Friday, October 29, 2010

Cover story

One of the most exciting and anticipated events in a writer's life is also one that requires almost no effort on her part. It's when her editor sends her that email with the following subject line: "Cover art attached."

In my case, the minimal effort required was when I provided a few suggestions, months ago, on the direction the artist (the wonderfully excellent Chris McGrath) might take for Children of Scarabaeus, the sequel to my debut novel, due out April 2011. In the first book, my protagonist Edie is a sheltered young woman who finds herself out of her depth. She is protected by - and in turn protects - an ex-con named Finn.

In book 2, Edie finds her footing. I suggested that she should be in a more "assertive" pose for this cover. More importantly, surely, I suggested that Finn should have a bigger gun. VoilĂ !





(He has two guns!)

Book covers on the shelves these days just get better and better, it seems to me. I would call many of them works of art. Thank the marketing departments of publishing houses for that, and of course the talented artists involved.

What are your favorite recent covers? How about old classics? Ever thought the book was going to be one thing because of the cover, and it turned out to be something else entirely? Or where the characters depicted were nothing like you imagined them after reading the book?

7 comments:

Helen Lowe said...

I love just about everything I’ve seen by Kinuko Craft, including Wildwood Dancing for Juliet Marillier and several Patricia McKillip covers. One of my all time favorite covers though is the Del Rey paperback cover by Steven Youll for George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones. His cover spoke to me so strongly of the story—and I was not disappointed!

Btw Sara--I really love your new cover; it's fabulous.

Me said...

Fabulous cover, Sara!

There was one book with a cover that I absolutely adored (okay, drooled over--the guy was H-O-T!) but when I read the back cover blurb I just couldn't bring myself to actually buy the book. I came very close, though, just so I could possess the cover!

Rachel C said...

Awesome cover! ;)

I love the art work for Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson Series.
It's exactly how I picture Mercys bad-ass character. Love it!

Patricia Lynne said...

I love the Chronicles of Vladimir Tod covers and The Replacement's cover. The last one just sucks you in because you want to know what's up w/ the knife over the carriage. Also, covers with a face on it intrigue me. Something about how the person is photographed staring at you, beckoning you to open up and start reading.

Brenda Hyde said...

What a cool cover. I love it! I also love Merrie's cover for Afterlife, and I always love Vic's covers and Jeaniene's. Dakota always has awesome covers:)

Crystal @ RBtWBC said...

The cover is great and I am looking forward to it's release in April!

There are so many awesome covers out there that were released recently, some of the ones I love are Jeaniene Frost's This Side of the Grave & Virginia Kantra's Forgotten Sea.

GB said...

Congrats on the new cover!

I pretty much love any cover done by Chris McGrath. You're so lucky!