My NC-17-rated adventures in New Adult.

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leahzero

The colors! THE COLORS!
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Hi, everybody!

(Hi, Dr. Nick!)

I've been on hiatus from AW for a while, writing, querying, and biting my fingernails to the quick, all for a big fat...nothing. I was agented once, but we parted ways. Then I spent the past 9 months doing a series of R&Rs for Jodi Reamer (yes, THAT Jodi Reamer) that ultimately ended in a "just didn't love it."

Well, I gave it the ol' college try. I'm done with that route. Time to self-publish.

So welcome to...

__________________________________________________

Leah's Little Self-Publishing Diary
*** With sparkles and shit. ***

__________________________________________________

This summer I decided to write the book I've been secretly dying to write (please don't tell my mom): a New Adult contemporary romance about an eighteen-year-old girl who falls in love with her high school teacher.

I wrote it, I designed the cover, and now e-ARCs are out there in the world, collecting reviews.

On Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17978680-unteachable

And since we all love a good blurb:


h23u0cx.jpg


UNTEACHABLE
New Adult Contemporary Romance
Coming August 1, 2013

I met him at a carnival, of all corny places. The summer I turned eighteen, in that chaos of neon lights and cheap thrills, I met a man so sweet, so beautiful, he seemed to come from another world. We had one night: intense, scary, real. Then I ran, like I always do. Because I didn’t want to be abandoned again.

But I couldn’t run far enough.

I knew him as Evan that night. When I walked into his classroom, he became Mr. Wilke.

My teacher.

I don’t know if what we’re doing is wrong. The law says one thing; my heart says screw the law. I can’t let him lose his job. And I can’t lose him.

In the movies, this would have a happy ending. I grow up. I love, I lose, I learn. And I move on. But this is life, and there’s no script. You make it up as you go along.

And you don’t pray for a happy ending. You pray for it to never end.​

__________________________________________________


Pre-Publication Stuff

What I've spent so far:

  • $20 for a stock photo. That's it.

I designed the cover, formatted the ebook, and handled all of the technical stuff myself. Since I have a background in graphic design, this was a piece of cake. My crit group did beta reading and editorial stuff.

I'm now personally contacting book bloggers for reviews, and mainly using Goodreads to generate pre-pub buzz.

I don't think it's worth the investment for a first-time self-publishing author to shell out the $400 for a spot on NetGalley, when you can do e-ARC distribution yourself with some elbow grease. Depending on how successful Unteachable is, I may opt for NG next book. But honestly, it's probably not even worth it--if this book is successful, I'll already have prominent book bloggers who are willing to review my next title.

What I am considering is spending <$100 on a book blog tour, just to splash the cover around.

Any questions, comments, etc. are welcome. I'll try to keep this thread updated with my progress.

My release date is August 1, 2013. Wish me luck! (And if you're interested in reviewing an e-ARC, PM me.)
 

stranger

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First: Good luck.
Second: Sexy NA is a hot genre right now, so it should do well
Third: I honestly think you should change your cover. It looks great but the most important job for a cover is to communicate the genre to the reader. Yours looks nothing like New Adult. Type New Adult into Amazon and see how the look and feel of the covers are similar.
 

shelleyo

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I agree about the cover. At a glance, the design and font says science fiction, not steamy NA. NA is too competitive to not have a cover that screams the genre without a single word of description.

It's pretty, but so wrong for that type of story.
 

leahzero

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Appreciate the feedback, but no, I'm not changing the cover. I wanted something different. It's iconic and eye-catching. Not looking like every single other NA title out there may potentially be a good thing.

Keep in mind that one of the highest-selling NA titles ever, Beautiful Disaster, also had an iconic, non-traditional cover.

In other news: I'm signing up for a blog tour in mid-August with Itching For Books. http://www.itchingforbooks.com/p/services_8.html
 

GinJones

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You've already made up your mind, it seems, but just in case, here's another vote for: change the cover. The blurb comes across as professional, but people aren't going to get to the blurb if the cover is confusing. It's difficult to read, and I have no idea what the pretty multi-colored thing in the middle is.

At least ask around, among writers or artists you respect and who know something about cover art.
 

merrihiatt

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Looking forward to following your thread.

The cover is pretty. As others have noted, I would not have expected it to be an NA Contemporary Romance.
 

katci13

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Good luck with everything!

I really like the cover. It looks like something that would be classified as a thriller. This isn't a thriller, but it's eye catching and that's probably a good thing. I don't know what NA is "supposed" to look like, but I'm all for being different.

Also, I like the blurb.
 

RLMcKeown

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Love the blurb and people seem to really like your book on Goodreads, which is great! Can't wait to see your updates!
 

justbishop

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Good luck with everything!

I really like the cover. It looks like something that would be classified as a thriller. This isn't a thriller, but it's eye catching and that's probably a good thing. I don't know what NA is "supposed" to look like, but I'm all for being different.

Also, I like the blurb.

