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Eastercon Action

Back refreshed after some post-Easter holiday, I thought I’d give a little round-up of the weekend’s Eastercon excitements. These didn’t include the weather (a most distracting hail storm during Darren’s Very Important Panel), or getting lost in the hotel’s Shining-esque corridors and missing breakfast, so I’ll spare you that.

So, over the Easter weekend, two key highlights in the science fiction calendar took place. One of these was Orbital, the British national science fiction convention (otherwise known as Eastercon), We were very excited as our Ken MacLeod was on not one, but two shortlists for BSFA awards, up for both best novel with The Execution Channel and best short fiction with Lighting Out, in the anthology disLOCATIONS from Newcon Press. Many congratulations to Ken for winning in the short fiction category, and to Gollancz’s Ian McDonald, who took away the best novel award for the much-admired Brasyl.

I also have to make special mention of Charles Stross, who was guest of honour at Orbital, alongside Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and China Mieville. Charlie wasn’t just guest of honour but, in an astonishing tribute to the genre, had actually managed to clone himself in order to take part in a myriad of panel discussions. Amongst others, I attended Writing the Near Future, on why it might be harder to predict 50 years in the future than 500. Charlie was as fascinating as ever, and managed to pause briefly for breath before his next panel on the Appeal of Lovecraft. His clones were no doubt equally knowledgeable in an in-depth discussion of Accelerando, and in a panel on how to be a full time novelist to name just a few. On the other side of the fence, Orbit’s Darren Nash told a packed room (yep, people were actually standing at the back) what an editor Actually Does. I found this particularly pertinent, and obviously made copious notes(!). The panel was split between editors of novels and short fiction, so covered some interesting differences in how the two forms might be edited.

But the Eastercon activities didn’t end there … the other highlight of the weekend was Swancon on the other side of the globe – the annual West Australian Science Fiction Convention and forum for the Ditmar awards. We are delighted to say that Sean Williams picked up yet another well-deserved Ditmar for best novel, for the fabulous Saturn Returns. Australia’s Dark Fiction zine HorrorScope has the full listings. Ken MacLeod also attended the convention as a guest of honour so, although much in demand, had to miss out on the British event. Sure, it would have been great to travel to Australia to help Ken and Sean out, but the Orbital invites came through first … Maybe next time!

More Coverage

Following up on the post below, the cover debate continues here, here, here and elsewhere. I left a comment at Lou Ander’s blog that explains a bit more on our approach to cover design.

One thing to add: a few people have expressed the view that for a publisher the most important thing about a cover is that it appeals to buyers (those people in the book industry who determine whether or not–and in what quantity–a book gets on to the shelves). For us, that’s not true. Of course, it’s a great advantage if a buyer loves a cover we’ve come up with; and it makes things more challenging if they don’t. However, we–and I’m talking only about Orbit here, to be absolutely clear–have one thought in our mind when we’re thinking about covers: how to make it as effective as possible for the widest possible readership. And by “effective”, I mean visually exciting, distinctive, and appropriate to the book’s content and style.

Of course, we listen to buyers, we talk to buyers, we take buyers’ feedback very seriously, and we’ll sometimes change a cover as a result. But we don’t ask ourselves: what kind of cover would the buyers like? We ask ourselves: what kind of cover would potential readers like?

Another aspect of this issue that’s sometimes overlooked is what the author thinks of their cover. Some authors are more interested in their covers than others–some prefer to leave it to their publisher, others have very strong views on what they would like. Either way, I’m often struck by how revealing an author’s reaction to seeing a visual representation of their work can be. In my experience, authors themselves can be great judges of whether a cover works or not. One author reaction to seeing her cover for the first time summed it up for me when she said: “That’s exactly what my book looks like!” For her, the cover had captured something exciting and important about the book and made it instantly recognizable. If a cover doesn’t achieve this–at least to some degree–I think it’s unlikely to be a particularly effective cover.

I guess it all comes back to what one considers to be an effective cover.

