Anatomy of a Book Cover: The Vigilant Investor

The following is a guest post by Creative Director Cathleen Ouderkirk on the long process of creating the perfect book cover.

Sometimes jacket designs arrive fully-formed, like what’s-her-name popping out of of Zeus’ head. Our recent book, Harvesting Intangible Assets was exactly this kind of easy job. We asked Faceout Studio for something “dignified and serious, but with an intriguing element that combines farming and intellectual property.” Exactly the kind of assignment that thinking designers love, and voila, check out the response: plenty dignified, but with a touch of intrigue.

Other times (most other times), jacket design creation is more like childbirth—long and on the painful side. We love the jacket design for our new book, The Vigilant Investor because it exactly presents what we wanted… well, what we eventually realized we wanted. For this one we put our talented, long-time designer, Cynthia Wessendorf, through the wringer — but she survived.

First we told her: “Cynthia, we want something that looks serious (because we’re talking about people’s savings, after all) but still conveys a sense of security. So she came with a series of designs, including this one, which says “your money” and “protection.”

Maybe too much protection, we decided. We instructed Cynthia, “this one is beautiful, but we realize we need something a bit more threatening, to scare potential readers into needing the book.” Cynthia gamely jumped in and came with a second round, which certainly achieved threatening (note swooping eagle design).

Hmm, maybe too threatening. So we went back to poor Cynthia and said: “We love the idea of the golden nest egg being under threat or in distress, but the eagle seems too extreme. Is there something else you can do with the egg?”

And that’s when long-suffering Cynthia came up with what became the final design: a big gorgeous golden nest egg — but the egg is developing cracks… whoa… get it? Is your nest egg as secure as you think it is?

So thank you, Pat Huddleston, for writing such an eye-opening book, and thank you, Ms. Wessendorf for not giving up on us and creating an equally eye-opening book cover.

Creativity. Don’t you love it?

Cathleen Ouderkirk is Creative Director here at AMACOM. With us for over 20 years, she started as a copywriter and then moved to producing catalogs, sales sheets, and direct mail pieces, before moving on to design. After secretly designing on her own book jackets and showing them to the acquisition editors, her work evolved into overseeing all of our jackets today. Visit our website for freelance design inquiries.

Random Quotes from New Books This October

With that fall chill in the air, we know we’ll be standing at the soup counter at our local lunch spot soon. Of course we know our old favorites but it’s fun to order samples of the new soups. Why not get a sip of a new book to figure out what will feed your mind this October? Our Random Quotes from New Books series continues with titles to help improve your business, your finances, and stimulate the grey matter.

It’s Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss by Susan Wilson Solovic with Ellen R. Kadin

“Background noise is another potential problem for a home-based business. The sound of barking dogs and crying children won’t make you appear professional. If you have young childnren, you may need to consider day care. As for pets, make sure they are someplace where their activity won’t interfere with busiess. I’m fortunate. I have a shih tzu who never barks. When I work at home, he lays by my feet and never makes a sound. He is an excellent co-worker. (So much so I’ve given him a title. He is ‘chairman of the bone.’)” (page 158)

The Vigilant Investor: A Former SEC Enforcer Reveals How to Fraud-Proof Your Investments by Pat Huddleston

“Although the vigilant investor asks questions and writes down answers that an adviser provides, she does not rely on them. Instead, the vigilant investor seeks independent confirmation. At Investors’ Watchdog, we get education information from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC). If you give the NSC an accurate birth date, student name, school name, and $6.50, it will either confirm what your adviser told you about his education or expose the Fibber.” (page 52)

Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, 5th Edition by Performance Research Associates

“Each interaction between a customer and a service professional is one moment in the chain of the customer’s experience. If you’re a service person, and you get it wrong at your link in the chain, you are very likely erasing from the customer’s mind all the memories of good treatment he or she may have had up to that moment, But if you get it right, you have a chance to undo all the wrongs that may have happened before the customer got to you. And, in today’s world, the faster you do it, the happier they are.” (page 4)

Harvesting Intangible Assets: Uncover Hidden Revenue in Your Company’s Intellectual Property by Andrew J. Sherman

