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| Book bloggers unable to attend the BEA Bloggers Conference or Book Expo America (BEA) in Chicago, but would like to ‘meet’ other book bloggers and publishers to discuss books and book blogging can participate in this virtual event. |
The Books: How often do you judge a book by its cover? How often are you surprised by what you find? Do you strategize and make sure every book in your series has the same cover design (as far as you are able to) and type? How important is it for the visual art on the outside of the book to match or coordinate with the literature art on the inside?
- Oh, I am very much guilty with judging by its cover. Hey, that’s why book covers evolved from leatherbound monochrome to a tastefully photoshopped eye-drawing picture fit to be put in a frame and mounted on the wall.
- And I am also very meticulous that if the books are in a series then they should follow a set design/pattern/typography because I don’t want to jeopardize the beautiful aesthetics I have going on on my bookshelves. Talk about the odd duckling sitting there. If you, dear publishing houses, must have new covers, then by all means print a whole new other series edition.
- I also am so in love with those hardcovers with their actual covers, not the jackets, having little secret emblems or monograms, embossed lettering. Oh, oh! Don’t forget those covers with tactile surfaces for maximum petting of books.
The Blog: As a book blogger, in whatever form that takes, branding is important. Your colors, your fonts, your style of review, all of these things come together to make the "brand" of your blog something that makes your reviews and posts and websites, all your various content, immediately recognizable to the people looking for you. What do you do to create a brand on your site? Do you think about these things?
When I started Whatever You Can Still Betray, the current trend them was black background with neon-colored fonts. The newbie that I was, I followed. A friend said that it hurt her eyes whenever she visited my blog. So there have been various incarnations until I settled with having a light background with dark typography.
But since the beginning, I knew that I would have a green apple as the symbol of Whatever You Can Still Betray. There is no background story this about how the fruit and the color symbolized anything. No anecdotes. Sorry. I just decided one day to have that fruit, that color to be what my blog design would be based on – buttons, headers, post dividers and ratings.
I later looked up what color betrayal is and it the color gurus all said it’s yellow. I looked at the particular shade and the complementary hues and I said No, it can’t work with this with a light background.
The light-green color later evolved though: from that color to a forest green to today’s teal.
You want people to know that when they see this shape, this color, they’ll immediately know it is you. You want your blog to be yours and yours alone.
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