Matt: Welcome back everyone to another episode of Publish & Prosper. This is episode number 93. 

Lauren: We’re getting up there. 

Matt: That's a lot.

Lauren: Lauren: I know. You can keep talking – 

Matt: I didn’t know what you were – I thought you were done. Like, I'm over this. 

Lauren: That's it. We're done. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening. 

Matt: I got a nice snack waiting back at my desk. I'm fine with that. 

Lauren: Ugh. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: I could use a snack. 

Matt: So anyways, this is episode 93 

Lauren: Sure is. 

Matt: And we are going to be talking about…We're trying to get in the spirit here. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Lauren's got her Disneyland Halloween shirt on. 

Lauren: I did have to choose between a variety of different – 

Matt: I’m sure you did.

Lauren: – Halloween related shirts. So – But this is a new one. So I thought I'd take the chance to break it out. 

Matt: I don’t own anything with orange on it other than this t-shirt. So that's what I wore. 

Lauren: What a coincidence, we didn't even plan this. 

Matt: Oh, I did. 

Lauren: Well, you didn't know I was going to wear this. 

Matt: No, but I knew I needed to wear something that had black and orange. 

Lauren: Black and orange. I appreciate your commitment. 

Matt: And I'm such a hater of orange. 

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: Which is ironic because my favorite Formula 1 team is orange.  

Lauren: Which is the shirt you're wearing, no? 

Matt: Correct. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So it's why– yeah, that's the only thing I have that's orange. There's something else in my life that I like that's orange, and now I can't remember what it is, but it doesn't matter. 

Lauren: Is it the Tilt? 

Matt: I do like the Tilt, but no. All our friends in Cleveland though, they're – 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: – they're all orange.  

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Anyways, so we are going to be talking about a couple of publishing horror stories. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: For some of these may be horror stories, for others they may be minor inconveniences. But either way, these are things that happen. These are things that we see happen. These are things that may have happened to Lauren and I at one point. And I'm certain if you've been writing for any amount of time or have published any amount of books, one of these has probably happened to you as well, if not multiple. 

Lauren: Yup. 

Matt: So. 

Lauren: Yeah, I'm going to be like, totally upfront here. None of these are hypotheticals. 

Matt: No. 

Lauren: None of these are like, oh, oh, they like, invented this because they were looking for like, what's a worst case scenario? Like all of these are things that we either personally have experienced or have seen friends of ours go through. 

Matt: Or just clients. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Lulu users, people. 

Lauren: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So if you're new or if you're a seasoned vet when it comes to self-publishing and print-on-demand book publishing, there might be something relatable in here for you. 

Matt: Yeah, agreed. So I'm going to read what you wrote because it's kind of funny. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: But basically: this episode is for you if you've ever woken up in a cold sweat from nightmares about a truly horrible cover design. 

Lauren: Yep.

Matt: And a few other things. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Basically, if you've ever had a major issue with your self-publishing journey or, you know, hit a snag or… Many of these things, if not most of them are going to be things that they weren't necessarily within your control per se. So sometimes it's a little bit harder to find a solution for a problem when you're not fully in control of, or the creator of that particular mistake or nightmare. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[3:23] - The Monstrous Cover Art Mockup

Matt: There are times where you can do everything by the book, all the best practices, do all the things that you should be doing and you still get back–number one here–an extremely monstrous cover art mockup from your designer. 

Lauren: Do everything by the book, huh? 

Matt: There you go. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Most of the time, if any of you have ever worked with a designer for your covers, whether it's a freelancer, you got off Fiverr or something like that, there obviously is always room for misinterpretation. Somebody else is kind of doing that work, so you can be as clear as day, you can submit mood boards, design boards, color palettes, and still get back a round of mockups that are truly, truly scary. 

Lauren: And this ranges from…you could be working with a brand new, this is their first ever cover design that they are new to Fiverr and they were just really cheap so you went with them, straight up to people that are designers that work in the publishing industry.

Matt: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: Like, this is something that happens in trad pub all the time.  

Matt: Absolutely. 

Lauren: Where authors will get their cover delivered to them and go, ugh. So. 

Matt: Well, and let's be real about it. I mean, I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and there's some covers that made it to the shelf that were just like, eugh, how does that even happen? 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Although, you know, you have something noted here in the outline and I want to make sure we point this out. This is not just dealing with freelancers and designers and like… In-house as well. If you are creating, you know, a marketing asset, that's going to be a book for your brand and you're working with your in-house creative team, not everybody's as lucky as we are to have the most awesome creative team on the planet. 

Lauren: So true.

Matt: How do you tell somebody from your internal creative team that the mockups for this book, this marketing asset that you guys are putting together for your next trade show or whatever that might be, or maybe it's a thought leadership book for your CEO, how do you tell that person, you know, your head of design in-house – 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: – that it's pure garbage? It's completely off the mark of what you discussed. 

Lauren: Also, even if you are just working with a freelancer, if you're planning on doing more than one book, if this is like your first but not your last, or maybe you're planning on doing a rebrand and redesign with your previous books now that you're working on this one, it is generally a good idea to work with the same designer if possible. Like it is usually good practice –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – to find somebody that they can be your go to person for cover design, book design, whatever. So you really don't want to burn this bridge because you don't like their first attempt at your cover. So figuring out how to handle that, whether it's somebody that you have to work with every day and you're seeing them on your team on a regular basis, or somebody that you're freelancing with right now, but you're hoping that you can reach out to them again in six months to do their next cover. 

