Here is another rofl-job with a Long John
Best original from his collection, Tall Tales.
Henry’s Passing
There’s a look you get when dying, startled
headlights on a deer,
And that’s the look old Henry had. Oh, he
knew the end was near.
Family gathered round his bedside, vultures
waiting for the end,
Only Naïve Nev his night nurse, Henry
figured, was his friend.
Henry’s hour was fast approaching, time to
leave this mortal coil,
With the wisdom born of Rhinehart, he would
allocate the spoil.
“Wife, I leave to you all Pitt Street,
Eldest Son, you get The Cross;
Michael, Mossman, most of Manly, toss in Bondi;
that’s no loss.
Sisters, Sophie and Sofia, divvy up the
CBD.
My Mercedes goes to Neville, for the
kindness he’s shown me.”
Barely had these words been spoken, when
his eyes closed with a sigh,
For all ties to Earth now broken, Henry’s
time had come to die.
Well Nurse Neville was astounded, at what
he had seen and heard.
That one man in just one lifetime, could
acquire so much.
“My word,” He said, “This man, your
Husband, Father, of him you must be proud,
So much property he leaves you.” Wife said,
“For crying out aloud,
He was useless and a skinflint, for us
didn’t give two hoots,
All’s left’s a clapped-out car, no money,
and his bloody paper routes!”
YOU CAN ORDER TALL TALES from your
physical bookstore (author Long John Best, publisher Bent Banana Books) or in
paperback or eBook from online-retailers including
Love that bit about “Sisters, Sophie and
Sofia”. If the sisters Sophie and Sofia, were teenagers in the 1960s, they
might have been taking in the Kroo Brothers at their local Australian milk bar.
They do not look much like brothers, maybe because they are not. A milk bar was an Australian cafe where milkshakes were a favorite of the teenage clientele. And yea the Kroo Bros did perform at milk bars.
As a teenager and young man, Johnny served 15
years in the Royal Australian Air Force.
Here is one of his poems about a World War
II veteran.
Long John Best:
Someone told me this was illusory,
whatever that means it sounds pretty flash. It’s called:
Verandah Dreaming
Good to see you, old mate, I've missed you
of late, have you been just a little bit off?
Pull up a chair, oh you've got your own
there, twenty-eight inch wheels. Bloody cough.
Hey remember as kids, we used to do skids
on our pushies with big wheels like that?
No pneumatics of course, solids; bucked
like a horse, but Jesus they never went flat.
These kids of to-day, they dunno how to
play, they say Gramps put TV on, we’re bored,
Then they up and they prance, like they've
ants in their pants, that music’s a crime to record.
So what's with this chair, you've still got
your legs there, aren't you bunging it on a bit, Fred?
Them legs saved your life, when you got
into strife, with that farmer, I thought you were dead!
He must have seen me, though I hid up a
tree when he lined up that 12-gauge on you.
Well struth, I knew you could run, but
outrun a gun. Christ mate, you bloody near flew!
Proved a decent old bloke, liked a bit of a
joke, and showed that he wasn't no dobber,
Left Mum a box with a note, still remember
he wrote, "melons for felons", your cobber.
Oh but we never knew, when he lined up on
you, and let one fly in the air out of fun,
That in only three years, with me hiding me
fears, we'd be lined up again, by the Hun.
Oh, we'd joined up real fast, just in case
the chance passed, who wouldn't want to be in it?
We drilled and we trained, but excitement
soon waned, with bad news from the Front; can we win it?
Fred, I wasn't so sure, but you'd just
ignore the doom and the gloom, get stuck in.
Me, I went with the tide, hoped, with you
by my side, at the end of the day, mate, we'd win.
Cobbers eh, Freddy, weren’t all staunch and
steady, a coupla right mongrels we knew,
"Reckitts" you dubbed 'em, and
when Jerry near scrubbed 'em, they turned out quite white in the blue.
