COVER LOVE - US versus UK, what's the difference?

I have always assumed 'a great cover is a great cover' wherever you're from. Like a work of art. So when my editor made a recent comment about US versus UK cover art and its appeal to their respective markets, my curiosity was roused, my ignorance on the subject totally exposed. Thus began a week with one wonderful addition to the "things I do on my computer that suck up my time", (recently featuring my obsession with stuff about building your author platform, tips for harnessing the power of facebook, and making book trailers on imovie.) This week, I've been checking out the differences between UK and US cover art and here are a few of the things I stumbled across along the way:

In 2009, 52 % of books sold in the UK YA market were by Stephenie Meyer. But Twilight only began to see big sales in the UK after they replaced the UK cover with the US cover. (Yes, that is the original cover for Twilight when it first came out in the UK!)

YA cover art in the UK is reportedly more orientated towards a younger teen audience and more likely to use illustration as opposed to photographic imagery. (Hunger Games: US cover left, UK cover right. Declaration: US cover right, UK cover below left.)

A surprising number of recent books by American YA authors are being released with the same cover when they come out in the UK. (Note: I've mainly been looking at my own genre -- YA dystopian. No idea if this also applies to Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Contemporary YA fiction. The cover for Across the Universe in the UK is an earlier variation apparently, without the pink/ purple space & stars behind the two silhouettes.)

So what have I learnt from all this? No idea. Unarguably, there are cultural differences between us Brits and you Americans. But with all the social media platforms, the predominance of Hollywood films and the US culture impacting across the world, do our teenagers really still stand oceans apart? Is a good cover a good cover wherever you're from, or are the subtleties of our cultures still enough to distinguish different preferences? What do you think?

(If you've written or read an article you'd like to share on this, please leave your link in the comments!)

Claire Merle is the author of THE GLIMPSE, (June 2012 Faber & Faber), a dystopian thriller set in London not many years from now, where mental illness has skyrocketed out of control and society is divided by genetic testing into those who'll become sick - the Crazies - and those who won't - the Pures.

For news and updates about THE GLIMPSE come and join me on my facebook page. For everything else, let's talk on twitter - clairemerle

THE GLIMSPE can now be added to your goodreads wish list.
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2 Keys Habits to Becoming A Writer

In my early twenties, a friend gave me the book ‘Becoming a Writer’ by Dorothea Brande. I’d always known I wanted to write. I’d always written scripts and plays and poetry. For me writing was my ticket to a parallel universe that I had far more control over and where anything could happen. But it wasn’t until I read Brande’s book that I really felt like I’d started on the path to Becoming A Writer, and established two writing habits that have helped me achieve my writing goals and that I still implement today.

Writing Habit number One:

There’s a passage early on in the book where Brande talks about moving Toward Effortless Writing; she says, ‘The best way to do this is to rise half an hour, or a full hour, earlier than you customarily rise. Just as soon as you can – and without talking, without reading the morning’s paper, without picking up the book you laid aside the night before – begin to write.’

At the time, I often wrote late in the evening, or on days off work when I felt inspired. I wasn’t at all used to writing like this. I’d turn up at the kitchen table bleary-eyed (sometimes I had to get up at 5.30am to fit in half an hour before leaving for work) and wrote an awful lot of rubbish – dreams, snippets of conversations, everything that was wrong with my life, half-cooked ideas, the beginnings of novels, anything that popped into my head. But after a while it grew easier and more productive, and pretty soon I fell in love with writing first thing every morning. Early morning became and has remained my favourite time to write. Much of my debut novel ‘The Glimpse’ was written between 5.30 and 7.30am before my very young kids took over my day.

The second big step in Brande’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ is to teach yourself to write at any given moment of the day. She calls it Writing on Schedule:

‘After you have dressed, sit down for a moment by yourself and go over the day before you…. Sketch out for yourself enough of a program to know when you will have a few moments to yourself…. Decide for yourself that you will take that time for writing; for you are going to write in it…

Now this is very important, and can hardly be emphasized too strongly: you have decided to write at four o’clock and at four o’clock write you must!'

This exercise was incredibly beneficial and I'd recommend it to any who needs to write in small snatches because of their job or kids. I actually kept doing these exercises on and off for a couple of years and eventually found that not only had I acquired the invaluable skill of being able to sit down and jump back into my story at any time of the day, (dictated many years later by nap time), but also the ability to keep progressing with a story, even when I didn't feel inspired or in the mood.

Now I have a daily writing schedule which includes morning writing seven days a week. From time to time I sit down and really struggle to get into whatever I’m working on. On these mornings I go off and do something else. It averages out to about 1 day a week off and six mornings writing.

