Don’t know if any of you have seen this – but it’s a great example of what can go wrong when designing a book cover.

/ louisklowy

http://www.npr.org/2015/05/02/403596419/an-ohio-couple-would-like-to-forget-a-gronking-to-remember

12 thoughts on “Don’t know if any of you have seen this – but it’s a great example of what can go wrong when designing a book cover.”

  1. OH, mercy. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry! Personally, I don’t think amazon is responsible, and I would imagine they have themselves covered legally for just such things. But the whole thing should serve as a warning/reminder for all of us who self-publish. Be very, very careful. I can’t believe they used the football player’s real name and picture, too. What were they thinking?

    Thanks for sharing, Louis. Good to see you!

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  2. Fascinating.
    As luck would have it, I was discussing the same question earlier today with a fellow author from the anthology I just published, but in this case in regards to who might be permitted to vote for a book for a specific award (The Hugos).
    The publisher cannot vote, but who, legally, is the publisher? Me, or Amazon?

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    • I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that I pretty much hate everything to do with writing…except WRITING. That’s really all I want to do. And my blogging, which is more writing, to and with friends. There are just so many things to consider and worry about, and I don’t have room in my teensy tiny brain for all of it. I can barely find room for all the characters that have moved in.

      I just want to get up, drink my Earl Grey, plop my behind in my chair, and write all day long. And for a while there, that’s pretty much what I was doing. Sometimes writing ten to twelve hours a day. Now, it seems I’m always being interrupted by marketing issues, or social media issues, or trying to be sure I’m not…well…GRONKING something up. 😀

      I just want to WRITE! Is that so much to ask????? *insert whine there*

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      • So totally agree with you. I’ve been in the crazy place (for too many months) where I’m spending more time marketing and dealing with other issues than I am writing.
        It’s no good! I’m going to get off the merry-go-round for a bit and go back to writing – once I have another book out, I will get back to it for a bit, but I don’t want to let the ‘other stuff’ take over again 😦

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        • Good for you. You’re a writer. Everything else should take second place to that, dang it! And I hear it’s not really much better even for those who are trad published. They still have to spend a ton of time marketing, as services provided by the publishing houses get fewer and fewer. 😦 When I figure out a good, economical way to get out from under some of this stuff, I’m going to post it here.

          You know, if I were 35, say, and had years of writing time ahead of me, I wouldn’t get quite as upset. But at 71, how much more time, realistically, do I have for doing this? I’m very conscious of that ticking clock, and I want to write…and learn to IMPROVE my writing…as much as I possibly can. Marketing, schmarketing. I’m going to find a way out from under, I tell ya! 😀

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  3. All of this does open a lot of questions, it’ll be interesting to see where it leads to. I wonder if Amazon will re-define it’s relationship with the self-published author? Maybe distance itself – or clearly resolve itself of acting in any capacity as a publisher?

    Also, as you so correctly implied, Marcia – what were they thinking? But then again, not only did they rip off Gronk’s likeness, they also ripped off the couple’s image.

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    • Twice, apparently. 😀 It seems to me I read a lengthy document from amazon wherein they made it clear that the author is responsible for images and content uploaded. It could have been a hallucination, I guess, but I’m thinkin’ probably not. 😀 I can’t imagine they would leave themselves open to any kind of real liability in something like this. You can bet, with the hundreds of thousands of self-published books on amazon, this isn’t the first time this has happened…though it might be the dumbest. 🙂 But definitely something to be aware of.

      (Me, I was busy trying to figure out what the heck Gronking was…I dug through my memory banks all the way back to the 60’s with no luck. You can tell I don’t follow sports.) 😀

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    • And there are tons of stock photos and images out there available for use for free, or for a very low fee. I’m lucky enough to have my best friend, who is a professional graphic designer, do my covers, and she has access to tons of images. I’d never put something on a book to SELL without knowing it was legal for me to do so.

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  5. Another thing to take into consideration regarding copyright is the content inside your book. For instance, song lyrics. Unless the song is in public domain, I’d avoid using lyrics–even one line–like the plague. Song titles are perfectly fine. A great technique which I stole from Stephen King is to paraphrase lyrics. For instance you can’t say, “Johnny was contemplating his fate while the Doobie Brothers sang ‘Where would you be now – now, now, now. Without love (etc.)'”

    But you can say “Johnny was contemplating his fate while the Doobie Brothers sang of long trains, cold hard rails and where they would be without love.”

    Regarding writing/promo and time allocation. Of course it’s all individual choices/priorities, but for me writing time is my priority. My schedule is constant: minimum 3 hrs a day (rarely do I go much beyond the allocated hours, M-F. I’m not much of a marketer (or blogger as you can plainly tell), but I do realize the necessity of marketting and do work at it, but not at the expense of the writing. To me that’s ground zero, and I want to devote my utmost to it. There are exceptions. For instance, when a new book is being released.

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    • Boy, you are so right, Louis! Thankfully, I realized the thing about song lyrics just in time, with my first novel, Wake-Robin Ridge. I wrote what I think was the funniest scene I’ve ever come up with, when I had Sarah catch angsty, worry-wart Mac playing air guitar while he thought she was at the store. He was wailin’ along with the radio singing Money For Nothin’, and after Sarah fell down laughing at him, he decided what the heck, and serenaded her with a perfect rendition of George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone, complete with every single B-B-B-Baa-aad. It was positively hilarious, given his character. But then I got to thinking about copyright and did my research. No song lyrics written after something like 1923 are in public domain. I was going to cut the whole scene, but my beta readers begged me not to, so I left in in, but had to paraphrase all over the place. It simply wasn’t the same. 😦

      I’m with you on the writing vs promoting. I’ve been trying, more or less, to promote, but I’m failing at it for sure. And now I’m resenting it eating into my writing time. Don’t get me wrong. Any time I can meet readers face to face is great! I love the feedback, and it’s a pleasure to talk books with them. My local events are super fun. But that grind of trying to figure out where to allocate advertising funds, which email lists to get my books on, and all the rest is making me old before my time! (Okay, it IS my time, but I don’t want to be made any older than I already am!) I’m on a search for an affordable marketing service that will seek out the best places to list my books, and a simple marketing strategy that even I can manage to follow.

      I love doing online interviews, but haven’t been actively pursuing sites to do them. But spending hours reading through lists of blogs, newsletters, etc, trying to see if I meet the criteria, and if I’ve got enough lead time to be featured before my next promo, etc. Well, I’m just over it! It distracts me from what I want to be thinking about…namely, the next bad thing I can throw at my characters, and then pull them out of. Or not. 😀

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