"Weak pair of bastards", you
said, "they'll both wind up dead", a prediction, which wound up spot
on,
Both blown to the khazi outside of
Benghazi, and there weren’t a lot left, when they’d gone,
We crept in, out of Crete, near dead on our
feet, couldn't picture us getting much older,
But you Freddy mate, oh Jeez you were
great, I got scareder, and you just grew bolder.
The terrible two-some they called us, but
mate you knew some, if not all of my fears,
Like, late at night when I cried, having
dreamt I had died, a secret you kept down the years.
The next few dragged by, it's just in
hindsight they fly, and I come back home, pretty right.
Oh, it's nothing you'd notice, but Jesus
don't quote us, see I still wake up bawling at night.
I’m burnt out now of course, what you’d
call a spent force, bastard banks took the deeds to the station.
Have we come such a ways, since our Middle
East days, when you gave up your life, for this Nation?
I get feelings of guilt that this country
we’ve built,might of done better with you here than me,
And quite often I wonder if this younger
mob understands what it costs to be free.
Am I losing it, Fred? Am I better off dead?
Seems the world of our youth's come behind.
Though your body's not near, your spirit is
here, it's why I talks to you see, in me mind.
I suppose there's been others who had
better brothers, but no one I've met ever did.
This long life I have led, is down to you,
Fred, still sleeping in Libya, still a kid.
I’m fading fast, Freddy. I think I am
ready, to take up where last we left off.
Put the billy on, mate, I've not long to
wait, got this pain in me chest---bloody cough.
"Come in now please Dad, it makes me
so mad, when you're jibbering to old Uncle Fred,
You know he's long gone, gee, you do carry
on . . .Oh, Sweet Jesus, my Father is
dead."
YOU CAN ORDER TALL TALES from your
physical bookstore (author Long John Best, publisher Bent Banana Books) or in
paperback or eBook from online-retailers including
Here is a 1969 hit about a young man going
to the Vietnam war. At the end of the song, stick around to see a very skinny,
very young Bee Gees covering Bob Dylan.
I love me print books, reading them, writing them, publishing them. But I am disheartened by the stall in eBook sales.
Figures show eBook sales have plateaued in the past 12 months
The New York Times tells us eBook sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year. The NYT quotes the Association of American Publishers which collects data from 1200 publishers. AAP crunched numbers to declare digital books to be about 20 per cent of the market, the same as they were a few years ago.
Those of us who predicted eBooks would dominate the market are still many a year shy of seeing it happen.
I believe it will happen and I do not see much downside. Print books will always remain viable just as stand-up comedians preserve the oral tradition which dominated story-telling before universal literacy.
THE KINDLE FIRE this Christmas retains its firepower which comes from its $50 (US) price tag but it has lost its Kindleing which started the fire. Bad pun aside, we don’t have to worry our pretty little heads about why the Amazonians have dropped the Kindle attachment to what is now the Fire tablet. This raises interesting semantic and philosophical questions. Does the 5th generation Kindle Fire become the 1st generation (Unkindled ) Fire tablet? BTW the 1st-gen Kindle Fire cost $199 so the price has tumbled since its birth in November 2011.
I suspect the unKindleing marketers are trying to 1) redefine the product as a tablet not just an eReader and 2) position themselves as a genuine competitor to the iPad and its little sibling the iPad mini.
Of course, Samsung would object that they are a handy competitor to the iPad as well. We can buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7-inch online for$128.94 (USD, I think) and it does ship to Australia. There 4000+ reviews to choose from.
Bigger Fires retail for significantly higher than the standard 7” model. Top of the range is theFire HD 10, 10.1" which is now on sale for$229.99.
I am not sure why I put up the above picture of the Fire 10 because on screen it looks like the 7” but, of course, it has a lot more whizz-bangery. Maybe it was to point out the Kindle 10 has 1900 reviews (for many products a worthy number) compared to more than 70,000 for the 7”. This shows the $50 price tag is the anchor of the Fire’s success.
It is part of mythology that Kindle prices the standard Fire so low because it is connected to the Kindle entertainment store. In other words the message not the medium is making the moola.