Matt: Yeah. So first thing you're going to want to do is take a step back, right? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: You never want to deliver feedback, especially to a creative person, like off the cuff as you're feeling it. Take a breath, step back. You really need to think about what you're going to say and how you're going to approach that situation, whether it's an in-house designer or freelancer that you're working with. It's also not fair to them for you to just immediately fire off an email, you know, or respond to that PDF of mockups like, what in the hell were you thinking? You're way off base here. Like that's just not helpful. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Not productive. And in fact, to what you just said, you are pretty much going to guarantee that you'll never work with that designer again, even if they're a great designer and you don't want to do that. 

Lauren: Well, and especially because not only do you need to take the time to temper your reaction in general, which is just always a good thing no matter what. But it's also when it comes to something like your cover art, when it comes to something like this, you have to be able to articulate what it is you don't like about it. And so if you just are reaching out to somebody and saying like, oh my God, I hate it. Why? What do you hate about it? Do you hate the colors? Do you hate the typography? Do you hate that it's too busy? It's not busy enough – like, you have to be able to articulate –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – what's wrong with it in order for them to fix it. So you need to give yourself enough cool down time to actually sit with it and look at it and say, okay, what exactly is it that I'm having this reaction to? 

Matt: Yeah. And if you can, the next thing you want to do is take a lot of that, that you just said, you know, those things are, you're writing them down, hopefully. And then tie them back to your original request. So hopefully your original request is in writing somewhere and you have all that so that you can go back and look at, okay, well they delivered me a color or a cover where the primary covers are colors, gosh, cover color, are black and green and yellow. 

Lauren: Yup. 

Matt: But I asked for pink and blue and light green or teal. You need to be able to tie it back to those things. If you asked for a very specific style on the cover art, illustrative or modern or whatever, tie that back to that. Hey, what you've delivered has a style that to me looks a lot more almost anime or graphic novelish, and what I asked for was more illustrative. So making sure you can tie back to the original request so that the designer, the artist can see, okay, yeah, here's where I kind of went off the rails a little bit on this one. 

Lauren: Which is also an important part of that too, is going back and looking at your original request. Cause you can tailor your feedback based on what's in there. If you were very clear about the fact that like, I want this to be like, pink and red and yellow and orange is the color palette that I'm going for here. And you gave me a blue and green and purple color palette. Like clearly you made the mistake here. Like you misinterpreted my request here. But if your original request was this is a summer beach read. So I want it to feel beachy. And the person designing the cover…to them beachy is blues and greens and yellow. And in your head, it's pink and yellow and orange. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Like that was just an unclear request. 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: So that kind of influenced how you choose to respond to that and give that feedback. 

Matt: Yeah. Now the next thing we're going to talk about is a little more preventative and it is something you should do. It's something that any designer should ask you for anyways. And if they don't, that might be your first red flag, maybe. But you always want to give them some samples, you know, a mood board or some sort of a design board. You want to show them covers that you're fond of and maybe point out why you like that particular cover. So for my cover, I think I submitted eight to ten book covers that I really liked. It didn't matter the genre, right? I'm talking about color, design, some of those things, layout with the way things look. And I wanted a very clear and distinctive type of layout for my cover. So I used a tool that you can find online where I was able to upload those covers and then leave notes on each of them that the designer could then access. But you want to make sure that you're setting them up for success. This is your cover. So if you can provide examples of covers you like I think that already gets them started on the right foot. Especially if you can pair that with notes that say, well, this one I like because I really like the color palette. And then this one has the design style I'm really looking for. And then this one, I like the way the components are kind of laid out on the cover. I'm really into that. And then this one, you know, maybe it's the back. I really liked the way the blurbs are kind of put on the back cover and I liked the way they've done the author's photo, or whatever. So all of that, I think, is preventative. But nonetheless, that's just more stuff you have there to be able to go back with constructive feedback and criticism and say, hey, you know, we talked about these things. I included these things, but we're way off here. 

Lauren: Well, preventative for sure. The more of a clear request initially, and the more like sample material that you can provide with it, the better. But if you find yourself in the situation where you're going through, you're looking at your cover and you're saying, ugh, like I don't, I really don't like this font. And the thing that I don't like about it is not something that I, as somebody who's not a graphic designer, has the vocabulary to articulate. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: But I can go find another cover that does more what I want it to do about it. And maybe you don't know that the difference between the two fonts is that one is a serifed font and the other one is a sans serif font, but your designer should know that. And if you're able to show them, here are the two different ones. This is what you gave me. This is what I like. They can tell the difference between those, even if you don't have the vocabulary to articulate that difference. 

Matt: Yeah, for sure. 

Lauren: So yeah. 

Matt: We definitely talked differently than designers do. I've learned over the years how to kind of speak a little bit of designer speak for our internal design team, mainly just so I don't drive them crazy. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Cause I think I give them pushback more than anybody else on stuff, but there's definitely a design talk. And if you don't know how to talk it, things again can get a little complicated. So understanding that you might think you're being very clear and articulate because you wanted a black font that looks swoopy and fun. And then they give you four different versions and you're like, none of these are right. Well, you didn't really give them a lot to go off of. So yeah, absolutely. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I think another one is when you are ready to deliver this feedback, you need to make sure you're also in a mind frame where you're open for explanations and their interpretations. There are some things that they may have done very intentionally against what was previously discussed for probably a really good reason, in many cases. You may still ultimately veto it and that's your right, but you should be open to understanding or listening to their explanations. You know, there are just certain colors that don't work well together, especially on a bookshelf, right? There's different colors you can use for your fonts versus the background that will ultimately make it almost impossible for somebody with some certain types of disabilities visually to even read or see. These are things that you're not aware of, you don't know much about them, I'm assuming. If you were a designer and you knew these things, you'd be doing your own cover. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So you need to be open to their explanations and let them talk about why they made the choices that they made. If those choices explicitly went against what you guys had talked about. 

