But some folks have it made. Their names are easy to pronounce. Nora Roberts. Julia Quinn. Jane Porter.

And this is no trivial matter.

For anyone with a word-of-mouth career (e.g., authors, real estate agents, hairdressers, etc.), if people can’t pronounce your name, then they’ll be less ready to evangelize you to their friends. Because they will not have confidence that they are pronouncing your name correctly, they will be less likely to say, “I loved—insert name here! You should try her.” No one wants to be wrong or sound stupid. It’s hard to be convincing in your adoration if you can’t pronounce the object of your affection.

So, what do you do if your name is Geri Krotow and Red Garnier.

“Krotow” is a field of pronunciation landmines. “Tow” like a tow truck? Or “ow” like like a stubbed toe, “Ow!”? And is the first syllable “crah” or “crow”? As I said to Geri in an email: “I am still not sure and you said it for me once.”

And Garnier? Does it end with an “er”? Or is the French “gar-nee-ay”?

For Geri and Red, we opted for a phonetic pronunciation guide tucked neatly on the bio page, clear and big. We thought about the home page, but decided that if someone was taken enough to recommend her, they would have certainly read the bio.

I am not suggesting you change your name for publishing or for business. You have your reasons. More power to you for wanting to work under your own name. But, but if there’s an uphill climb in the making, make it easy for people to say your name.

What’s your name?

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

NEW BOOKS:

SUSANNA CARR released The Year of Living Shamelessly earlier this month, regaling the kink-for-kink antics of Katie and Ryder. Romantic erotica fans are psyched. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Susanna’s blog is regularly updated, not one of these every once in a while things (ah-hem, I do the best I can on this blog). For fans of anthologies, check out this post about anthologies from mid-October. Not that Shamelessly is an anthology, it isn’t. I’m just sayin’.

MICHAEL SPRADLIN released two books: The Youngest Templar: Trail of Fate, the follow-up to to The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail (a book I L.O.V.E.D.), he also released It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies, a book of Zombie Christmas Carols. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Julia Quinn’s Mincemeat Brain Pie. It’s technically not on Michael’s actual website, but it’s pretty funny nonetheless.

JOY NASH released Silver Silence, the third book in her Druids of Avalon series. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Joy’s Secrets Behind the Story feature for this series is very fleshed out by now (the third books). If you like Celtic stories, or just pre-medieval historicals, (toss in a lovely dose of paranormal), you’ll love this feature… and the book.

JENNIE LUCAS released The Christmas Love-Child in the United Kingdom. It will be available in North America in early November. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Just go to Jennie’s home page. She’s got a gift for you. Cute.

LORI FOSTER released two books this month. First, Yule Be Mine, a reissue of her holiday novellas. Then she released Bodyguard, a reissue of her Harlequin Temptation books. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: as of this week through most of December you can give and be entered in a giveaway on Lori’s site to benefit The One Way Farm.

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NEW EXCERPTS:

JANE PORTER posted an excerpt from Duty, Desire and the Desert King, due in stores December 1.

HOPE TARR posted an excerpt from Twelve Nights, due in stores early December.

DIANE GASTON posted an excerpt from Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady, also due in stores in early December.

RED GARNIER posted an excerpt from The Satin Sash, also due in stores on December 1.

STEPHANIE TYLER posted a sneak peek from Too Hot to Hold, also due in stores in early January.

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Until next month!

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

My daughter (not pictured here, this is a totally random child), newly enamored of The Wizard of Oz, must have ruby slippers for Halloween. Dorothy, however, is aggressively trademarked, making finding her exact wardrobe difficult in stores. Target did have a costume with blue gingham and a red tulle petticoat that they call Ruby Slipper Darling, but it looked too much more like a saloon dancer, so no thanks, I’ll order elsewhere.

I go to a Wizard of Oz costume site. They picture (at right) and describe the Dorothy outfit as including the child’s dress with attached white shirt, inferring that anything else — ruby slippers, hair bows, basket and Toto the dog — will have tobe ordered separately. The dress looks a lot like Judy Garland’s. My daughter will love it. I am happy.

