The Color of Your Cover

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

Remember what a magical experience it was to get your first big box of Crayolas, in "64 different brilliant colors"? You may recall having favorite colors and scorning certain others.  I myself was never fond of periwinkle.  It just seemed like a tepid, anemic shade of blue.

From childhood onward, colors elicit emotions that affect our mood, appetite, and purchases.  Advertisers use this to great advantage, and it's to our advantage to recognize how important our color choices are when it comes to designing book covers.

Consider the following selections, all of which are from recent pages in Southern Writers.  You know right away what kind of story you're in for, as each of these is an evocative reflection of their genre.

SOMEONE'S GONNA DIE

Colors being able to speak volumes is probably never more apparent than in the mystery / murder / thriller category, where darkness rules and the color of crimson drips freely, as in these stark black and red covers of Robin Perini, Steve Bradshaw and Amanda Kyle Williams. Dr Richard L. Mabry takes a slightly different but equally effective approach, adding the white of a sterile medical background.

THERE'S NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF

Contrast those dark and stormy covers with the colorful whimsy of the cozy mystery. Tonya Kappes, Linda W. Yezak, Fran Stewart and Peggy Webb are among those whose covers let you know up front that murder can be fun too.  Bright primary colors abound and tell you it's all gonna be okay.

THAT'S AMORE
 
Red isn't just for Valentine's Day. The lush and sometimes passionate covers of Julie Lessman, Tamera Alexander, Rita Clay Estrada and Kellie Coates Gilbert will make you see red, along with an abundance of pink and purple, other popular hues that harken the heart.

MOODY BLUES (AND BROWNS) 

Faded sepia tones remind one of an old photograph and suggest the past, as in This Side of the River by Jeffrey Stayton. The shadowy almost-gray of Ernie Lindsey's War Child: Judas suggests the turmoil of its dystopian setting. The muted tones of Linda Viden Phillips' Crazy reflect the cloudy mind of its protagonist. The cold gray-blue of Merle Temple's A Ghostly Shade of Pale creates a mood of the chilling danger ahead.

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS

Traditional holiday colors of red and green, with bonuses of snow white, silver and gold, help to make the season bright.  Offerings like these from Ann H. Gabhart, Fern Michaels and company, and Kathy Macias leave no question that Santa Claus is coming to town.  We also made certain to put the yuletide spirit in our new holiday book catalog.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and plenty of successful books have bucked the tide and went against stereotype.  But a good starting point when planning your cover is to see if the parameters of proven palettes will work for your project.


 

Hard Boiled or Soft Boiled?

By Laura DiSilverio

Since I’m a mystery writer, my friends frequently ask me to recommend “good” mysteries for them to read.  When I respond with, “What kind of mysteries do you like?” I sometimes get a blank stare.  I list some of the choices:  “Cozies, police procedurals, paranormal, amateur sleuth, historical, suspense, romantic suspense, hard-boiled PI, soft-boiled PI, legal, noir, or some combination of the above, like historical paranormal amateur sleuth?”  The blank look frequently turns to a deer-in-the-headlights expression and my friends start to edge away until I ask, “Do you like Evanovich or Grisham?  Christie or Scottoline?”

We’re Not Talking About Eggs

This fine-tuning of genre seems to be a recent thing with booksellers or marketers slicing and dicing a basic category like “mystery” or “romance” into such fine delineations that some “sub-genres” may only be two or three authors wide.  All of which got me thinking about a genre I particularly enjoy, soft-boiled PI novels.  What sets a soft-boiled novel apart from the other mystery sub-genres?   I identify four main criteria:

1.       The protagonist is usually a female private detective.* If she’s not a PI, she’s in another law enforcement- related field, but is not a cop (because then the book would probably be a police procedural).  Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott is a judge, for instance.   *The only soft-boiled series I can think of with a male protagonist is Spencer Quinn’s series narrated by a dog-named Chet.  I’m sure there are more and, hopefully, you avid readers will let me know what they are. 

2.       The tone of a soft-boiled book is relatively light and sometimes veers into slapstick as in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series.

3.       The gore quotient is low, with little or no graphic sex or violence.  If you want pedophiles serial killers, or descriptions of erotic antics look for a hard-boiled or noir book.

4.       Unlike traditional/cozy mysteries that are frequently set in small towns/villages—think Cabot Cove or St. Mary Mead—soft-boiled PIs usually conduct their business in cities.  Lisa Lutz’s Spellman Files adventures, for instance, take place in San Francisco.  (Maybe because there’s not much need of a PI in a town of 300?) 

Why Does It Matter?  

Knowing what genre you like is important because it can help you locate books you’re likely to enjoy.  If you punch “soft-boiled PI mystery” into a search engine, instead of relying on the broader “mysteries” or “private investigator series” you’re more likely to find books tailored to your tastes.  As an author, it helps you know what key words to use frequently on your website and what tags to attach to your books on such sites as Amazon.

If you’ve got some favorite soft-boiled series I haven’t mentioned above, please leave a comment and let me know about it! I love discovering new series.

As a TREAT to all who comment
today, Author Disilverio will chose a winner of her latest book, Swift Run

Leave a comment today for a chance to win an advance reader copy of Laura DiSilverio’s upcoming soft-boiled mystery, SWIFT RUN, the third in her Swift Investigations series.  Library Journal says “DiSilverio has a bit of Sue Grafton’s tone about her, with a dash of Janet Evanovich . . . Expect to laugh.”

____________________________________________________________________

She writes as

Laura DiSilverio

and as

    Ella Barrick

About Laura/Ella from her website, 
http://lauradisilverio.com/, "I wrote my first novel for a creative writing class at Trinity University. Professor Bob Flynn inspired me and heroically refrained from gagging when reading the contemporary romance I titled “Jeweled Torment.” That manuscript is buried in a box in the garage, along with the Regency romance I wrote shortly after joining the Air Force. I concentrated on becoming a good intelligence officer for many years before doing any more significant writing. I served with an F-16 wing in Korea, helped resolve reports of live-sightings of Vietnam prisoners of war while working out of the embassy in Bangkok, pushed paper at the Defense Intelligence Agency, earned my Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, taught English for three years at the Air Force Academy, learned cool things about satellites (none of which I can ever write about) at the National Reconnaissance Office, attended various professional schools, did my time in the Pentagon, commanded a squadron in England, and ended up in Colorado. Along the way, I married my wonderful husband and produced two beautiful children who re-defined what is important in life. A moment of Holy Spirit-guided epiphany in Elliot’s Bay bookstore in Seattle convinced me it was time to embark on writing and mothering full time. I retired from the Air Force in late 2004."