| |
| |
|
Book Marketing Information |
|
|
|
Colour and Book Covers - What You Should Know if Youre Self-Publishing
Color is tricky at the best of times. If you want exact color management (such as a particular shade of blue for a university logo) you really should use something called spot color. Spot colors are specially mixed ink colors. Like the paint you purchase for your walls, the spot colors, or PMS colors (PMS stands for Pantone Matching System), are mixed according to pre-determined recipes. Each color in the PMS spectrum has an assigned number. When a client picks a number, the ink is mixed according to that recipe. It's usually more expensive than process color printing. Process color is the most common choice for book covers, particularly self-publishers. Process colors are commonly known as CMYK colors. C (Cyan) M (Magenta) Y (Yellow) and K (Black) are the four colors of ink that are mixed together to come up with the colors you see on your book cover. With digital printing (also called print-on-demand or POD) it's usually necessary to pay for use of all four colors. If you're printing offset, then you might be able to save money by using only one or two of these colors. The most common choice would be black (since your bar code and interior pages will probably need to be black, anyway) and either one of Cyan, Magenta or Yellow. It's important not to confuse what you see visually as only one color, or four colors, or 10 colors, with what the printer will consider to be one, two, three or four colors. Your cover may have a solid pink background with black text, but still be a four color cover. That is because all four colors, CMY and K were used to create your particular shade of pink or black. I'll illustrate this using Cyan, which you can view at: http://www.bookcoverexpress.com/colors.jpg Now it gets more confusing. Aside from PMS colors and CMYK colors for ink, computer screens can only read and show you something called RGB colors. The RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. While CMYK colors absorb light, RGB colors reflect light. What this means is that in the CMYK gamut, absence of all color (C at 0%, M at 0%, Y at 0% and K at 0%) will produce white (also called reverse). That is why CMYK colors are called Subtractive - the more color you subtract, the whiter the color. However, in RGB it's the opposite. The more color you add, the more white you have. RGB colors are called Additive. The white on your computer screen is actually 255 Red, 255 Green and 255 Blue. If you add into the factor that computers are also being lit up from behind, monitors vary, screen settings and operating systems and software varies between programs and between user settings, which anyone can change, you can understand why trying to judge what a color will look like in print on a screen can be tricky. The only way to ever know for sure is to either go into the print shop and choose a color from their color swatches, or wait until the printer sends a print proof. Even the above color sample I pasted in is actually only an RGB rendition of the CMYK colors. And yes, even the CMYK in PhotoShop is only a close, RGB representation of the CMYK colors. To be honest, it's rarely an issue. The colors are pretty close and most experienced designers and printers will be able to help. It's only in areas where you need to have an exact match, such as the university logo color I mentioned earlier, that you may want to get more hands-on with color management and discuss the issue with your printer. Your printer will probably be able to supply you with the CMYK code or PMS number that you need and you can give that to your designer. There are things to watch out for, though, especially if you're switching from the RGB color gamut to CMYK "on the fly." Industry-standard programs such as those produced by Adobe and Quark are fine, but I've seen some people actually create covers in programs developed by Microsoft. Since these programs only work in RGB, color management is an issue. Some shades of blue, green and pink are particularly difficult. At this link: http://www.bookcoverexpress.com/rgbpink.jpg you will see an RGB repesentation of what can happen when proper color management is not employed. Although this is dramatic, it is pretty much what happens with this particular shade of pink. CMYK colors are often more subdued than their RGB counterparts. The CMYK color range is smaller, plus the absorption of light really impacts things. For more information on colors check out these sites: http://www.cdcentric.com/spot_color_tutorial.htm http://www.cyberglitz.com/primer.htm Cathi Stevenson is a former newspaper writer and editor who has more than 2,000 published articles to her credit. In publishing since 1981, she opened her own book cover design company in 2000 and since then BookCoverExpress.com has created more than 650 book covers for independent publishers and presses of all sizes. Read more of Cathi's articles about publishing at: http://www.thoughtblog.net
MORE RESOURCES:
Immigration Issues, Baseball, and the Queen Discussed on Podcast ... - PR-CANADA.net (press release)