For one of the best commercial communicators in the world.Amazon is tight-lipped on the fiscal side of its operations. For all we know Amazon is doing nicely out of its Fire 7” while millions of buyers cannot believe their good fortune in snaringsuch a bargain.
However the Fire 7" at $50 does seem something of a loss leader aimed at the US market lucrative for Amazon in its purchases of entertainment products. The Fire does not ship to my island home of Australia. Australia’s official Fire retailer Dick Smithis not selling any and Amazon Oz will sell me a HD Wi-Fi Fire 7” for $168.97 USD which is $230 in Aussie currency. This summarises why the Kindle Fire at $50 USD is indeed a bargain for those who can acquire one at that price.
Amazon does send to me theFire TV Stickfor $39.99. It plugs into a TV HDMI port. You can find out how well it works by sampling some of the 76,000+ reviews. That must be about the same number of reviews my novel Iraqi Icicle has by now and it also ships around the world. That sounds like a fantastic Christmas present to me.
A good Christmas bargain which does ship to Australia is theNook HD 7" 8GB tablet from Barnes & Noble. It is priced at $81.99 (USD) reduced from $199 and may include free shipping. Amazon tells me it may arrive after Christmas. If I give it as a gift I will just show the lucky receiver a picture of it and promise it is coming soon to a screen near her.
Here are our songs. That’s right! We have two because they are both classics connected to the topic of our second day of Christmas. Just to be different, I am presenting them in reverse chronological order.
ONE name won’t spring to the lips of critics
naming the most accomplished classic noir actors. As you may recall, classic
noir usually refers to stylised Hollywood crime films made from the early 1940s
to the late 1950s. Robert Mitchum who is universally recognised as an essential
noir anti-hero, or maybe ant-hero, responded to the exotic title of film noir
in laconic noirish fashion. “We used to call them B-pictures,” he said.
Humphrey
Bogart is the other icon of male leads in noir acting. After this duo, the
picture gets a little fuzzy with the names Sterling Hayden and Dick Powell
likely to rise from the mist. Maybe Kirk Douglas. James Cagney, George Raft and
Edward G. Robinson if you want to stretch it to the gangster guys. No Edmond O’Brien.
Oh, yair, Edmond O’Brien. Eddie
O’Brien. Forgot about him. O’Brien starred in maybe a dozen or more noirs, including four
of the most famous, The Killers
(1946) White Heat (1949) The Hitch Hiker (1953) and the movie we will
enjoy later D.O.A. (1950). He also
played Winston Smith in the first cinematic
adaptation of George Orwell’s novel 1984.
YOU have probably come across Jane Sharp’s eBook which began the Vision series of
psychic mysteries. “I should look into that one,” you have probably said.
Well
percolate the coffee and break open a bar of Swiss chocolate, these bite-size
ghostly tales are free for Kindle.
Australian
author Jane Sharp is offering you her first published work in the hope you will
be hooked and itching for more of Detective Trudy’s Harper’s adventures.
IT was a good week for those of us listening hopefully
for the recognition of new voices in world literature.
Marlon James
became the first Jamaican born winner of one of the world’s most highly
regarded literary awards, the Man Booker Prize.
His winning
novel A Brief History of Seven Killings traces a
murderous lineage in Jamaica and the United States which began with the
attempted murder of Bob Marley in 1976.
James, who
teaches creative writing at an American college, received the prize along with a
big bauble of £50,000 Great
Britain pounds (J$9.2 million Jamaica dollars) at a black-tie dinner at
Guildhall in London.
But the glitz and the gold could not cover
the irony that James in hoisting the trophy above the stage would be looking down
on some of the publishers who collectively rejected his first novel John Crow’s Devil, 78 times, before it
was eventually accepted in 2005.
