Covers and color

[Richard Dimock <red -at- ELSEGUNDOCA -dot- ATTGIS -dot- COM>]

Hi Marylynne!

> I need ideas for the cover, especially for
>colors.

In the ideal world, with unlimited budgets, one would do a
survey of actual users, of actual audience people.

The law people may NOT like blue and black, even though
we (?) unlaw people ;) may assume they do because their
uniforms are often these colors.

Survey technology can have powerful results. The survey
spots people's attitudes. That is what you sell to.

ARTWORK:

Stuart Reynolds is correct in pegging this audience as
conservative. Conservatives want to keep things from
changing, therefore they are totally stuck on stopping things.
Not opinion, just fact.

To the Madison Ave folks, this means they
can be "reached" by pix of people stopping people, things
stopping people, people stopping things, cars at stop signs,
etc. You could use such pix in your collage.

***********************************************************


COVER COLOR

To find your book color, you could ask a survey question
such as: "What is the most important quality of a manual?"
Choices would be the usual: accuracy, ease of use, readability,
find things easily, trustworthy, good authority, etc.

Then you run another survey concentrating on what was found
on the first survey. Suppose "trustworthy" scored highest.

"Which person is the most trustworthy?"
Show pix of pairs of men dressed in different suit colors.
Then repeat with "Which woman...? and the series of
women pix with the same array of colors.

You get the trustworthy color that encourages trust in
your book.

You could ask "What book can be best trusted?" and show
pix of identical books but having different cover colors.

Each different audience has different preferences.

Those companies that buy the services of good survey agencies
know this stuff works. However, comma, for us writers on
our projects, agencies are usually out of the question.

It does pay to learn the basics of survey technology for
our own use. The actual surveying can be a BLAST!


Dick Dimock
AT&T GIS
El Segundo, CA
                **EAT CROW EPISODE 8**
                "General Washington, you owe me big time!"
                muttered the rebel. He bit a large chunk
                out of the crow. He looked uncertainly
                at Fudd, who growled, "Very good sir. Now
                swallow it."

                Youthinks thus endeth the True Story of
                the origin of "Eat Crow"? Nay! The plot
                has more to run.