Lauren: There are a couple of different things within that too, that you would have to consider, especially if you're working with somebody… If you're working with somebody who has experience specifically as a book cover designer, you're not talking to like, your in-house design team who are going out on a limb and creating a book cover for you, but you're working with somebody who this is their job. This is their like niche area of interest or whatever is designing book covers. One of the things that they might think about that you don't is that your cover art is going to look different in digital rendering versus print. 

Matt: Yes. Yeah. 

Lauren: So, you know, that's something like, that is something that they might have designed your cover with print in mind. And so you're looking at the digital version of it and saying this looks weird and their explanation is yeah, but on the cover like, on the print version of the cover, it's going to look like this. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: There's also an element of sales and marketing best practices that a good experienced cover designer might factor that in and you might not realize it. You might think like, oh, I really want it to be this color. But in their experience, books that are this color don't sell as well because X, Y, and Z. I think that's something that a lot of people don't know if they don't have in-house publishing experience – 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: – is how much influence the sales team has on cover design in the traditional publishing industry.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: The sales team sometimes has like final say. The sales team does have like significant influence on the cover design of a book because there are sales and marketing best practices that go into that that you might not think about as somebody who's just hoping for a cool aesthetic cover.

Matt: There's also a science to it though. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Right? So, there's a science to book covers, just like there's a science to how people might advertise tennis shoes on their website for sale. You know, things like title and author name placement on the book can influence how and when people purchase the book or if they purchase it. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: The way that you address the text on the spine, all these things, like there's a science to that. There's a buyer behavior that, you know, most of these, especially traditional publishing houses, sales and marketing teams, designers, they've studied that. They've taken also some of that tried and true consumer buying behavior psychology that's out there that exists in the world and applied that to what they do. Because yeah, they want to sell more books. So, you know, if you are working with a designer who does have a lot of experience doing book covers, chances are they kind of know what they're doing. So just be open to their explanations. I wouldn't go in just ready to deliver your feedback and hang up the call. Like, listen to what they have to say, you know, talk through it. Again, at the end of the day it's your call. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yes. 

Matt: You're paying for it. But there have been several cases, instances, I should say. More than several, many where I've gone back to our creative team and with Ashley or Alex or somebody and just said, I don't get it. Like what's going on here? I don't get this color combination or I asked for this, but you gave me this. Why? And after listening to especially Ashley, she's very, she's very good at explaining and convincing you why she's right. 

Lauren: Yeah. Ashley doesn't do anything without reason. 

Matt: And she usually is. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Alex is, you know, he's pretty good at – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: He's learning. I think he's learning from Ashley. But the point is I've been wrong on many occasions. And in fact, after seeing the final product, was happy that I listened to them and didn't just plant my feet and say, Nope, this is the hill that I'm dying on. So yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Alright. 

[16:18] - The Proof Possessed by Problems

Matt: Well, if they get the cover, right, what happens if you get the book back, your proof copy, and it's disgusting?

Lauren: That’s absolutely something that happens. Whether it’s – 

Matt: Colors are way off. 

Lauren: Could be the cover design. Could be the interior. Could be the spine. Ugh, the spine alignment. That’s why I always tell people don't try to do something super elaborate on your spine 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Cause you're gonna be really annoyed when it comes back, like you thought you had the measurements just right, but you didn't. 

Matt: Spines are the worst too. Because your spine is what's going to be sticking out nine times out of ten. I mean, that's where most, I think, attention to detail should be paid. 

Lauren: Yup. Yeah. 

Matt: I mean. The cover in general, but the spine itself, I mean…

Lauren: Well, yes. And that is something that you want to pay attention to detail, but you also, you want it to be something that is going to be functional more than it is aesthetic. And so if you're putting all this attention to detail into like, creating some really cool spine that the spine is a different color than the front and back cover, it's this like block thing – 

Matt: Ugh, nightmare. 

Lauren: It is a nightmare. It's never going to turn out the way that you want it to. But no matter how diligent you are with your, whether it's the cover design or the interior file, no matter how, how much planning and forethought and all this you do, there's a reason that we encourage people to order proof copies of every book that they publish before they officially go live with them. Because there's always going to be something that you missed. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: There's always going to be something. So. 

Matt: And even if the cover comes and it looks perfect, you've got a whole interior file that you've got to go through. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And there's so many things that could go wrong with the interior file as well. Everything from the wrong font was used and you didn't catch it before it went to the formatter. Or for some reason when the formatter was working with the file, there was a bunch of orphaned lines or words and things that shouldn't be there. I mean, you name it. They could have put the text too close to the gutter and not paid attention to the fact that for print you were going to do a six by nine and they formatted it to be a eight and a half eleven or something. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It's, you know, or some of the sizes are so close. There's a five by eight and a five and a half by eight and a half that are both really popular right now. The difference in those interior file, the gutters and the bleeds, is pretty small. But enough to where if you were doing a five by eight and it was formatted as a five and a half by eight and a half, you might not have caught that the first time, but when you get that print book back, that proof copy, it's going to be noticeable. 