WE have all done it. Find a book
from one of our fave genres and we are ¼ the way through but it hasn’t grabbed
us. It’s the Least Favourite Jelly Bean Color Syndrome
We are consuming our least- favourite- color-jelly-bean book
and contemplating putting it aside. It is after dinner and we might put it aside
and we might move on to social media or even television. Just one more chapter.
FROM
the outset, I would like to make it clear, Stephen King is not dead. False
rumors can sprint across cyberspace and I do not want to start one.
Mr.
King, in fact, is about to become executive producer
of a television series based on his crime thriller, Mr. Mercedes. You
need a modicum of life to do that.
Mr. King’s demise is
in a metaphorical sense, though even that is exaggerated. I thought it would be
fun if Bent Banana Books author Jane Sharp challenged Stephen King for his pre-eminent
position as an author in the Suspense/ Psychics category. The new Queen of Psychic Mysteries usurps the King.
I am confident people will enjoy Jane’s bookVision: Complete Trudy Harper Psychic
Investigations http://geni.us/1l36so I am happy to be
creative in encouraging people to buy it.
Well, the idea of supporting the Gran who
would be King against the clock has taken off among people from around the
world. Jane's book is at the reduced price of $2.99 for only one more day.
Jane’s book Vision: Complete Trudy Harper Psychic Investigations has been in and out
of the Kindle Top 100 Suspense/ Psychics for weeks.
By yesterday, it had slipped well out of the Top 100 Suspense/ Psychics and was ranked overall in the 300, 000s.
It is now #57000 overall and #59 in Top 100. For another 27 hours Jane’s
book has its best chance of moving merrily up the ranks as it will be at its
special price of $2.99, reduced from $6.99.
27 hours gives us little
time for positive word of mouth to kick in so we need to preach of the
challenge. Maybe we could hire the preacher bloke in this film.
We are aiming for Top 10 Suspense/ Psychics. I will let you know how we go. You can follow
Jane’s fortune’s HERE.
And Mr. King, we know we can never be royals.
For our song, I replay one of my and Mr King's fave bands. Apparently
some hard-core fans of the band did not like this song one little bit. I guess they
missed the joke.
Available HERE @ $2.99 and free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers
THE jury is still out on the success of my non-price based promotion of
Jane Sharp’s psychic mystery anthology, Vision: the Reluctant Psychic.
My publishing hut Bent Banana Books publishes Jane’s
book.
With the literary explosion propelling millions of eBooks
into cyberspace, literally hundreds of thousands of authors are filling Amazon
bookshelves.
Amazon has millions of eBooks for sale but only a few
hundred titles will rake in the big dough.
Maybe it is because writers are usually better at English
than maths. Whatever the reason, many wannabees do not seem to realize how astronomical
are the odds of having a best-seller to your name.
KDP is the arm of Amazon which facilitates self-publishing.
KDP provides a calculator which estimates sales based on Amazon ranking. You
would hope it is reasonably accurate.
So let’s look at an author whose book is ranked
1000, above millions of its competitors. Predicted sales are 100-300 copies a day. I would imagine the range of the predicted sales is so wide as books sell in different numbers during various months of the year.
Depending on the cover price, the 1000th top seller should be returning a reasonable income
to its author.
What of a book ranked 5000, still ranked above millions.
The calculator says 10-30 books a day. Even at the top
end, it is barely a decent wage by many western standards.
These figures debunk the myth that eBooks have
allowed a significant number of authors to give up their day jobs.
So how did Jane’s book go? Well it improved from
500,000 to 90,000. Sounds impressive. One or two sales can provoke such a movement so I am not
getting carried away.
But it did show you can market around things other
than price. That is worth crowing about. In this instance we pushed "free to Kindle Unlimited members" and Jane's birthday which by coincidence fell on the day of our promotion.
And now we press on towards #5000. Any suggestions for our future tactics?
Jane says I did all right and that reminds me of a song:
This is a wonderful story about a 38-year-old Irsaeli pacifist inspired by Lorde. It is from972 magazine
It is a bit slow to start but stick with it and your spirits will soar.