Book-Marketing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Online Book Promotion Beats Traditional Seven to One - Part 1 While traditional marketing can work for the book author or publisher, the return is dim for the huge effort it takes. You must promote 90% of the time to even get a milligram of attention. Know These Five Audiences to Write a Top Selling Book To create a saleable book you need to know your preferred audience or audiences before you write your book. This essential "hot-selling point" helps you write focused, organized, and compelling copy your audience will appreciate and talk about. Top Ten Ways to Promote Your Books Through Flyers A flyer is an excellent, inexpensive way to promote your book. What makes one flyer so much better than another? Use these top10 tips to make your flyer stand out from the crowd. Oh No! A Bad Book Review! Have No Fear...Advice For Dealing With The Blues Of A Bad Book Review You've just been notified a review of your book has been posted. You're all excited and can't wait to see what has been written. Promote Your Books on Talk Shows and Make More Money Successful authors are convinced that radio interviews are the very best way to reach large audiences and publicize their books. Interviews give authors an opportunity to expound on the topic of their book and disclose personal feelings. How to Market Your Unsold Books on the Internet: Its Easy Your book expresses your wondrous information, your creativity, and your genius. It's your dream come true. Increase Book Sales: When a Sale Is No Longer Just a Sale Do you have books sitting in your garage that you haven'tsold yet and looking for ways to move them? Then you willwant to know about these five outrageous ideas that aren'tdifficult and can be just plain out fun. Dede Hall, author of The Starving Student's Cookbook hadvery poor sales for her books. Creating a Book Poster Posters can be a great and inexpensive way to promote your book. But don't rush right out until you know the key items to include on your poster. Writing a Book's Marketing Plan for Maximum Profit Much has been written about book proposals. But less has been written about book marketing plans. Book Signing: Fun and Profit for Writers and Readers Have you ever walked into a bookstore when an author is scheduled to do a book signing and found no one in the audience? Do you shy away from autograph tables, perhaps fearing that someone may ask you to buy a book? Consider the other side of the equation. A book signing is an opportunity to learn about the author and what makes a person undertake the challenge of writing a book. How To Promote A Book Nowadays it's no longer a matter of whether or not an author should promote his or her book, but how aggressively one should go about it. The sad truth is that publishers often fail to promote books, and if we, the authors, don't promote your own book then it may be destined to a lifespan between that of butter and yogurt, to paraphrase Calvin Trillan. What's Wrong with the Internet? It Must be Broken! After months of scouring the internet, I could not put my hands on the 2 million links various search engines said were available to do my book promotions. First, let me say I perceive myself as an intermediate user of the internet, but maybe my perception was misguided as I searched and realized I couldn't put my pointer on the links I wanted. Why Writers Dont Do a Book Signing Whenever someone suggests you do a book signing and you do not want to, here are five reasons you can give them:1) It's not worth the time; there's not enough money in it.2) Speaking is where the money is. 4 Questions to Answer Before Contacting a Book Agent Obtaining agency representation is your first step toward getting profitably published. Most publishers won't even look at unsolicited manuscripts. Five Tips To Consider When Choosing A Publisher Choosing a publisher probably seems like a complicated task, however, you may find the process somewhat less challenging if you consider the following five suggestions.Research the legitimacy of your prospective publishers. Promotion - Credibility Extras For many of us, marketing our titles is one of the most tedious tasks of being an author. Even authors who published with large New York houses are expected to take part in marketing and promotion. Top Ten Getting Started Tips to Market Your Book and Business Want to sell a lot more books? Want clients calling every day to find out more about your service? Most emerging businesses forget the #1 way to promote anything--the Internet. Specifically, writing and submitting articles. Why Should I Buy your Book? How would you like to have countless people clamoring for your books and willing to visit your Web site to buy them? Most entrepreneurs wait until their Web site is designed before they think about marketing their products on it. What a shame! When someone asks you about your book, maybe you've said, "My book is about?. Dont Sell your Book, Share It Most authors who aren't used to speaking before a group think, "I'd rather get a root canal than have to 'sell' my book." If you think about how great your book is, how you wrote it because you wanted to help or entertain your audience, you can change this fear to the idea of sharing your book. 28 Reasons Why Publishers Will Buy Your Book Editors will buy a book for one or more of the following reasons. By knowing what these reasons are, you can then design a marketing plan with those features in mind.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
