? Contact me directly at kris [at] kriswaldherr dot com.

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In semi-related Doomed Queens publishing news (well, very tangentally), The Tudors return on April 5th. I’ve only watched the series on dvds and must admit to having enjoyed its sensationalistic goodness, historical inaccuracies and all. I’m very tempted to succumb and order Showtime.

Last season ended with an image of Anne Boleyn’s head in mid-flight — not unlike the cover of Doomed Queens — while Henry gluttonously tucked into a roasted swan. This third season promises to cover three more queens, starting with Jane Seymour and ending with Catherine Howard. I’ve heard rumors that Showtime plans to end The Tudors after the fourth season, when presumably Henry marries (and is outlived by) his last bride. I hope not. It would be a shame to miss the antics of the Tudor offspring as they gather ’round the throne.

In anticipation of The Tudors’ return, I’ve planned some blog treats for the week:

~ Alisa Libby, the author of The Blood Confession will be interviewed about her new novel, The King’s Rose. The King’s Rose is a revisionist retelling of the story of Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s too-soon-beheaded teen queen. I just read a hot-off-the-press copy of it and was unable to sleep for hours afterward — haunting and intense.

~ We’re going to raffle off an autographed copy of The King’s Rose to one lucky blog reader!

~ Carlyn Beccia, the author of The Raucous Royals will be offering her two cents in a post about Anne of Cleves, who was probably the most fortunate of Henry’s six wives. The Raucous Royals is a ton of fun as well as a stunningly designed and illustrated tour de force; read my review here. BTW, the ever-resourceful Carlyn has already written a post about the historical accuracy of The Tudors’ third season. Spoiler alert: Read only if you’ve already watched the first episode on Showtime on Demand.

~ File under “Doomed Queens’ Bitter Wisdom”: I’m planning a post about Anne Boleyn, perhaps the most polarizing of fair Albion’s queens. Was Anne a witch? Or a religious martyr? A political pawn? Or just plain bad news? Whether you concur with Philippa Gregory or Eric Ives, I’ll do my best to cover the bases.

And that’s all for now!

• Filed under art and words, creativity, events, giveaways and raffles, publishing, publishing 101, studio and gallery, tarot and oracles, the world around me | One Response

Creativity Friday: Adventures in typography!

As I mentioned in recent posts, I’m in the midst of creating a new book proposal*. In my last Creativity Friday, I wrote:

As I work, I’ve been musing a lot about typefaces — specifically how they communicate intention for a book. I love to browse through Font Book on my Mac, compiling lists of what might work. I also love to research the history of a typeface, to see what subliminal connections there might be. In some ways, as I try on these typefaces for size, I feel a bit like Thea whenever she plays in her costumes. It’s all a giant game of dress up.”

In response, a commenter asked:

…. How do you play around with the fonts? Do you just type a few sentences in the font or do you actually print them out and hand draw them? I like doing both, so I was just curious as to how you do this.”

This is a great question. I’m sure everyone works a bit differently, but here’s how I proceed when I “play with type”.

As mentioned above, I begin by creating a list of typefaces that I think would work well for my book. I spend a lot of time pouring through Fontbook on my Mac. But, though I have thousands of typefaces on my computer, I also check out other possibilities. Here are several sites I like to troll for fonts:

1. MyFonts.com. My Fonts is an inexhaustable resource—they seem to have every font you can imagine. Best of all, you can try before you buy. Thanks to their easy-to-use website interface, you can type in sample text and view it in different typefaces and even download samples. This feature is especially useful for display fonts (ie: those used for titles or headlines). Have a font you’re trying to identify? My Fonts allows you to upload a sample, for which they’ll attempt to find a match. Very useful!

2. Scriptorium Fonts. Scriptorium specializes in antique fonts and fonts based on hand lettering from famous artists and calligraphers like Alphons Mucha, William Morris, Arthur Rackham, and Howard Pyle. They offer similarly-themed decorations, which are very useful in book and product design. They also have a large selection of trial fonts for free download. (I used their Fiorenza handlettering in The Lover’s Path.)

3. HPLHS Prop Fonts. Fun H. P. Lovecraft-inspired fonts that look very 1930’s. They also have some free downloads to try out, along with handy directions on how to make your own props using their fonts.

4. P22 Type Foundry. You can find P22 fonts on My Fonts, but sometimes it’s faster to go to the source. They also specialize in creating typefaces inspired by art and history. Great stuff!

5. Walden Font Co. Walden describes themselves as “purveyors of fine historic typefaces.” Yes, they are very fine. They have some great clip art collections which lend themselves to creating faux antique documents.

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Creating this list of possible book fonts can take some time—anywhere from hours to much longer. Once I have this list in hand, the fun commences. I begin by designing two sample pages for my book—I usually work in Quark XPress, laying in text boxes for where type will go, placing sample art to indicate where illustrations will go. At this stage of the game, page trim (or size of the book) depends on what I envision for the book. (Caveat: Trim sizes usually change once a publisher buys a book. So this is definitely a preliminary step.)

My first design is a full text page (or mid-chapter page), complete with running heads and folios:

The second design is a chapter opener (or the first page of a chapter):

(These samples were taken from Doomed Queens.)

I use these two pages as templates to try out all the fonts I’ve compiled on my list, in different combinations and point sizes. When I come upon a design that I like, I save it as a separate file and print it out. And so on and so forth, until I get that “aha, this will work” feeling in my gut. From there, I move onto designing a book title page and cover typography.