Freshly back from his journey downthe beaten path,
Yuval Ben-Ami is setting out on another adventure, a musical one, a political
one — forging a binational tribute to the Kiwi queen bee.
There’s
a nice restaurant in Tel Aviv where my girlfriend Ruthie and I have lunch
almost every Friday. It is named “Nehama,” or rather, it is named nothing. No
sign graces its door, or rather its opening. The entire place is a modest
kitchen that greets the Yemenite quarter by way of a missing “fourth wall.”
Nehama, a middle aged Yemenite-Israeli is the proprietor and sole cook. She
makes the world’s finest lentil soup.
There’s a nice guy in Tel Aviv. His name is Yaron Fishman and he
plays a good banjo-ukulele. Yaron leads a decisively Tel Avivian sort of double
life: working in the high tech industry during the day, then heading the
“Atomic Band,” an indie-folk combo, and cutting tracks in his Ramat Gan flat at
night. He and I recently started toying with my own songs and needed to decide
where to take them. What better place to do that than Nehama’s on a Friday?
It was a typically warm November Friday in 2014. Yaron, too,
arrived with a Ruthie: his ex-girlfriend and current best chum. Unbeknownst to
us as we sat down on Nehama’s plastic chairs, we were headed for an adventure.
We were about to break ethnic, linguistic and national bounds through music, or
at least to give it an honest shot.
This tale of attempted integration begins with a very
homogeneous crowd, in the heart of Tel Aviv’s all-Israeli bubble. Both guys and
both Ruthies at the table were Ashkenazi Sabras: Israel-born but of European
roots. The food, of course, wasn’t. Nehama served us delicious fried “malawach”
bread and long baked “jakhnoon” dough, spicy skhoog paste and “hilbe” – a
strange gooey spice that notably affects, though not disagreeably, one’s body
odor. Nechama’s joint is the haunt of Jewish Tel Avivians of many origins. from
Iraqi-Israelis to Ethiopians, but that night we were all of the same gene pool,
the same upbringing, and while feasting we spoke about the music we all liked:
Western music.
Old pigweed
“Do you know what pigweed is?” Yaron asked.
None of us did.
“I have this idea,” He explained. “I’m thinking of putting out
an EP each year, with Hebrew covers of songs by one artist I like. Right now
I’m working on Mark Knopfler, and he has this song called “Old pigweed.” It’s
about a man who’s about to eat this great soup, but then he realizes there’s
old pigweed in it, which is, like, some sort of unsexy herb. I’m just wondering
how I should translate ‘pigweed’.”
He smiled and hummed:
Who put old pigweed In the mulligan Was it you? Who put old pigweed In the mulligan stew?
I didn’t know what pigweed was. I did know Yaron was reading my
mind. He simply went ahead and made the exact suggestion I was planning to make
over lunch, though with a slight variation. I took a swig of “black beer,”
Israel’s peculiar but delightful malt pop. Alcohol free though it is, black
beer gives guts, and I needed guts, because the subject of my fan tribute is
not quite as established as Mark Knofler. “I’ve been thinking of doing the
same,” I said, “But with Lorde.”
Lorde, for the two or three people worldwide who haven’t heard
of her, rears from Auckland, New Zealand. Her real life name is Ella
Yelich-O’Connor, and her sober electro-pop hit, “Royals” landed her two Grammys
and a Brit in 2013. It won her ironic fame and fortune, ironic: because the
song is an ode to accepting one’s social status and rejecting the dream life of
pop stars as fantasy.
I discovered Lorde’s album, “Pure Heroine,” about a year ago
thanks to a younger friend, and became addicted. This was strange. I
haven’t descended into authentic fandom since obsessing over the Beatles in
sixth grade. Ever since then, I have been a music snob listening to Schubert,
to Ornette Coleman, to Leadbelly, to old stuff, in short.
