How are you, lovely friends? The chill of autumn is finally here, the leaves turning a crunchy, golden red-brown. The light is soft and gorgeous. I hope you’re cosy in hearth and home.
Grab yourself a warming beverage and sit down with me, because this time I want to talk about credit. Not the financial type, but the kind of credit we give each other as creatives.
Let’s consider a scenario: say, a book cover reveal.
It’s a big day. This is going public, a lot riding on the success of advance PR. Nerves aplenty.
Good news! People love it. Bags of pride from the author. Bags of gratitude for their loyal readers’ positive reaction. Personal thank you’s to their fans left, right and centre.
But hang on a minute… something’s missing.
Who’s the designer?
The tsunami of joyfully accepted praise continues, with not one mention of a name. The designer? A brush-wielding minion destined to remain in the shadows until the book finally comes out – then still likely ignored, as readers bypass the ‘boring copyright stuff’ where their name lives in the small print, and jump straight to Chapter 1.
Pay it forward
A while back I wrote on how to be a generous creative. We’re a community, so we know that much of this is about being collegial: giving positive vibes and support wherever we can.
Design is an incredible skill. I have huge respect for anyone in possession of this ability. It takes vision and disciplined, dedicated practice to deliver at such an accomplished level. Designers translate a concept into impactful visual language – and we see this so powerfully in a book cover.
The fact is, covers sell books. They’re the first thing the market sees online and in a bookstore, browsing packed subject lists or actual shelves. Covers are what attracts buyers to a title, so it figures that not only do they need to be stand-out – beautiful, even – but carefully thought out, directed and executed with style and precision.
Book covers are art. They are a creative work.
When it comes to a product by a collective whose work has been invaluable to our personal success, being a generous creative means crediting the people who did that work.
Surely if we’re writing a book, we could use our position to amplify the talent that produced its elegant shop window? After all, it is helping to keep us where we are (or putting us where we want to be): in the public eye.
Apparently not, if the scenario above is anything to go by. It’s disappointing.
Refusing to share the love for our creative team doesn’t make us look big.
To be honest, it makes us look like a douche canoe.
When to credit
The thing is, if we have profile, platform, an adoring audience – no matter how small, cult, niche or whatever type of fame you’d like to call it – shouldn’t we have at least some self-motivation to amplify and uplift? To park our ego and give the people giving us wings the props they deserve?
As an editor, I never ask for credit in a work. Some publishers list editorial credits automatically on the colophon page, but the vast majority don’t – and that’s totally fine. It isn’t standard in publishing for editors to receive a credit, and generally our work remains silent: editing is a job which, at its best, is imperceptible, precisely because it helps to make a text shine without the reader noticing what might have been done.
Of course I’m thankful when authors do choose to acknowledge me – it’s kind, and shows the book has come out of lovely collaboration. That it’s been a productive, happy and positive experience to work together, and they genuinely appreciate my contribution.
I’m really gratified by that, but I certainly don’t expect it. Their name is on the cover. It’s their book.
Cover design, though, is different. It’s such an essential part of a book’s viability for success that its creator should be acknowledged in daylight.
Why? Because it’s not the author’s work.
It follows that crediting on social and elsewhere in a scenario like the one above is, indeed, the decent thing to do.
Getting it right
To be fair, many authors do credit their publishing team. They do express their appreciation and gratitude, warmly and generously, and not just in their books. Much of their own contact will have been with their commissioning editor, so if they’re gently queried who other key personnel might be, they make the effort to contact their publisher, get names and rectify the perception.
And they do it without fanfare or complaint. They’re artists who recognise that creative work like a book is the sum of serious team effort, not an act of servitude.
It’s a unique composite of individuals contributing their own gifts.
What’s the no. 1 thing we can do to uplift and share the love for our fellow creatives?
Tell others. Let them know who – and just how amazing – our friends and colleagues are.
And where they’ve done something to help us reach our own tribe, thank them for it. Openly.
It really is as simple as that.
The Serialist 