“Kudoes to those companies around the globe that aggressively enforce their intellectual capital rights and do not allow illegal trespass on their property. But can this strategy go too far? Will high fences and concrete walls be helpful in the short term in their effectiveness and yet do long-term harm in driving shareholder value? Texas Instruments in recent years devoted significant resources to patent litigation and patent licensing, and the results have been impressive, netting the company more than $1 billion a year from litigation settlements and patent licenses as a result of vigilant enforcement policies. In some years, revenues from these sources have exceeded net income from product sales. Impressive, but dangerous. When revenues from litigation exceed revenues from innovation, this can be the beginning of the end of the future of the company. Yes, we must be diligent in building fences, but walls cannot be strategic substitute for the output of the new products and services that are intended to come from within the company.” (pages 112-113)

The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration–and Get the Most from Your Employees by Mark Royal, Tom Agnew

“The Bernette Financial call center culture is the envy of the industry. Turnover is low. Nearly every employee believes in the mission: They’re helping people buy homes, helping businesses serve their communities, and helping families achieve their dreams. Customer surveys invariably show that Bernette customers are overall ‘very satisfied’ with the help they get when they call or e-mail. Questions get answered. Problems get resolved. Customer service representatives are viewed as helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly.” (page 25)

Now you’ve knocked back a tiny cup, are you ready to order a full bowl?

Author Tips: What I Look For Before I Read a Proposal

Proposals may be electronic, but this blog editor wasn't about to Instagram Bob's emails. Glamorous desk shots will have to prove we're hard at work instead.

The following is a guest post by Senior Editor Bob Nirkind on what he seeks from a prospective author before he even gets to page one of that book proposal or manuscript submission.

There’s nothing more critical to getting a book deal than a proposal; publishers will rarely consider a nonfiction project without one (not applicable if your name is Malcolm Gladwell or Dr. Phil). When prospective authors ask acquisitions editors what they look for in a proposal—which they do almost as often as published authors ask when their next royalty statement is due (hint: it’s in your contract)—they’re usually thinking of the nuts & bolts stuff—book description, target market, detailed table of contents, etc. But there’s more to getting a proposal read (evaluated, not skimmed) than the proposal itself—there’s what we see before getting to it.

An HR person I once met said that people in her position usually make their decision as to whether a job applicant will get beyond that initial interview in the first thirty seconds (another disagreed; it was less). An editor’s first impressions of a proposal can be just as quick, and can be the difference between a thorough review and relocation to the OUT pile. If you want to make those brief moments count, you’ve got two hurdles to leap: the subject of your book and your query letter.

Why should the subject of your book be a hurdle? It shouldn’t. But if you’re writing a book on particle physics and sending query letters to houses that only publish business books, or fiction, or memoirs (occasionally identified as fiction post-publication), you’re wasting your time. Years ago, ferreting out the proper publishers to send your proposal to involved some legwork, either making a trip to a library and consulting Literary Marketplace, a hefty reference source for information about publishers, literary agency, trade services, and more; or visiting a bookstore, locating the appropriate section, and learning who had books in your area of interest. Today, detailed information on publishers is easily obtainable online and in books (though details are sometimes wrong or way out of date), so failure to target the right houses is an unforgivable absence of initiative considering your goal and the vast sums of money that await you (yes, I’m kidding).

Then there’s the greeting on your query letter. If your letter begins with an impersonal “Dear Sir or Madam” you’re off to a bad start. Personally, I’m not offended if you don’t know my name. I’ve largely made my mark in publishing in invisible ink. But what this tells me about you is that you haven’t bothered to make the effort to uncover information that isn’t hard to come by; this doesn’t inspire confidence. Most publishers make it easy and will list their acquiring editors and the lists they handle on their website. (You’re already on our site, so see for yourself. Click on “Contact Us” and then “Editorial Inquiries.” As of this writing I’m still listed.)

Are dreams of your finished book keeping you from seeing straight in the query letter?