Suddenly, at 38, an album cut by a 16 year old was spinning me
right round. The discovery surprised me, and I felt that my surprise
could amuse the world, so I shared it. I “went for it,” so to speak,
translating four of Lorde’s songs and uploading them to YouTube, coloring my
online personality with Lordeisms. Over my birthday, Ruthie and I were in
Europe and she stunned me with tickets to a Paris festival headlined by Lorde.
We hitchhiked down there from the Netherlands and got good lifts. When music
draws you, you fly.
All
this was goofy in a pleasant way, I suppose, but now I was hoping to put real
time and effort into a whim, not to mention money, and involve other people in
it. I outlined my vision before the Ruthies and Yaron: We will make an actual
little album with a cover, with guest artists and cool mixes. Silently, I
thought: Isn’t this going a bit overboard?
Yaron didn’t seem to worry. “Let’s do it,” he said, and raised a
forkful of jakhnoon in cheer.
The hypocrite
Not far away from Nehama and
its relaxed afternoons, this country is the very opposite of simple, and what
isn’t visible from around a happy table becomes amply apparent once one goes
online. Thanks to my array of Facebook friends, many of whom are activists, I am exposed to plenty of content relating to racism in
this land, including propaganda spread byextreme
right-wing organization “Lehava”(“flame”).
Lehava incites Israelis against
Palestinians,portraying the
latter as sexual predatorswho
prey on defenseless Jewish women. Their hate speech reflects that which was
used to defame my ancestors in Europe of the 1930s, which means that it offends
me personally. I cannot stand silent when something this
disgusting is going on.
A few days after our lunch I was reading a report about Lehava’s
latest actions, then calmed myself by putting together a fifth Lorde
translation. This one is less literal than the previous ones. It referenced
Lehava’s propaganda directly.
The song is Lorde’s third single: “Team,” which is naturally
anthem-like. Relying on Lorde’s original imagery, I turned it into an anthem of
sorts for those who fight Lehava and their likes. “We are imprisoned, already
in the crib,” read the lyrics when translated back into English, “In barricaded
yards they hold us segregated. We’ll build a palace on the ruins of
their lies, and know: we are friends.”
“I’m kind of over being told that my neighbor is the devil. So
there.”
I sang this to the camera and uploaded to Youtube and then fell
into sadness.
Are we really friends? Are we on each other’s team? Could we be?
One thing cannot be denied: We really are held segregated. I grew up in a
settlement in East Jerusalem, surrounded by Palestinians, yet hadn’t spoken to
one until I left home to travel Europe in my twenties. Times have changed.
Today I work with Palestinians, guiding dual narrative tours of the Holy Land.
I have become a huge believer in the idea that sharing this land in equality is
the only key to giving it a future. Everything I do today is
bi-national. Everything – except the Lorde EP. Here I was, putting
together something special with another member of my tribe, my very specific
tribe
This was going to be a local tribute, and in my book, the word
local has changed meaning over the past few years. Nothing can be local unless
it is inclusive. This called for some thinking. I put on “Pure Heroine” and did
just that.
(to be continued)
And I
hope I can bring you part 2. In the meantime, Here is the link to my eBook O Lorde
Here is
our vid: Yuval Ben-Ami’s cover of Team by Lorde
DO we add the gun and should it have a pink or
grey frame? I know. We will run it by our marketing team and see what they come
up with. No wait, Bent Banana Books hasn’t a marketing team, not even a
marketing soloist.
It
is fascinating to think of all the complex decision-making behind today’s minimalist
fiction-book cover. Most writers and many readers know that minimalism is
considered the go in our era of eBooks and internet thumbnails.
I
suppose, technically, designer Dhrupod’s cover of Vision: Complete Trudy Harper Psychic Investigations is a marketing
fail in a minimalist world. (Why has minimalist four syllables? Surely that’s
too many.)
Before we consider the Bent effort, let’s take a look at the art and
science of today’s cover design.
The
publisher has complete creative control of only two aspects of a book: the
title and the cover design. In-house editors only make suggestions to authors on
copy changes. But what the publisher wants as far as a cover goes, the
publishers gets.
