I seem to have confused a few folks. In this piece, I mentioned that I sometimes write forewords for books that I want to see reach a wider audience and that I do these for free. I should have clarified that I am usually paid — though never a lot — for writing forewords. When it seems appropriate though, I do them totally pro bono.
I write a lot of forewords and not long ago, I began making two conditions to do them, and this applies to the ones that pay and the ones I do for free. The first condition is that the publisher has to spell "foreword" correctly. I have always known how to spell that word but you'd be amazed at the number of forwards and forewards I've had my name on — and I think there was even once a forewood, which sounds like something that should open a book about golf.
Second condition: What I write has to be legible when printed. That means no flyspeck or ornate fonts and no yellow type placed over a colored photo or anything like that. In my years in publishing, I have occasionally encountered book designers and art directors who don't get that legibility is Job One. They think Job One is to do something that will cause everyone to say, "Ooh, what a lovely looking page design" and they're wrong. Job One is legibility and to not put it first is to be like a surgeon who says, "True, my patient died but didn't I do a lovely job of stitching up his incision?"
Sometimes, you can almost hear them grumbling, "Damn narcissist writer…actually wants people to be able to read what he wrote…"
In the meantime, I have this question from Michael Grabowski…
You mentioned writing forewords as something you do to get a wider release for a book. Is there evidence that people purchase books because of the author of the foreword (or preface or introduction)? Or is it a marketing tool the publisher uses to attract the book retailer's attention? If you have insight or experience with how & why that works, please talk about it. Thanks!
I don't know if there's any evidence beyond the anecdotal kind but I'd say publishers are pretty sure that when you have a book by an unknown, the endorsement of a well-known name can really help sales. I'd say it's to attract both customers and retailers. It can also help classify a book. If you have a horror/suspense novel and you can get Stephen King to write a foreword for it, that tells the world, "If you like Stephen King books, you should like this one."
In a way though, I think it's like a theory some have in the comic book business that explains one reason so many comics have a cover that is not done by the artist who drew the insides of the book. The theory goes like this: If Artist A draws the insides, you get Artist B to draw the cover. The readers who love Artist A's work are already going to buy the comic. This may also get you some of the readers who love Artist B's work.
Neil Gaiman was gracious enough to write a foreword for the new volume of Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips. You know…that book you should all be ordering from this link. Somewhere out there, there must be some Neil Gaiman fans who would never have taken a glance at a book of old comic strips but who will stop and at least consider a purchase of this one.
The Stephen King scenario won't apply here. They won't think, "Oh, this must be very much like a Neil Gaiman book!" because it's obviously not. But they'll look at it and maybe some stores will display it more prominently because of his name. At the very least, his name assigns a certain importance to the book.
Will it help sales? Well, it's a lot like the joke where a man is hit by a car and a doctor who happens to be walking by rushes to help him and calls for an ambulance. While they await its arrival, a little old Jewish lady wanders up and says, "Give him some chicken soup!" The doctor says, "Madam, this man had multiple fractures and contusions. Chicken soup will not help!"
And she says, "It wouldn't hurt!"