Lauren: It can also be something, something that's so minor. The long running joke of like, you're trying to use Microsoft Word and you nudge a graphic over like, literally like one space and it reformats the entire document. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: Jokes aside, that totally does happen. 

Matt: Yup. 

Lauren: And you might, you might be looking at the final proof copy of, or your print ready PDF files of your book and you go, hmm, there's like an awkward amount of empty space right here. Lauren: I'm going to jump this line down one more so that it – and that changes the entire layout of the book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And you didn't realize that. You don't realize how that one little thing could change everything. 

Matt: Yeah. Working in Word is really, really –

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – weird and annoying. Actually all of them. I found Atticus to be pretty easy to use, for the most part. Or if you're using an actual tool that's meant for formatting for a book, Vellum, some of those, but working in Word or even doing your draft in like Google Docs, it's just frustrating when you're trying to do some of those things. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: The point is you get this proof copy back, which hopefully you're doing a proof copy. If not, again, red flag. 

Lauren: Yeah. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Proof copy. At least one. Probably more than one, but… Because even – I mean, even to tie it back to the cover thing, there could technically be nothing wrong. Like you could order a perfect book. No notes, no edits, no changes. But it's still going to be your first time seeing that cover design –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – printed out and not and see what it looks like. And you might look at it and go, oh, that color purple didn't come out the way I wanted it to. What was the thing that we ordered recently that – was it the stand up or the background of the booth for CEX? Where the original purple –

Matt: One of our stand up banners that we ordered. 

Lauren: Yeah, there was something recently that –

Matt: It was too dark. 

Lauren: Yeah. And it didn't, there wasn't anything else wrong with it – 

Matt: Well, yeah. 

Lauren: – but it, we just saw it in person. We were like, oh yeah. That color didn't translate as well in print. 

Matt: But that brings us to our next point, which is, you know, when you're dealing with something that you're, you're looking at the proof copy, you need to do your best to try – before you just get on the phone or the email and start firing something off to the printer or whoever it was, do your best at first to try and troubleshoot like, okay, what could have gone wrong? If you get your proof copy and let's say it's something on the cover, like do your best to try and figure out why first. Why did this happen? What happened here? Or if it's an interior file and there's something off, like the words are printed too close to the edge of the page. Like, okay, there's something wrong with the formatting there and the gutters and the bleed, so. 

Lauren: It's also, it's something that if you can identify the problem now, you'll never forget it. I mean, it's one of those things –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you are planning on doing more projects, if this is something that you're doing regularly, learning how to troubleshoot that stuff and not just being in the position of being like, oh, okay, there's an extra line here, or I forgot to insert a blank page here, and now my entire book is misaligned – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – where the left pages are on the right and the right pages. Now, you know, like moving forward to do that, but you can avoid it that much easier next time or plan for it ahead of time. And there are a lot of little things like that that are very much just like, you don't know what you don't know. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So you have to experience them to figure out what it is you need to keep an eye on. This is a tough one to talk about as much as it's really important to talk about because it is…we can only be so vague with it. Because the different individual problems that can happen are so varied and so nuanced.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Like, I mean, could be anything like Matt and I have both just thrown out a bunch of different terms that people listening to this are probably going, what do orphans have to do with book publishing? Or like, what do you mean the gutter? Like, is Pennywise climbing out of your book pages? Like what's happening here? 

Matt: Oh, that’d be so cool. 

Lauren: Wouldn't that be cool? 

Matt: It'd be much cooler than Little Orphan Annie. 

Lauren: That's for sure. 

Matt: My sisters were obsessed with that movie when we younger. 

Lauren: I – My sister and I are also. It’s fine. 

Matt: Likewise for It and Pennywise. 

Lauren: Well, I have that too, but that's an adult interest, not a childhood interest. Childhood me was terrified of clowns. And still is. Pennywise is the exception. But yeah, I think it's really important for you to kind of keep in mind because of how specific these different errors could be and how there's a whole variety of different things that could make a minor or major issue in your book. Know what resources you have available to you. I mean, I can tell you from firsthand experience that we have created a ton of educational material and resources for Lulu that has troubleshooting stuff. That has common upload errors, how to fix them, common print errors, things to keep an eye out for, whatever. And they're all freely available on the Lulu website, knowledge base, blog, YouTube, whatever. You just have to go find those things. And if you're not using Lulu, I guess you're listening to this podcast anyway, but sure. But even like, most of these things are not issues that are happening within the individual print-on-demand company’s software. There are things that are happening within your file. So if you’re using someone that isn't Lulu and you can't find resources in their database, you can still use ours to figure out what's wrong with your files. 

Matt: Well, yeah. And again, I think the point there is even if it's something that's not happening within their ecosystem or on their platform. Which, again, I agree with you most of the time it's not, although it can be, we all have created files and articles and things, because we know these are common problems. You know, anytime something happens, if we don't already have an article about it, A, I'd be surprised, but B, that becomes our next help article. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: If somebody's had a problem with it, then it's worth creating content to help others around it. So always looking for what resources are available to you, I think is a great point. To that end, your skillsets may only go so far to troubleshoot these things. Mine as well, you know? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Most of the time I could probably fumble my way to find what happened, but by no means does that mean I can fix it. So always, I would say reach out for help, whether it's the freelancer you worked with, or if you're the one that did it… You can't reach out to yourself for help, but let's say it's an interior file problem, get online and find somebody that could help you. If you are in any author groups, reach out and ask. I think there are plenty of places where you can go and search their database of knowledge around things like formatting and, you know, how to properly insert a table or an illustration into a Word doc, book file, things like that. I just, we've never had more resources at our disposal than we do now as humans. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So, you know, again, I don't think anybody is left to their own devices completely. I think help is out there, but ask for it if you can. If you're working with a particular printer or publisher that has a team, ask them. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Again, if you're using Lulu and you're really stumped with something, reach out to our support team. Because not only will they be able to help you or direct you to the person that can help you, but then they'll also pass that off for like hey, we had somebody ask a question about how to solve this problem and we don't actually have any resources in our knowledge base that they could have referenced in that moment. So can we prioritize writing a blog post about how to deal with this, or something like that? So that we make sure that no one else has to fumble in the dark –

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: – looking for a solution to this problem. 