Finally there’s the query letter itself, which either precedes or accompanies every proposal. A good query letter can get your foot in the door; a poor one can get the door slammed in your face. It costs nothing to send a query and proposal by email, so why anyone today sends a query letter asking if you’d be interested in seeing their proposal is beyond me. (Note: I’m referring to unagented projects here.) Send your query as an email and your proposal as an attachment. If the project sounds appealing, this can save valuable time. (You’d be surprised how many times I’ve received a proposal just in time to review it and prepare it for a meeting days, rather than weeks, later.)

As for the contents of the letter, keep it brief and to the point. Explain what your book’s about, making it sound as compelling as possible (granted, this does not work for all subjects); note any previous books you’ve written; and tell us about your platform. Do you have name recognition in your field, regularly do presentations, and have a website, a LinkedIn account, a blog, a Facebook page? If so, you’re on the right track. If few of the aforementioned, you’ve got work to do before submitting that proposal. If your name does not appear if Googled, check your pulse and don’t get your hopes up of seeing your name on a book anytime soon.

Getting your proposal to the right publishers and writing an effective query letter are not difficult, and there’s lots of information and examples available that provide guidance. Do you want a book deal? If so, do your homework.

Bob Nirkind is a Senior Editor at AMACOM Books. He specializes in acquiring titles in sales, customer service, project management, and finance. Prior to joining AMACOM, Bob worked as Executive Editor at Watson-Guptill Publications and Senior Development Editor at St. Martin’s Press. You can find the AMACOM Author Guidelines for Book Proposals on our website.

The Vigilant Investor Now Available on NetGalley

Our upcoming book, The Vigilant Investor: A Former SEC Enforcer Reveals How to Fraud-Proof Your Investments by Pat Huddleston, is now available for review on NetGalley.

Click HERE to submit your request.

If you are a book reviewer, journalist, librarian, professor, bookseller, and blogger, or other book professional, we invite you to download an e-galley of the book today.

Making sound investments is tough enough without having to worry about unscrupulous financial advisers and outright frauds. But recently strengthened laws aren’t enough to stop the “professionals” intent on profiting from—or just plain stealing—your money.

As an Enforcement Branch Chief at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Atlanta, GA, Pat Huddleston witnessed countless people lose their life savings to reckless stockbrokers and fraudulent schemes. Now an SEC-recommended Receiver and CEO of a securities and investment fraud investigation agency, Huddleston has intimate knowledge of how scam artists and bad brokers operate. In The Vigilant Investor, he explains WHY we fall for investment scams, HOW con artists play on our emotions, and WHAT we can do to protect ourselves from predators. With its unique look into the science of financial decision making, the book blows up the popular myths and simplistic “do’s and don’ts” of investing while sharing techniques anyone can use to perform due diligence even better than the “experts.”

With gripping stories of actual cases, Huddleston sheds light on the dark corners of the investment industry and teaches investors and professionals alike how to spot fraud and guard themselves against financial catastrophe.

PAT HUDDLESTON is CEO of Investor’s Watchdog LLC, an investment fraud investigation agency. He has been an SEC Enforcer, court-appointed Receiver, and investment attorney. A frequent guest on television and radio, he has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Investment News, and many other publications.

Click HERE to submit your request for a copy of The Vigilant Investor.

NetGalley is a service for people who read and recommend books, such as book reviewers, journalists, librarians, professors, booksellers, and bloggers.

There are a number of different reading options for this e-galley:

• Quick Browse. Preview the galley using NetGalley’s web-based reader.
• Download Galley. Read a Protected (DRM) galley on your computer, Sony Reader, B&N’s Nook, Kobo Reader, or other device. You’ll need Adobe Digital Editions (free software). You can also read on your iPad or iPhone via the Bluefire Reader app.
• Kindle. Send a NetGalley file to your Kindle device, using your @Kindle.com or @free.Kindle.com email address. Make sure to follow the instructions here. Note:The Kindle button works for Kindle devices only. By pressing the orange Kindle button for a NetGalley title, you can send the file to your Kindle device. You will not be able to share that file with any Kindle apps (like Kindle for PC or iPhone).
• Email Publisher. This button will allow you to email the publisher directly to request a reading option not currently enabled.

You can find all of AMACOM’s e-galleys on NetGalley HERE.