As
a publishing minnow, I am always trying to understand what the Big 5 are up to.
Critics may well call them dinosaurs, but they have paid for and accumulated a
lot of technical knowledge over the decades.
Did
you read this story from earlier in the year:Computer
scientists have developed an algorithm which can predict with 84 per cent
accuracy whether a book will be a commercial success.
I immediately thought, Wow, I bet the
Big 5 are doing everything they can to get a hold of that algorithm. (There
might be a Dan-Brownish thriller in that concept) The algorithm would not do me
much good as I am living by the mutable Law of Serendipity. I only accept authorial
submissions I stumble across. But that’s getting off-topic, so I need to stop
trolling myself.
J.K. Rowling’s first novel
A.P. (after Potter, but you knew that didn’t you) could be considered a
minimalist template. No people are in it. You might think a person on the cover
aids reader identification but that’s a problem as well. In an age of differentiated
lifestyles and interests, universally identifiable images are non-existent. Often,
far better to have a cover which various readers can interpret in their own
way.
The colors while strong are also somewhat cheery
and most importantly not a usual combination for covers so it will stand out
among other thumbnails.
Both the author’s name and the title are in friendly
fonts which suggest humor. But a big black cross connects them. So what do we
have, black humor or satire, precisely the genre of the book. Of course a lot
of readers are suspicious of satire so they do not read that into the title.
Most importantly, the fonts are easily read in thumbnail.
As a general rule using all capitals, such as J. K. ROWLING, decreases readability.
But, it is quite clear here, allowing the authority which goes with capitals. “Name”
authors do not need any more favors but they get them with minimalist design
and large fonts for author names.
Similarly the title The Casual Vacancy is easy to read despite an italic-style font. One
of the reasons the title is so big is to render the font clearly.
For some reason, the Rowling cover made me think
of the Anita Loos satire Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I did a bit of research.
Check out the colors and font selections for the movie poster. Nix Munroe and
Russell and we have a “back to the future” vibe here with The Casual Vacancy.
The “The” in the title
worries me. I don’t like The in a
title but the Big 5 seem to love it. Remembering that publishers choose titles here are
some of John Grisham's books: The Firm, The Client,The Chamber. The Rainmaker, The Partner, The Testament, The Brethren, The Summons, The Broker, The Appeal, The Associate, The Confession, The Litigators, The Racketeer. There are more Thes in Grisham. I have included only two-word titles.
We see the title neatly frames the top of the book (pre-fame) or
the bottom (post-fame)
None of our Bent authors are famous enough to have their names
up the top so it is a race to see who is first.
Now we are
looking at Rowling’s 2013 novel, obviously under a pseudonym. It is almost like
a template of commercial graphic design. (I am not up to date with principles of
graphic design so I don’t know whether this would be considered classic or
quaint.) The retreating man, head bowed, shoulders hunched, shrouded by foggy light provides
an arresting image, if bordering on cliché. In mysteries and thrillers, you see that same man with his
back to you at the distant end of a tunnel or under a far arch. The main image is framed by a lamp above, a light pole to the left and a metal hence fence, bottom tight.
Here are the first and last of the Harry Potter books to illustrate
what I have been saying.
Back to our Bent cover. Rowling’s peeps would kick our butts for
Druphod’s wispy font on Vision. But
it is a perfect representation of the book.
Similarly Jane’s name would have been easier to read in a different font
in a larger point-size. But I was not going to argue against Dhrupod’s sense of
proportion and perspective. I did ask for the gun, though.
I thought the subtitle was getting lost and it needed a gun and smoke
to highlight it. The first gun had a pink frame and I asked author Jane what she
thought. She straw-polled family and friends and this became our Marketing
Department in full swing.
In the end Jane and I were not sure about the color so
I went for gray for indefinite reasons. I do not allow myself cognitive
dissonance so I am good person to make the final call.
So that’s it. We have a fantastic cover for our print book. But
it is a rule breaker under the regime of minimalism. Not that I care. I like
it.
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