But what about the accessories? I have a perfect little basket, my daughter has a stuffed animal who will not mind being dressed up as the little dog. And since I found the awesome red sequined shoes at Target that were begging for some child to love them, all I needed were the hair bows. So I made sure to add them to my cart.

Then the package arrived. Dress, check. Bows, check. I open the shrink wrapped dress and out pops another set of bows. What? I sat looking at them for a half minute, then went back to the site. The dress description did not mention bows. Now I had two sets of bows. The second set of bows only cost $4.99 plus tax, but I felt kind of stupid for spending unnecessary money.

Moral of the story: It reflects poorly on your brand for people to feel stupid. You want people to love (and use that word) your brand. And it’s pretty easy to be complete. If you are offering a product online, be sure to be clear about what is included and what kinds of hoops might need to be jumped through to complete your order. There is no need to make anyone feel like they missed something. It might be obvious to you, but you are not your audience.

As a woman with many blue gingham bows now knows, clear online directions make for happy customers.

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

But the story brings up the importance of having a sort of calling card. For authors, the bookmark is actually better than the business card when meeting fans. It makes sense that you would hand out a bookmark rather than a business card for a few reasons: 1) you don’t really want to hand out your personal information to random strangers, but you do want them to read your book. Also, 2) since you are likely reprinting your bookmarks with each book or series, they are promoting your current book, which is presumably where you want to direct your sales efforts. And yes, your spouse/parent/child/dogwalker can hand them out, too. They can’t easily carry your business cards.

I wrote an article once (a long long long time ago) attesting to the importance of your business card as the number one piece of promo you had. This was back when Clinton was President and websites weren’t yet as important as they are now. Certainly websites should be your main spot of promo resources right now. But when you actually meet someone, and they shake your hand, it is key to leave something in that hand. When you are at a booksigning, you hand your book (and hopefully get your reader to review it). But when you are just meeting someone at a party, or at preschool drop-off, or in the case of Stephanie’s husband: on the train commuting, a bookmark cements what was established: you write books and they were interested enough to inquire. Now they have something lovely and not cheap-feeling to remind them that they were interested. Hopefully then they will act upon that and go to your website where your order links are prominently displayed… Unless…

Unless your order links are not prominently displayed (in which case you need a new web designer). Or unless your bookmarks are cheap-looking and cheap-feeling. In these cases I can’t say how your bookmark will work. Probably not so well. Maybe even negatively. But that is fodder for a different post.

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

We have a bunch more changes in store, but hopefully nothing as upheaval-ish as these last four days. I promise: I am back at email. I have over 100 emails to return and several projects that have been moving way too slowly (need to pick that pace up!). See above about gratitude for patience.

This is a great move for us, and we will be better equipped than ever to be your favorite design team!

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I was… distracted. I should have reacted sooner to assure myself that all my important files were backed up. When I finally did, I did a really bonehead thing and wiped out my backup hard drive so I could do a fresh backup of my files.

<hangs head in shame>

Bonehead, I tell you.

I even had an automatic backup system in place, but my sudden desire for an elegantly structured backup took over, and while I was doing said backup, my secondary hard drive — my media drive which houses all my pictures, video, and music — crashed. Hard. So hard I had to remove it from the computer’s chassis in order for the computer to actually start.

It took me just over a month to recover my data. Pictures of my son. Videos of his first steps. My wedding pictures and videos. In that month I had tried everything for recovery. I was even prepared to spend hundreds of dollars to send the drive to a quote-unquote “expert” when a friend made a suggestion that ultimately — combined with another technique I was trying — saved 99% of the data. Luckily for me the 1% that was lost? Music files ripped from CDs in storage in my office closet. Easily re-rippable.

I spent over a  month tearing my hair out to recover data that should have been safely backed up in the first place. It was a big eye-opening lesson for me to be more vigilant about my personal data backup. We are in the process of designing our own home server (my husband’s new pet project) complete with software that has built in redundancy in case of hard drive failure, but what about keeping data safe from water or fire damage? What happens if my whole system fries? I live in the land of wildfires and earthquakes, people.

Because I never again want to experience that horrible pit-of-the-stomach despair that I have lost the visual record of my children’s lives, I have been researching online backup solutions, and one of the better ones I have come across so far is Mozy (usable by both PC and Mac users).