Matt: Yeah. And then I think lastly on this one, but probably the most important, I've been a victim of this myself several times. I hate to admit it. Order another proof copy. Because you may have inadvertently, and this is my horror story. I did fix something or thought I had fixed it. Well, I did. I fixed it in the interior file. But when I did that, I inadvertently threw my spacing off. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Luckily I ordered another proof copy. Came back, saw, okay, it took me a little while to figure out that's what had happened. But once I did, got that fixed and I was like, there's no way anything else is wrong. I'm just going to go ahead and be okay. I was like, this is fine, no big deal. So went ahead and made it available for purchase. About a month later I ordered a copy of it and on the back cover–I don't know how I did this–on the back cover. I had messed something up with the indention for the blurb on the back and when that happened, pushed the blurb, the written copy into part of the back graphic. So because both were black, the lettering and that part of the graphic, it just got completely like… So I think my point here is sure, you could end up spending $60 in proof copies over the – but who cares if you're catching mistakes that you don't want your customers to catch or your readers to catch and think that you just don't care about your work, the quality of it. So. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, this is an important part of you establishing yourself, your brand, whatever. You want to look professional. You want to look like someone that knows what they're doing and is putting out high quality content. And we are a society of very judgy surface level face value consumers that, you know? 

Matt: How rude. 

Lauren: We are. I am. I am. I will absolutely judge a book by its cover. And if – I don't care how great the content inside of it is. If I get a book that has a typo on the front cover, I'm gonna go, hmm. 

Matt: By the way, a lot of this actually goes for ebooks as well. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: I never thought I'd be the one to say let's include ebooks here, but you can absolutely mess up an ebook pretty badly. 

Lauren: Yes, yeah. 

Matt: So.

Lauren: And that's the same thing. You're not necessarily ordering a print proof copy, but you should still download a version – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – of your published ebook – 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: – and go through it and if you have more than one device, if you can go through it on a Kindle and on an iPad like – 

Matt: That’s the key, yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Or if you don't have both devices or multiple devices have a friend look at it on their iPad or their Kindle or whatever that might be, for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah, because that's something that not only could disturb your reader experience, but depending on what errors you have within there it might disqualify you for distribution. Or it might get your book rejected or held back from distribution. 

Matt: That’s right. 

Lauren: And then that's a problem that you have to deal with, you'd rather deal with it now than deal with it later. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. 

Lauren: So. Yeah, for sure. 

Matt: On the preventative side, we talked about a number of these. So again, when you get a proof copy back, that's a nightmare or something's wrong with your ebook, definitely make sure that if there are any tools at your disposal for the platform that you've used or whatever you're doing. Make sure you, you know, you use those and I'm sure somewhere in there there are troubleshooting articles, FAQs. But if not, then go again, look at your vendor, your provider, your printer, whoever it was that helped you with that, your formatter, whatever tool you're using. It's highly uncommon that there's not any resources there for you. 

Lauren: Yep. And like we were saying with the discrepancies with their cover design between print and digital, the same is true for a lot of other elements of your book. So keep that in mind – 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: – when it comes to graphics. If you're using images or graphics or charts or whatever, there's a difference between images that are optimized for print versus optimized for digital. So maybe if you're looking at your print version and going, why does this look so weird on here, it looks fine on the computer screen? Probably not optimized correctly. Fonts look different. There are fonts that are specifically designed for print versus fonts that are specifically designed for digital. 

Matt: Yeah. And in a PDF, they should be embedded. And a lot of times they're not. That's a common mistake we see. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: Same with graphics and things that are supposed to be flattened 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: And, you know, in PDFs and oftentimes they're not. 

Lauren: Yeah. I'm going to say those, that's your first two. If you're trying to figure out what's wrong, check your, check that your fonts are embedded and check that all of your images are flattened. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If that doesn't solve your problem, then go from there. But I would say those are the first two things to try. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: For sure. But – 

[30:19] - The Beta Reader Butcher

Matt: The next one. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I've had some experience with. A little bit, not much, but we definitely know other people who have had much bigger horror stories around this one.

Lauren: I will fess up right up front and say that in this horror story of the really, really brutal beta reader who absolutely just butchers your manuscript, I have been the villain of that story before. I have been the perpetrator of this. 

Matt: That does not surprise me. 

Lauren: Nor should it. 

Matt: One bit. Not one bit. 

Lauren: Nor should it. 

Matt: So, describe to people what we're talking about here. 

Lauren: So, actually I'm going to put the disclaimer up front right now that we are not talking about a professional editor that you hired. 

Matt: No. 

Lauren: If you – we are talking about a circumstance under which you are asking friends or peers to be a beta reader or maybe an amateur or informal editor to help you do some work before you wind up reaching out to a professional editor. And you find yourself in this scenario where you send somebody your manuscript and they send it back to you and it is so marked up with comments and track changes and red pens and critical feedback that you can barely read your original text underneath all the markups. So. I think that's something that we've all gone through in some way or another.

