Savvy local author presents: "They Judge Your Book by Its Cover" at St. Louis Writers Guild

Book covers and titles aren’t an afterthought to the text you worked so hard to finish; they’re a whopping 70 percent of a book’s appeal! Catherine Rankovic’s “They Judge Your Book by Its Cover” workshop will help authors develop effective covers and titles. It will be held from 10 a.m. to noon, May 2, at the Kirkwood Community Center, 111 S. Geyer Rd, Kirkwood, Mo. Free to St. Louis Writers Guild members; $5 for nonmembers

“Authors today are often tasked with creating their own covers,” she said. “We’ll visit covers and titles that attract buyers and others that repel.”

Learn basic design principles such as colors to avoid, typefaces and type size, and illustrations, for covers still distinct and viable when they’re shrunk to half-an-inch high on Amazon.com.

“And there are multiple strategies for finding the perfect title,” Catherine added.

Catherine Rankovic’s books include Meet Me: Writers in St. Louis, Hide and Sex, Island Universe: Essays and Entertainments, Fierce Consent and Other Poems, and Guilty Pleasures: Indulgences, Addictions, and Obsessions. She is a professional manuscript editor at the website www.BookEval.com, worked for years as a web editor and publication designer, has published with huge commercial publishers and one-man presses, and is on a crusade to save wonderful books from being throttled and shanghaied by unprofessional covers.

Learn more about the St. Louis Writers Guild at www.stlwritersguild.org.