Small Favour

We’re very excited to be releasing our first Jim Butcher title in UK hardback. Small Favour is the excellent tenth book in the Dresden Files series. It sees Harry trying to pay off one of the favours he owes to the Winter Queen of Faerie, but things, of course, were never going to be that easy. We can’t help but love this smokin’ cover with a beat-up leather look that almost looks strokeable …

Small Favour by Jim Butcher

Small Favour is released on the 3rd April. For those of you who just can’t wait the eight long days till then, it’s also available for pre-order.

New Orbiteer

We’re delighted to announce a new addition to the Orbit team in the UK. Darren Turpin joins us on 7 April, in the role of Marketing Executive. Also known to some in genre circles as Ariel, Darren has been involved with science fiction and fantasy for many years. During his time as a bookseller, he was co-editor of The Waterstone’s Guide to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and he created the very-near-legendary genre website The Alien Online. Most recently, he has worked as a freelance web developer, and built websites for many of our authors, including Philip Palmer and Brian Ruckley. We’re enormously excited that he’ll be working on websites and online campaigns for our authors.

Darren, welcome!

Standing out or fitting in?

Ron Hogan at Galleycat and a poster at Metafilter have recently drawn attention to the covers of of three Orbit authors, Charles Stross and Ken MacLeod (Orbit in the UK only), and Iain M. Banks (Orbit in the UK and US).

For the most part, when we publish an author in the US and the UK, we publish with the same cover — and some of those covers are developed in the US and some in the UK. The cover for Iain M. Banks’ MATTER, for example, was developed in the US, whereas CONSIDER PHLEBAS and PLAYER OF GAMES were developed in the UK.

Banks Cover Comparison

If we felt that a book would appeal to a wider readership if it had a different cover in the US or UK, we’d give it a different cover. But usually we don’t. Not everyone will agree with that — but that’s fine.

Going back to the Galleycat comments, we don’t really have any rules when it comes to covers, but there’s one thing we always do first when we’re discussing them: we decide what it is that excites us about a particular book/series/author. What makes it stand out? What makes it different to everything else out there? And then we ask ourselves: how do we reflect that in the cover approach? What kind of look would be the perfect way to reflect what we think makes this particular book/series/author special?

What we don’t do is think: this book is epic fantasy therefore it has to have one of these covers; this book is military SF therefore it has to have one of these covers. And so on.

And it’s not just the cover illustration/design that this relates to — it’s the format, the production values, the entire package for a book.

This is the issue, I think, at the heart of the Great SFF Cover Debate/War. It’s nothing to do with where the book is being published in the world; it’s to do with the question that every genre publisher has to ask themselves: do we want our books to stand out or do we want them to fit in? Most genre publishers would say both: they want their books to stand out by looking exceptional, but they also want them to fit in by being immediately recognizable to readers of similar books within the genre. Depending on where you put the emphasis, though, the cover for a particular book can go in some very different directions.

Orbit is a publisher of genre fiction, and we’re proud to be a publisher of genre fiction, but at the moment we definitely seem to be putting more emphasis on trying to make our books stand out. Why? Check out the SFF section in your local book store. How quickly can you find a book from a writer you don’t know that excites you because of the way it looks? Hopefully, you’ll find something quickly and the book itself will turn out to be just as exciting as it looks. That’s why we like our covers to stand out.

Banks and MacLeod

Here’s video, along with the complete audio podcast, of Iain M. Banks and Ken MacLeod’s readings and conversation at last weekend’s Aye Write! festival in Glasgow.

Aye Write!

Hugo Stross!

Halting StateThe shortlist for the 2008 Hugo Awards has just been released, and we are delighted to see that Charles Stross‘s cutting-edge near future heist thriller, Halting State, has made the ballot. This is the fifth consecutive year that a Charles Stross novel has been shortlisted for the Hugo, passing the great Robert Silverberg‘s previous record, which is an amazing achievement. Many congratulations to Charlie on his most recent shortlisting – we’ve all got our fingers crossed that he walks away with the rocket ship, this year!

Oh, and I’ve read his forthcoming space opera, Saturn’s Children – don’t bet against it being six-in-a-row, this time next year . . .