Claire Merle is the debut author of 'The Glimpse', a heart- pounding dystopian thriller where 'Romeo & Juliet' meets 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest.'

Click here: goodreads to add The Glimpse to your goodreads wishlist.

Tired of the yellow meringue bridesmaid dress?

Getting an agent is often compared to getting married. Understandably. There’s the whole having to work together, believe in each other, mollycoddle the baby, teach it to walk, send it out into the world and hope it survives… but that’s way out there in the future. That’s for the girl who’s been proposed to, who’s walking up the aisle. The big question is how do you get that ideal guy to look at you across the dance floor, to wonder who you are, to show enough interest to ask you to dinner in the first place?

Well this is my story: It’s October 2010. I have a disastrous ‘Meet & Critique’ with a talented agent and return to my husband licking my wounds. ‘But I thought you said your first chapter was made of awesome!’ he says. (Except in French, with a French accent.) I shrug helplessly. Clearly I was delusional. Clearly I am clueless. He frowns, then runs into his pep talk – minor set back, her loss, a million agents rejected HP (totally not true, but anyway)… I drift away wondering if I really did believe I could make it, or if I was TRYING to believe.

And then a couple of days later something happens. I discover not one, not two, but three of my writing buds have agents/ deals! Yey for them. But now I’m feeling kind of small and lonely. My craft and ability to tell a story are in roughly the same ballpark, so how come I’m standing outside the party in the drizzle? (Admittedly, at this juncture I haven’t actually sent out any queries, which doesn’t help much.)

And while I’m standing there drenched and despondent and considering turning around and going home, I realize something. A thunder bolt moment. Think Kate Hudson outside the church in the rain, realizing her one true love is about to marry another girl, (even though he’s been in love with her like FOREVER, 'cos she’s been too blind to see she’s in love with him too. (Small aside—did you know Kate Hudson is Goldie Hawn’s daughter? Love that.)

Anyway, this is my moment, my realization. And it goes like this: You don’t have to be a genius to get a book published. I had a story that I believed was worth telling and I was going to get it out there NO MATTER WHAT. I’d done my time. I’d worked hard and tirelessly at improving my craft, and if I had to query every agent on the planet, I’d find someone who loved my story the way I loved it. (My first novel I queried about 30 agents. Got close, but ‘the call’ didn’t pan out and I put that manuscript aside.) The difference between me BEFORE and me AFTER life-changing-realization, was I’d decided this time I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I stopped questioning whether I was good enough, stopped repeating what everybody says about how hard it is to get an agent. Call me a New Age junkie if it makes you feel better, but I honestly think this made all the difference in the speed with which things happened from there.

Mid December I attend a small SCBWI conference. After participating in workshop an agent approaches me, says she likes my ideas and asks me to submit a partial of whatever I’ve got. I submit to her, and what the hell, I decide to submit to the other agent at the conference too. Ten days later I receive my first offer (yes, on a partial and on my first query!) I ask for time to finish revisions on my manuscript as I would like to discuss the full before we commit to each other. Said agent very generously agrees to wait. Meanwhile, I receive an enthusiastic request from second agent to send my full. Eeek. Hang on, almost finished! End of January the manuscript is ready to go and I send it out to both agents along with eight more queries. By early February I have a total of three offers and one of them is from an agent that is a perfect fit!

So if you want to get married i.e. agented, (mmm think I just made up a word, but I like it, let’s keep it,), my recommendation is decide NOW it will happen for you. You will do whatever it takes. And every time the doubt lurks, which inevitably it will, don’t feed it, bite it on the bum and slap it away.

Remember when you were fifteen, and there was that bossy girl in your class—chunky, big nose, thought she was IT—she still got plenty of guys, right?

Decide it . Own it. Work it baby. (Course it won’t hurt if you happen to be a literary genius.)

Bestselling Author, Claire Merle

(See what I did there? You’re smiling, right? OK, for those of you who are looking baffled, or—eeek—tutting and shaking your heads, answer the following questions: (The only answer allowed is YES.) Is my story worth telling? Have I studied the craft? Am I always striving to improve my writing? Will I send out queries? Will I nab a fab agent? Will my book be published? ‘Yes is the new No’ folks. Are you with me?)

‘The Glimpse’ can now be added to your goodreads wishlist: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12367267-the-glimpse goodreads ~ facebook ~ twitter

Disclaimer: Deciding you will be a published author does not mean reality will never bash you about again. But it will help you give it a wallop back!

P.S. I am absolutely NOT a Romantic Comedy junkie…Well, maybe just a bit… All right, all right, I admit it—I am a total Romantic Comedy junkie.