I know it's off topic, but I LOVE your HAIR. Holy cow, what I would do for such thick shiny red locks!

last I checked amazon had you release dat as nov 27. I learned how to sleep while standing in the army. Also if I happen to be asleep I always wake up at 0530 central, half an hour befor morning formation on Ft Knox.

What kind of yoga did you do? as little about it as I can recall there are 10 or so distinct versions

Great book cover!!!!!

I LOVE the cover too - you're way more attractive than the original 50 ft. woman! o.O

I like the Comic Sans font myself, but that's just me. Courier is also nice. Monotype Corsiva is out though. Not too many people can read cursive! Maybe Lucida Sans?

And if the book is released on Oct. 30, that would be perfect - I could give out several copies over Thanksgiving dinner to some very needy souls, who absolutely MUST read it before Yule. Although the day AFTER Thanksgiving is supposedly one of the biggest shopping days BEFORE Christmas.

Yes, I think it's not nuts. It's the biggest sale day of the year, and bookstores will be packed with people doing early Christmas shopping.

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Not that you have the time to see it, but Tucson holds the saddest collection of antiques there ever was: the Davis-Monagham AFB salvage yard, here in Google Earth.

I lost count of the awesome planes I had no chance to ride.

We've seen you cavorting with authors and dancing across France in railcars and eveningwear , but this is the best picture of you.

Implicit Theme #1: You're just trying to give some helpful advice, but some people's lives are so fucked up that there's nothing you can do but weep.

Implicit Theme #2: The travails of the independent businesswoman; running ones own shop in today's challenging media market is a really tiring.

I'll weep if my publisher doesn't change my pub date.

What is it with the military and sleeping? Everyone I've ever known who was military could fall asleep on command, instantly. That's a skill it'd be worth going through boot camp for! Maybe I'll try yoga...

Notice how even the less-than-1-inch-tall version of the cover in this photo immediately commands attention. I think you have a winner. I like the Futura. You need a bold, blocky font to go along with the bold, blocky city skyline logo along the bottom.

And that is an amazing mop you have on your head!

Ick. It's Davis-Monthan AFB. No doubt dry and hot.

A font I like is Franklin Gothic Medium, but Franklin Gothic Heavy might be better for a book cover.

Chip Kidd used Franklin Gothic -- but from the New York Daily News covers, not medium, I don't think -- for the covers he did for Elmore Leonard in the 90s (best covers anybody in America's done for Elmore). I considered that, but I feel I need something bolder. It's really tough. People say the Futura isn't right, but I have yet to see anything better.

I called the Daily News, my first paper, and they told me it was FG, and also that they used to use blocks of wood to set the type in the Ford cover days. LOVE this type:

http://www.bluespotblog.com/uploaded_images/ford_dn-712840.jpg

What about Tahoma or Verdana, bolded? Then there's always Century Gothic, but I don't think it would look all that good on the cover.

I used to be able to get to sleep any time, any where. Now I can't fall asleep easily at all. Any even slightly irregular noises around me will keep me from falling asleep - a window rattle, sometimes even my wife's breathing will do it. As soon as I become aware of the noise, that's it. Use a white noise generator, which helps some, but still. Not being able to get to sleep is incredibly frustrating. Fortunately, there's always work to be done.

I'm with you, Amy, about the publication date. My sense from my work is that people are utterly distracted from early or mid November until the end of January (at least). That's not the time to debut something new; I think it would make promoting things very difficult.

If you prefer Futura (which I like), you should stay in the geometric sans-serif family. There's Gotham (and Gotham Bold), which is the font used for GQ magazine. There's also ITC Avant Garde and Avenir. Or you can go for the most basic of all the sans-serifs, Helvetica Bold Condensed. A tad boring, but very blocky. I imagine that the typesetting/printing equipment used to set the book may influence the ultimate font choice -- not all systems support the same fonts.

As for the book's release date, October 30 is probably better, particularly as it gives you some time to do publicity, and get word-of-mouth going, before the big Thanksgiving shopping weekend. But I don't think November 30 is terrible, especially if you can get some pre-publication interviews lined up and encourage people to buy it in advance on Amazon.

