Growing Up Metal cover reveal

(note: this was the lead item in my free weekly email newsletter Arcane Arts. Sign up the link or at the widget at right)

I had some difficult decisions to make regarding the cover of Growing Up Metal. I engaged a cover designer and he sent me four treatments, three of which I liked but had to dismiss.

Spinal Tap volume dial: A bit too plain and a bit too clever.

Guitar: Clean look, great font, but implies I play the instrument.

Average dude with silhouette of guitar hero—near perfect, nearly the cover. But I could only pick one. 

It lost out to this one.

The winner. Fuck yeah!

Why did I go with this cover?

1. The over-the-top imagery and garishness. All characteristic of metal.

2. It's nostalgic. For a time of tapes, and of a time when heavy metal was new and vital and emerging from primordial sludge.

3. Its symbolism. The figure that is vaguely me stands atop the music that has helped make him who he is. He is made of metal.

4. It places me on the center stage. The book is a memoir, and the story is my own.

My cover designer nailed it. My only edits were to add a few more metal touches (amplifiers to match the “amplifier” sidebars you’ll find in the book) and a picture and the copy for the back cover design.

I hope it grabs you as it did me and inspires you to give Growing Up Metal a read. It’s almost ready for print.

This week I set up my Amazon Author account, which included enabling two-step verification, scanning my face (!) and driver’s license to verify my identity, and connecting my bank account to ensure I can receive payments.

I also selected a half-dozen representative photographs for a picture collage included in the back matter. I purchased two ISBNs, one each for print and digital editions. Next I’ll be exporting the final print-ready file and uploading it and the cover to the KDP platform. Setting the price, filling in the details and marketing copy on the Amazon website.

And pressing publish.

An email from marketing guru and author Seth Godin hit my inbox as I was writing this issue: On the Verge of Done. It can’t be a coincidence.

"Knocking At Your Back Door," Deep Purple

Ritchie Blackmore, the talented but mercurial (i.e., notorious reputation as a douchebag) guitarist for Rainbow, Blackmore's Night, and Deep Purple, returned to the stage with his old Deep Purple bandmates this week for the first time in years. 33 long years... wow.

Growing up I was never a Purple fan... too much of keyboard 70s rock in them, not enough metal for my tastes, they seemed old fogies before my time. But, I have come to admire some of their work. And conclude that Blackmore is a very talented guitarist.

When Brian May calls you something like a comet from a clear blue sky, a figure of mystery and wonder who influenced a generation with his improvisational play, no more needs be said.

"Knocking At Your Back Door," a fine song about, well, back door sex and the thrill of the chase, features some fantastic guitar work by Blackmore. The exit solo taking us out of the studio version is so good I wouldn't mind another 10 minutes of it.

Good for Blackmore, now 81, for getting up on stage with Purple one last time. Today is a good day to bury whatever hatchet hovers above you and your old grudges and make peace.

A title reveal

I revealed the title and an important progress update on the heavy metal memoir in this morning's edition of Arcane Arts: Dispatches From The Silver Key. Check it out here, and please consider subscribing if you haven't yet done so. 

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Arcane Arts is my weekly e-mail newsletter, rounding up what I'm working on, a bit about my personal goings-on, and cool stuff of a fantastic/metal and S&S bent I find interesting/provocative/worth sharing.