Mozy, which can be set up to do automated backups, has a free option, but it is only good for 2G of space. If you got any music or video involved with your backup you know that 2G is nuthin’. The free service would be good for important non-media documents, I would think. For a more robust backup, you can get unlimited online storage for just under five dollars a month. Unlimited. Had I been using Mozy when my hard drive decided to kick the bucket I would have been able to retrieve all my data that same day.

Even with that month of panic, I was lucky. Lucky I have enough software smarts to come up with some retrieval solutions and lucky to have a friend with some hardware smarts to round it out. Not everyone had those kinds of resources available to them, and not everyone has the ability to set up an automated home backup system. That is where the online storage solutions come into play.

What kinds of backup methods do you employ? Do you tend to treat your work data differently from your personal data? I’d love to hear about your data backup solutions.

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

NEW BOOKS:

KATHRYN CASKIE released second book in the Seven Deadly Sins series today:  The Most Wicked of Sins, featuring the sin of envy, starring Lady Ivy Sinclair. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: an online guide to the seven siblings. And don’t miss the pretty photos from Kathryn’s own fairy tale wedding in Scotland earlier this summer. Lovely!

Four classic JULIA QUINN novels got cover makeovers and have been reissued – Dancing at Midnight, An Offer from a Gentleman, Romancing Mister Bridgerton and To Sir Phillip, With Love. (Both Offer and Phillip recently enjoyed second epilogues!) AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Where do I begin? The page where all things Bridgerton live? The fabulous list of website spotlights? The hopping bulletin board community? You pick.

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LORI FOSTER reissued fan favorite The Secret Life of Bryan this month. AUTHOR WEBSITE BONUS: Lori Foster fans can proclaim their devotion: Lori’s got a Café Press store.

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NEW EXCERPTS:

LORI FOSTER posted excerpts from Yule Be Mine, a reissue of her holiday novellas, due  out October 6.

JENNIE LUCAS posted an excerpt from The Christmas Love-Child, due in stores in North America in November, but arriving in UK stores October.

HOPE TARR posted a sneak peek excerpt from Twelve Nights, due in stores early December.

DIANE GASTON posted a sneak peek excerpt from Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady, also due in stores in early December.

SUSAN ANDERSEN posted a Deleted Scene from Bending the Rules, which has enjoyed national bestseller status since its release in July earlier this year.

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And there’s more next month!

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

A while back (a while being several years, I think) I heard about this internet service which would allow you to write an email to yourself to be delivered at some future date of your choice. I thought it sounded cool, but never checked it out for myself.

Then, recently, it popped up again in my radar, so I decided to try it out. Futureme.org is the site — don’t be fooled by impostors. I wrote a short little email to be delivered when my twins turn six months next month. I plan on sitting down and writing something more interesting to myself once I find the time (heh).

You can choose to keep your email private, or you can choose to have it viewable (but anonymous) to the public. To read some of these emails in random order visit here.

I would have loved this service when I was in college, and my fantastic Sociology professor asked us all to write down a reminder to ask ourselves in ten years — “What have I done to change the world?”

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Twitter Paid $6 or Less for Crowdsourced ‘Birdie’ Graphic (WIRED)

This article also highlights the practice of designing “on spec” — that is, you get paid if we pick your design. Designing on spec has historically been advised against by the Graphic Artists Guild, and the design community has weighed in. AIGA has even made a formal statement against it:

“AIGA strongly discourages the practice of requesting that design work be produced and submitted on a speculative basis in order to be considered for acceptance on a project.”

It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the new share-everything, job-scarce, over-populated world.

Have you ever designed or written on spec?

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Beautiful without Money

Suddenly fatigued among French
women in the Roman

Empire rooms of the museum,
I fall out of circulation

on a bench. Bronze
heads, helms, a Byzantine

spoon, sixth century, engraved,
attributed to Virgil: O handsome

youth, do not believe too much
in beauty; you cannot be

beautiful without money … women fall,
tucking skirts, onto my bench,

being suddenly flesh and scent,
and do not speak to me.

-=-=-=-

by T. Zachary Cotler

published in The Paris Review
Spring 2009

©2009 Waxcreative Design Blog. All Rights Reserved.