March Meeting Invite, Grant Success
Plus: How do you choose your cover art?
Hi everyone!
Here are the details for joining our next meeting:
ANBIP Authors Meeting
Monday, March 25 · 5:00PM PST, 6:00PM MST, 7:00PM Central, 8:00 EST
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bxk-tnny-iwz
And some notes:
Congrats on another member getting a Sloan Grant!
Jennifer writes:
I just found out I did indeed win a Sloan grant! And it all started with hearing about it from you during an ANBIP meeting last April -- and then I don't think I ever would have figured the application out without your subsequent help and advice. THANK YOU. This money is absolutely vital to keeping my family afloat right now and it wouldn't have been possible without you and your generosity of time and information.
I owe you one, for sure.
I’m so glad people are getting value out of this group! Remember, here is a free list of grants that I recommend for ANBIP members, and I highly recommend that you look through them and apply as soon as you qualify (mostly, you need a trad contract), or at least put them on your calendar for the future.
Also, you are welcome to use my (successful!) Sloan application as a template/guide! I got $56k. And from my experience, there is basically no deliverable except the book you were going to do anyway. Get that money!
Choosing Cover Art
Last meeting we discussed how to choose cover art. These books are our babies, and yes, I most certainly would assume a book is poorly written if it had cheap/boring/unprofessional cover art. And I think most other people do the same.
While your publisher most likely has someone in-house doing cover art, look at what else they’ve published and decide if you like it or if you want to maybe have more sway in that.
Personally, I know of lots of really great artists who draw carcasses, just through social media. Maybe go to Instagram or Pinterest and just start searching for keywords related to your book, and like and follow pieces and artists who you think vibe with your vision. The algorithm will show you more, and don’t you just want to see more of [your book topic here] in art anyway?
I have a whole sheet in AirTable listing potential cover artists. It’s not that time for me yet, but I like a lot of them. The artist Mycotae, for instance, does a lot of animals and mushrooms so anyone looking for that, look there. I’m thinking the first person I’ll probably contact is Beastie and Bone. I really want a carcass artist specifically because I would be unhappy if the cover was anatomically or scientifically incorrect, even if an artist inexperienced in carcasses was “better.” And there are lots of them, really. Beastie and Bone’s art looks very anatomically correct to me, and it’s very high-contrast so it’s always grabbing my eyes, as well as being artistically pleasing in a variety of ways, IMO.
I have a list of wants in mind for when the time comes, which may be a long time. But when it’s time for you, take a look and see if you want to ask the same of your cover artist:
I want people to buy the book for the cover (and like it for the content!)
It must be as anatomically accurate as possible…this is a science book and I want the big nerds to love it!
It must convey what the book is: a science book about dead animals. Perhaps consider vintage medical illustrations for inspiration to evoke scienciness. Some fantasy elements could be ok, like X’s over the eyes, or wings and a halo but we don’t want the viewer to think that this is a book about metaphorical carcasses, or that the carcasses are an allegory to some other genre. (That’s how I chose my title: Carcass: On the Afterlives of Animal Bodies.) Imagine my disappointment watching The Killing of a Sacred Deer just to find there are no deer at all in it! (I kid, I read the description beforehand.)
Speaking of abstractifying the image to some extent so it’s not a disgusting, realistic carcass: the art has to pass “The Cheerios Test,” which, as I heard in undergrad journalism school, refers to an image that wouldn’t make you spit out your Cheerios. That means I don’t want the art to be so graphic that it shocks people into hiding the book on store shelves. I probably don’t want red blood or eyeballs coming out.
I want there to be bones and at least one other element of carcasses, like fur or organs.
I’ll have to talk with my agent and publisher but I’d probably want fairly exclusive rights to the image so I can use it on promo material etc.
I have a whole Flickr account of mostly carcass photos the artist can use. I kind of like this pic of a dead pronghorn as inspo.
I could even make a Pinterest board of inspo…consider these covers of fiction books that feature dead animals for fiction books by T. Kingfisher:
That’s all for now! See you soon!