Amy, my better half and I were just in Tucson a week ago. If you like Mexican food at all, get thee to Guadalajara Grill. They make your salsa fresh at the table to your specifications, and the Chile Verde is great. Also, El Charro is famous and quite delicious. I brought back some red sauce for my sister, who's claims it's the best she's ever had.

Thanks for the heads up. I've tried earplugs, and they didn't cut out enough sound, but they help. I'll consider those next time I get some (and buy via your ref link if decide to get them).

That picture cracks my shit up

So who took the photo?

I just hated those people(eg. islamic people) who had been unreasonably rude to me without any valid reason, other than trying to imply that they were in some ways "more superior" than me.
I don't mind rude people (who are of good honest character) who may tried to "correct" me in a rude manner.
But I do draw a line with extremely dogmatic rude people(who are just too lazy to do the right thing) and who are just out to be extremely unreasonably nasty.

Whoops. Time to change the Wikipedia entry, where I wrote that your book title is "Revengerella."

Font should be easy to read, most importantly. I would not go for anything fancy. Should be plain with nothing to distract from the message. My personal favorite is Georgia, because it uses the "g" found on old typewriters.

If I were writing a book that I wanted people to actually finish, I would go with Arial.

What is it with the military and sleeping? Everyone I've ever known who was military could fall asleep on command, instantly.

It comes from always having too much to do and too little to do. And after you do some things enough, you do them by rote and turn your mind off.

"If I were writing a book that I wanted people to actually finish, I would go with Arial."

And the world's publishers eschew that in favor of serif fonts, like Bookman, Times New Roman and so forth, because they are easier to read.

At work, we decided to use Arial in procedures for just one reason: you could get more characters on one page. This sacrificed clarity and ease of composition and editing because of narrow kerning; those who selected it - actually, they picked Helvetica, but that's a long story - didn't know what they were doing. We are a desktop publishing venture, having regulatory-grade procedures to write, but clueless people thought we were using typewriters. If you must use a sans-serif font - as we do for fax clarity - something wider, like Tahoma or Verdana will be better.

Page design means a lot when you are writing for an audience. The Mac is not a typewriter, and neither is the PC (there's a version for them, too), and there is a lot going on behind the scenes at your favorite magazine to make sure you concetrate on their story.

I always use Veranda myself

Oct. 30 is perfect. Just in time for the rude little beggars who come knocking with sugarlust in their eyes.

Your cover looks great, Amy! Congrats to Gregg's photo-taking skills.

About your font question: Have you considered Frutiger? Not too far away from Futura Bk, but I like the Frutiger's wider letter-spacing a bit better. (I have used both fonts before, but for different purposes.)

Check it out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger

Huh-- I've never given thought to ear hole morphological variation before! Neat.

I LOVE this cover, btw!!!

Umm, don't forget that most page-design programs and MS Word allow you to adjust the kerning and leading of any font you use. This allows you to stretch a font which has the character shapes you like to the spacing you like, horizontally and vertically.

MS Office's Publisher will install over 200 fonts for you. If you can't pick a winner out of those, plus the ones your system came with, ITC Fonts and others can show you something you like.

Or, get out the crayon.

Amy - seriously, talk to James Lileks. He's a bit of a font snob, and he could probably nail it for you.

Besides, he's funny as hell, and polite too.

Speaking of telling people about your book, I don't know if you're going to be promoting "I See Rude People" in Canada. If you are, you might want to check out http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/about

They have stores in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, a brand-new one in Toronto, and, on your side of the fence, one in Manhattan. All locations have chock-full events calendars, & they do a good job of publicizing authors of all sorts.

On my first glance at that photograph, I thought, "Why did she leave a red wig laying on the table?" ;)

Take a look at Bodoni MT Black. It has a certain art deco quality, but it's also heavy and fairly masculine. If you're looking only at boxy fonts this won't do, but you do seem to have a preference for the deco sensibility. The skyscape in the background has the same feel.