Matt: Maybe. 

Lauren: So this is basically, this is the reverse of the first scenario, of you have to be the one to provide negative feedback to your cover designer. 

Matt: Ah. 

Lauren: This is kind of the opposite where you are now the one that has just received some pretty critical feedback from somebody else. 

Matt: Yeah. Although similar in the sense that, you know, I think the first thing we would say is still…

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Take a breath, take a step back. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Calm down. You're probably seeing red literally and figuratively, but you need to be able to separate emotion from what's actually going on in both of those situations. And in any situation, really, especially when you're dealing with creative output, reacting from emotion is never good. 

Lauren: Yeah. But I'm actually going to double down on that advice and say in two different ways, like separate your emotion from what's actually happening, but then also try to do that with the feedback that you've gotten in general. Because there are…unless somebody is a very, very seasoned pro at giving feedback. We as consumers of content and media give emotional and emotionless feedback. There's a difference between feedback that is, hey you used the wrong form of there here, or hey, this sentence is weird, or whatever. Like that's…you can have your feelings hurt about that if you're like, oh, I thought I was a better writer than this. And like, the number of grammar errors that they've fixed in here is clearly telling me otherwise. That's something to feel some kind of way about. But that is different from the feedback that is oh, I hate this example. Or this is a really weird way to explain this thing, I would explain it this way instead. Or this character is the worst character I've ever met in my entire life. That's opinion-based feedback. That's not factual feedback. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And if you can separate those out, you can respond to them differently. And if you can deal with all of the factual based feedback first, then it might seem less daunting when you like, when you clear all that out, then you go, okay. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Here's what's left and here's the emotional opinion-based feedback that is left. And now how do I handle this? 

Matt: Yeah, no, that's really smart. It’s probably still hard for a lot of people to do that. 

Lauren: Of course. 

Matt: Again, specifically when we're in a situation like we're talking about where, you know, this is typically a friend or an acquaintance or somebody that you kind of know. In some cases, it might be a good friend. And so it can be hard to separate your emotions from, like you said, the factual stuff. Breaking it down by edits, suggestions, and then sort of reactionary or opinionated like this is just, maybe they gave you a piece of feedback that says, you know, I don't like the way that sounds. Okay. It doesn't change – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – the fact that it may stay in there, but that's a far cry different than saying you use the wrong tense of past here in this sentence. They didn't drive passed, P A S S E D, the house they went past the house. 

Lauren: Yep, sure.

Matt: Anyways. 

Lauren: That is absolutely, I think that's something and that is now we're getting a little bit preventative here again, but the best way to avoid any of this is to set expectations ahead of time. And to like, be very clear about what kind of feedback you're looking for from somebody. But one of the things that I will do that I will offer to my friends when I'm–if I'm in a scenario where it's like, hey, you asked for thorough editing, like you asked for a really like, thorough critical edit. I will sort my own feedback that way. Whether it's color-coding it and saying like, technical edits are going to be in red pen, opinion edits are going to be in blue. Or technical edits are going to be suggestion track changes so that you can just accept or reject them and then opinion edits are going to be comments. Like there are ways that you can work with somebody to sort that out. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And I do that with my own writing too, not just when I'm editing my friends’ stuff, but if I'm editing my own stuff, I will try to organize it that way. 

Matt: Yeah. And then remember, hopefully you asked more than one person for feedback. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So they may have opinions or suggestions, but it doesn't mean that that is the hard stop. It's okay if you disagree, potentially. Again, let's not let ego cloud our vision, but you may not get the same feedback from other beta readers. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: They may be completely fine with that particular sentence or paragraph or concept or whatever it was that this one person had issue with. Maybe after talking to that one person, you get to the root of why they had issue with that –

Lauren: Right.

Matt: – concept or that paragraph or that statement. 

Lauren: Which is something that I think, I mean, we would never recommend that all of your editors or beta readers are sharing a document. 

Matt: No, no no. 

Lauren: You should create separate docs. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you're sending them digital versions, you create separate docs for each of them. If you're creating print versions or PDFs, obviously those are going to be separate anyway. But we, we do that a lot internally. Like, if we're doing email copy or a blog post or whatever, we usually have at least two people review every piece of content. Then in that case, we are sharing a document. So you can see other people's comments and notes on things. And I will make a point of, if I disagree with a comment that somebody else left, I will make a point of saying that I disagree with it. Not to be contrary or annoying or critical of the person that left that feedback, but so that the author knows this is not a universal opinion on this thing. So take this feedback with the grain of salt and decide which way –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – you feel about it. 

Matt: Yeah. That's a good point. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Which brings us to our next one. Make sure you're diversifying your reviewers –

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: – or beta readers. Don't just ask one really close friend and then that's it. If you're going to utilize beta readers, which everybody really should, I think in my opinion, you don't have to, but you should. You should try to diversify that pool and you should try to get several, if you can. 

Lauren: Not just diversify in terms of quantity, but also in terms of what type of –

Matt: Sure, yeah 

Lauren: – reader they are. Matt talked about this in a recent episode. You were talking about how for your book that you're wrapping up right now, you had a couple of beta readers that you were asking them specifically for feedback in terms of they’re subject matter experts. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You weren't really looking for their like critical or writing feedback, but you were looking for their content based feedback. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: So diversify your reviewers in the sense of, you have some people that are subject matter experts that aren't going to notice if you use the correct version of past, but they are going to be able to tell you if you totally screwed up this explanation. And then have some people who have no idea what it is you're talking about, but they can be very technical with their word choices and copy edits and stuff like that. 