I wasn't sure either, so I did what stranger suggested and went to amazon. Seems like all of the NA titles have either a pretty photo of a guy and a girl in an embrace of some sort, or a pretty photo of a girl's face. Damned if I can remember any of the titles, though.

All of that to say I think the cover being different and sticking out from that crowd is an awesome thing. I will temper that with an agreement that the picture of the girl is difficult to make out at first glance. But I love the feel and the colors. THE COLORS! ;)
 

merrihiatt

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I wasn't sure either, so I did what stranger suggested and went to amazon. Seems like all of the NA titles have either a pretty photo of a guy and a girl in an embrace of some sort, or a pretty photo of a girl's face. Damned if I can remember any of the titles, though.

All of that to say I think the cover being different and sticking out from that crowd is an awesome thing. I will temper that with an agreement that the picture of the girl is difficult to make out at first glance. But I love the feel and the colors. THE COLORS! ;)

There's a girl in the image? I missed that completely. Still don't see it. What am I missing?
 

Dreadful Romantic

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Count me in as someone who really likes the cover. As someone who doesn't read much in the way of New Adult, this is something that gets my attention. I'm interested to read about your blog tour.

And because I can't help it: "Dr. Riviera! Dr. Nick Riviera, please report to the coroner's office!"
 

leahzero

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itsmary

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Good luck! I don't post in these threads often, but I love following self-publishing journeys.
 

Ann Joyce

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Just wanted to wish you well on your journey. While I find the colors in the cover attractive, I can't see the girl when I turn sideways or stand on my head (jk about the on my head part). Even so, I can imagine young people checking it out. Looking forward to your updates.
 

juliatheswede

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Leah,

I wanted to wish you good luck and tell you that I love the concept of your story. Sounds fabulous! Have to say though that I wished you changed the cover. It is beautiful, though I have to admit I would never have gotten to the blurb had I not been currently interested in NA self-publishing and seen your thread headline.

I self-published a niche book--click my signature--and at the time I thought the cover was the best, hottest, most unique, attention-grabbing cover out there. And I had a few ppl who agreed with me. It turned out that most didn't in the end. Now, years later, I wish I would have picked something more "generic," something that was more indicative of my actual story/genre.

These are just my two cents and, obviously, feel free to ignore:)
I hope you will prove me wrong and I will eagerly follow your journey here. Also, I will PM you now for an ARC.
 

leahzero

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Thanks, everyone. I appreciate your feedback on the cover and will keep it in mind. As a reader of New Adult fiction, I know that I'm looking for something different, not the nth iteration of a generic close-up photo of two attractive young adults making out. My eyes glaze over at that stuff. It's the covers of novels like Beautiful Disaster, Slammed, and other non-close-up-body-shots that intrigue me. They're different.

If the cover ends up sinking me, well, you can all say, "I told you so."

-

On another note: in my novel, I use a Joni Mitchell lyric, and now I'm waiting for approval from her estate for permission to use it. If approved, they'll inform me of the required fee. I'm very, very curious how much it'll cost (it's only one line), and if it's prohibitively expensive I'm simply going to remove the lyric from my manuscript.

I knew going in that using song lyrics in a novel is generally a major headache and best avoided, but I'm giving it a shot to see what the approval process and cost is like for a self-pubber.
 

Old Hack

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^^^

What Merri said.

Your cover is gorgeous. But the genre it suggests doesn't match what you've told us about your book, which is going to lose you some sales.
 

stranger

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Thanks, everyone. I appreciate your feedback on the cover and will keep it in mind. As a reader of New Adult fiction, I know that I'm looking for something different, not the nth iteration of a generic close-up photo of two attractive young adults making out. My eyes glaze over at that stuff. It's the covers of novels like Beautiful Disaster, Slammed, and other non-close-up-body-shots that intrigue me. They're different.

People often aren't browsing by category, just looking through arrays of covers and looking for ones that appeal to them (bestseller lists etc). The NewAdult readers will glaze over your cover (as well as any covers with, say, dragons or spaceships on them). The science fiction or thriller reader will click on the cover and then back away when they read the blurb.

The cover's job is to get readers who might like the book to click on it/pick it up. The reason you'll see so many generic covers of a kissing couple is because they are proven to do the job. (When you enter New adult in Amazon it brings up the bestsellers. Now possibly there are a great many New Adult books with rather different covers, but 90% of those that are bestsellers have a similar look and feel.) Now having a unique and pretty cover is great, but that should be secondary to communicating the genre.

Now Slammed and Beautiful Disaster don't have a the kissing couple cover, but both communicate (to me) women's fiction. So it's attracting the readers who might like that type of book.

Perhaps you might consider putting 'New Adult Romance' in type onto the cover.
 

eventidepress

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Just saying, I'm pretty sure when they published Twilight, there were probably a lot of higher-ups in the company arguing vehemently against a cover that didn't have photos of people making out on it.
 
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