How long can this take? Like most creative processes, sometimes it’s very fast; other times, not so much. By the time I decide upon a typographic treatment, my work area is often covered in piles of print outs. But it’s an important process: Type “speaks” to me of so many things: of history, of emotion. The right typeface tells a story onto itself, offering a supportive counterpoint to whatever I’m trying to express with a book. Like music or color, it creates an environment in which to linger.

These adventures in typography are an important part of my visualizing my book—and usually the first step I take once I have my book outlined.

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* Yes, I’m still being annoyingly secretive about the subject matter. Frankly, I always feel a bit vulnerable revealing new book ideas until they’re safely (a) committed to the page and (b) under book contract. I guess I’m a bit superstitious in that way!

• Filed under creativity, new projects | One Response

Doomed Queens wins first place….

…. for design and production at the New York Book Show in the quality paperback category! I guess they liked those paper dolls.

The New York Book Show is chaired by the Bookbinders’ Guild of New York. It honors the best designed and manufactured books of the previous year. Check it out here. Oh, and if you haven’t visited yet, there’s a new Doomed Queens promotional site at AsktheQueens.com.

And in other royal news, guess who’s crowned herself princess of all she surveys? Take special note of the marabou glass slippers. Très charmant!

(Not to worry, Ariel fans: Thea still considers herself a mermaid too.)

• Filed under be-mused, publishing, queens, reviews + press | 4 Responses

Publishing Monday: What makes a book proposal successful?

My last post hinted at the subject matter for my newest book (though it’s probably more accurate to describe this project as “think about the influence of pink” than just “think pink”. But wasn’t that a great Funny Face excerpt?). As I mentioned Friday, the new book is currently in nascent book proposal form. This means that I’ve:

~ Done enough research to convince myself (and hopefully my editor) that my book concept is sustainable for approximately 60,000 words.

~ Written a basic book outline. I know this will shift as I work, but it gives me a map to start my journey from.

~ Looked at lots of art and design, to help me finetune the look of my book. I know this is unusual — most authors aren’t also designers — but, strange as it may sound, it does help me to figure out how to structure the written content of my book. Despite that my initial idea for a book usually arrives accompanied by a clear vision of their physical form, I still have to do a fair amount of research along the way. For example, my novel The Lover’s Path led me to studying the history of early Venetian printed books; Doomed Queens was inspired by Victorian penny dreadfuls. This new book is no different. So far, it has me delving into some of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press volumes. It’s still early in the game, though — who know where else inspiration will lead?

Now I’m trying to get all of these above materials to congeal into the final book proposal. Yup, I’ve created many a book proposal before. Even so, each time it’s still a tricky process, like trying to tip the contents of my brain onto the page and arrange the mess into something coherent.

I know I’ve written about creating book proposals before here, but this seems like a good opportunity to reiterate the obvious: They take a lot of work. Way back when, when I was first working in children’s book publishing, I was often able to sell a book on the basis of a strong query letter and sample illustrations. Jump forward twenty years: Thanks to the advances of computer graphics and print-on-demand technology, it’s possible for me to make a book proposal that looks like a mini-book onto itself. And that’s exactly what I do.

Though my book proposals are more finished-looking than the average bear, I’m not guaranteed success. There are still many things for a publisher to consider before acquiring one of my books: marketability, my track record, production and distribution issues. To insure that my book proposals can successfully become books, I make sure to include:

~ My pitch, or unique selling proposition — what makes my book different from others previously published, and why this is a good thing.

~ Market information — what similar books are out there. Or not, preferably.

~ Promotion plan — how the book can be effectively marketed to the public. I usually break this down by media (print, online and others) and by retailers (catalogs, special markets).

~ Finally, author info — my bio and publication list.

This is on top of the book proposal itself. But even all of this won’t fly if the creative content of my book proposal isn’t extraordinary. And that is where the true struggle often lies.

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On Friday, I’ll be writing more about this process of creating book proposals, this time about designing with type (aka “playing with fonts”). Stay tuned!

• Filed under creativity, new projects, publications, publishing, publishing 101 | 5 Responses

Creativity Friday: Springing into a new book proposal

After finally satisfying my book video obsession — for the moment, anyhow — I’ve moved onto working on my new book proposal. Though this new book has been long-aborning, I’m only now trying to tie up all the loose ends on it so my literary agent can share it. In other words, I’m trying to move inspiration from out of my brain onto the page!

I’m not ready to release too much information about the new book yet. It feels far too early for that, though I will admit that it bears a thematic relationship to Doomed Queens. It’s also fueled by my experiences as a mother of a little girl who is very shaped by the cultural markers surrounding her.

Here’s a rather cryptic hint on what the new book is about:

At this stage of the process, I have the book outlined and finished some preliminary research. In other words, I know how the book is going to be structured, what the contents will be, which is what’s most important. After all, you can’t have a book without subject matter.

Now I’ve moved onto the design and art for the proposal. As I work, I’ve been musing a lot about typefaces — specifically how they communicate intention for a book. I love to browse through Font Book on my Mac, compiling lists of what might work. I also love to research the history of a typeface, to see what subliminal connections there might be. In some ways, as I try on these typefaces for size, I feel a bit like Thea whenever she plays in her costumes. It’s all a giant game of dress up.

For my new book, I especially love the Golden fonts created by William Morris for his Kelmscott Press books.

However, they feel a bit too costume-y. Instead, I’m learning toward Arno, a relatively new typeface that bears some of the same inspiration as Morris’s fonts, but easier on the eye.

I’m sure this isn’t the end of my book design experimentation. But as I play with fonts and colors and such, ultimately it’s bringing me closer to an understanding of what my book is really about. And that is really what will bring my book into the pink of things.

• Filed under be-mused, creativity, new projects | 4 Responses