Matt: Yeah. It's almost like having a couple that are purely conceptual. So again, they're going to be there just to make sure you're hitting the marks on certain things. Keeping you honest, especially in nonfiction but in fiction as well. And then you're gonna have some that you're gonna count on to deliver more of those, you know, concrete like hey you missed a period here, or this or that and the other. And by the way this character I really feel like could benefit from I don't know, you know? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: A little more trauma, I don't know how you fiction writers do that, but – I don't know, or maybe let's get two more meet cutes in here, or something. 

Lauren: That's – yeah.

Matt: Did I say that right? 

Lauren: Yeah. Well, no. 

Matt: Or is it a cute meet? 

Lauren: I mean, you can only have one meet cute, cause it is the first time, it's literally how they meet. 

Matt: Got it. 

Lauren: But.

Matt: So you can't have more than one. 

Lauren: No, you can't. 

Matt: Not with those two characters. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Got it. 

Lauren: Right. But you can have valuable feedback of, I feel like we went from meet cute to I love you way too fast. I need a few more beats in here of like, we need to see a few more relationship building moments in between these, you know? 

Matt: There you go. 

Lauren: That's totally valid feedback. I did have one more thing, before we got into prevention on that one. I would also highly recommend that as you're going through that feedback. Again, once you've taken the time to process your reactions to it, this is not reactive conversation that you want to have. But when you reach a point where you are able to go through it with your beta reader or editor. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Ask them if they're open to taking the time to have a conversation about it. It doesn't have to be a one way feedback channel because it could very often be like, oh, there's actually a very simple explanation for this and this makes everything… I had this happen to me when I was in grad school, we would, for our writing workshops, there would be twenty minutes of critique time, fifteen minutes of the class giving you their feedback and you had to just sit and not respond to anything. And then at the end of that, you were allowed to respond or you were allowed to ask questions or get clarification from people. And I had this happen one time where like the entire crux of the feedback that I got in that class was there is no sexual chemistry between these two characters. And at the end of the fifteen minutes, I said yeah there's not supposed to be. So all of that feedback was like, totally null and void. But it was like, as soon as I said that everybody in the class was like, ohhh, and then clarified a lot of their feedback. If you get so overwhelmed by all the feedback on your writing that you're like, oh my God, like that, I don't know what to do with all of this. And then you talk to your editor, your beta reader, and they're like, yeah, there's a simple explanation for this. And then the rest of it all kind of falls into place with that explanation. Then all of that goes away with the solution of, oh, I just have to clarify this sooner, or I just have to like, have an introductory chapter in here somewhere or a paragraph somewhere. 

Matt: When I was in college, when I was living in Orlando and working at Disney, I also would volunteer. They had this, I forget what it's called, something writing center, but it was basically you could take your papers and stuff in there and get them edited, peer-edited. Supposedly we knew what we were doing, so we edited papers for people. It was also a lot of ESL students would bring their papers in. So English As A Second Language, so, but you'd get others. So there was a girl that worked in there, she was editing a paper. It just happened to be her current boyfriend at the time. She broke up with him in the comments of her editing. 

Lauren: Oh my god. 

Matt: I was just looking at your title for this particular one, which I really like. It's the beta reader butcher. So, you know, all of these are named after something horror related, but it made me remember that story. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. I didn't believe her when she said it, but she, her rationale was that's the only way that he would really focus in on what she was trying to say.

Lauren: Wow. 

Matt: But yeah, she went through and edited the paper really well, but at the end of it… You also mentioned, you know, basically negating every piece of editing feedback that had been given after you told them like every, okay, same. Like, I could just picture this poor guy, like going through all these edits and then getting to the end of his paper, whatever it was, was an essay for something, who knows? And then his girlfriend just broke up with him in the comments of the editing. It was just like, that is the most brutal. 

Lauren: That's incredible. Kudos to her, honestly. 

Matt: I mean, gosh. To be in your early twenties again. I mean, that'd be awesome. 

Lauren: Would it? I'm good. 

Matt: I don’t know. 

Lauren: I'm liking my thirties. I'll stay here. 

Matt: Yeah, we'll leave it at that. 

Lauren: Yeah. I do think that if you want to try to avoid these scenarios when you're working with…and we've talked, we've talked about this a little bit already, but if you want to try to avoid finding yourself in these potentially friendship-ending scenarios with –

Matt: Or relationship-ending. 

Lauren: Or relationship-ending with your beta readers, the best thing that you can do is really just lay the groundwork ahead of time. Really just establish upfront what you want, what you want from them. Do you want line edits or do you want just like, a letter at the end of it saying, hey, here's how I felt about it. Here's this, this, this, this, not necessarily like bullet point feedback, but high level. You know, be clear about, you want them to focus on one thing over another? Are there questions that you can include in there? Whatever. Like, the more that you can establish expectations upfront, the less you're going to be completely taken aback by a document that is marked to hell and back. 

Matt: Yeah. It's never fun to have to, you know, after the fact, like we've said, do all these things in order to have these tough conversations and not only salvage your work, but salvage your friendship as well. It's tough to separate that emotion and that reaction from something you worked really hard on, but also this is a friend. And it's like, oh, what do I do here, so. 

Lauren: Yeah, I would say maybe, maybe don't actually, if you're somebody who doesn't handle criticism, well, maybe don't ask your best friends to be the ones to read – 

You know, I don't know how many people, if you ask that question in a room of a hundred people who here doesn't handle criticism well, I have a feeling most people would not raise their hand. And so, now some of that's genuine, right? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Like a lot of people do handle it pretty well, but I also think that a lot of people don't really know how they'll handle it until they get it and how they get it. And so I wouldn't necessarily discourage somebody from asking a friend to be a beta reader. If, like we talked about, that friend has some sort of qualification that would make them a good beta reader for your project. Otherwise just asking a friend to do it cause they're a friend, that's asking for bad news. for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I agree with you, but you know, again, if one of your friends knows that you work in publishing. You're basically an editor. You were probably born with glasses and a red pen in your hand. I could see why they would come to you. Hopefully they just put a bunch of preventative stuff upfront. 

Lauren: Yeah.  

Matt: But be selective, I think. But like we said, make sure you're asking multiple people, a diverse group of people, a diverse range of qualifications and skill sets and expertises and opinions and backgrounds and whatever that might be. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. You're really just maximizing your amount of feedback so that you can take – and I mean, again, also you don't, we're not saying ask twenty-five people to give you feedback on this more than one, but fewer than ten? 

Matt: I mean, that's up to you, but yeah, definitely, definitely fewer than ten for me. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But more than one for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I went with six. 

Lauren: That seems, I would, I would say five would be the sweet spot. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So I think that's – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – cause also then, mean, then you're giving yourself some buffer if something happens, somebody says they're going to but they can't get it back to you in time or whatever. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Then you've got a good, you've got a good group of people that you can kind of pool their feedback from and and kind of take the average of what's there. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[45:50] - Wrap Up

Matt: I really like your names of these things. So the –

Lauren: Thanks 

Matt: – the first one that we talked about was The Monstrous Cover Art Mockup. The second one we talked about was The Possessed Proof. And then the third one was The Beta Reader Butcher. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: I really like those. 

Lauren: Yeah, it is Halloween season, at the time, I mean, definitely at the time this episode comes out, we're fully in the swing of things for Halloween. Which is also, if you don't know this, Halloween is our anniversary. First episode of this podcast came out either on Halloween or on November 1st. 

Matt: I think it was November 1st, but close enough. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. So we're coming up on that too. 

Matt: Love it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Alright. Well, hopefully these didn't scare you too much, but scared you just enough to want to be preventative. But if you didn't have the chance to be preventative and you're dealing with one of these situations, I think the general common thread amongst them all is to first take a step back.

Lauren: Yup. 

Matt: Take a deep breath, figure out exactly what's wrong, whether it's feedback you want to deliver to a designer or a beta reader, or you need to troubleshoot the problem yourself, like in the case with a proof that came pretty messed up. And then remember, you're not going to get anything productive done if you can't be specific. And you can't tie things back to either your initial request or some sort of example of what you were hoping yours would look like. So, hope this was helpful. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I think the most important thing to remember, even if all three of these stories were not something that you've personally experienced or something that you think you could avoid these, like you don't think they're going to happen to you. Matt and I know each other well enough at this point that we knew we had to narrow down this. We knew we weren't going to get through more than three stories. The initial list that I had that I was pulling from to outline this episode had twenty different stories and scenarios and worst case nightmare situations in it. And not a single one of them was something that I couldn't off the top of my head right now, offer a solution to. So while there are so many times and situations in which you might find yourself going, oh shit, what do I do? Everything is solvable. There is a solution. There is a way to fix it. 

Matt: That's one of the beauties of self-publishing. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. It's okay. You can figure it out. You can get through it. And you've got resources and support to help you. There is no nightmare scenario that you cannot recover from. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It's just a matter of figuring out what that solution is. 

Matt: Well, there's one nightmare scenario you can't recover from. 

Lauren: And what's that? 

Matt: And that's if you don't like and subscribe to our podcast. 

Lauren: The horror. 

Matt: I know.

Lauren: My goodness.

Matt: It happens. 

Lauren: Well, don't wind up there. 

Matt: Nope.

Lauren: Yeah, be the first to know every time a new episode comes out. 

Matt: And leave a review.  

Lauren: Please do 

Matt: Let us know what you're gonna do for Halloween this year. 

Lauren: That'd be cool. 

Matt: Yeah, send us costume ideas. 

Lauren: That's true, I do need a costume idea. Well I have one – 

Matt: I tell you what, submit some costume ideas for, for Lauren and I, and if we choose a winner we'll send you a big old Lulu swag pack. 

Lauren: Oh, love that idea. 

Matt: Yeah, we have a lot of cool swag left over from all the events we did this year. So send us – 

Lauren: Yeah, let's do that. 

Matt: Send us ideas for what you think Lauren and I should dress up as, and we'll choose a winner. 

Lauren: And record an episode in costume. 

Matt: Oof. Maybe.  

Lauren: Maybe. We'll see. 

Matt: Depends on what the winner is. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Alright. 

Lauren: We'll see. But you can always reach out to us, podcast@at lulu.com with your ideas. You can leave a comment on any of Lulu's social media channels, including YouTube, where you can, if you are not already, watch these episodes in video form instead of listening to them. You can leave comments on episodes on Spotify and you can leave reviews on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. So please do. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: And then tune in next week for another new episode. 

Matt: Sounds good. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening. 

Matt: Later.

[Closer]

Lauren: It’s either that or everyone has to dress like they're cosplaying the Helena music video. I'll accept that as well. 

Matt: I'm not coming to your funeral.