At long last, The Highest Tide author Jim Lynch has written another book. Border Songs is due out on June 16th:
I am super-excited about this book (The Highest Tide was 100% awesome!), but I was saddened by the discovery that, once again, the British get a cover that looks both more novel-like and much more attractive:
Speaking of cover art, I was poking around on the computer last night, and I found what might–or might not–be the cover for Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing..., the upcoming continuation of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.
Behold:
Like I said, I don't know if this is the real cover, but it looks plausible.
Nora Roberts usually has such nice (if forgettable) cover art, but this looks like something you'd see advertised as the entertainment at a mid-range Vegas hotel:
Wordcandy chats with the Sourcebooks graphic designer!
As longtime readers of the site know, we care (maybe more than we should) about cover art. It's all very well to say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover... but, hello, there are a lot of books out there, and how else are you supposed to judge 'em, at least initially? So we were very excited to have a chance to interview Dawn Pope, the Sourcebooks graphic designer responsible for their lovely new Georgette Heyer covers!
Can you tell us a little about your work process—do you start with a pencil and paper, or do you go straight to the mouse?
As far as my process, I am a straight to mouse kind of gal. I get a lot of my inspiration from image research. I start with an idea, usually based on the premise of the novel, the characters a scene, what the time period is. If a manuscript is available, I will try and read a chapter or two if there is time. But it is the image research for me that inspires where I want my design to go.
What is a typical time frame to get a cover from assignment to final approval?
Our typical time frame for cover design is generally about 3 months. This seems like a lot of time, but when you are working on a list of over 140 titles, this is a bit daunting. I usually design about 30 covers off of our seasonal list.
How often do you bring (or the editor brings) an author into the process?
Most all of our authors are involved in the cover design at some level. Some more than others, it really depends on their contract. Our authors always have approval over the final cover. I really like to involve the authors, and meet their expectations, because after all this is their work, their reputation, their career. It is my job to do the best I can, design the best I can to make their hard work fly off the shelves.
How do you arrive at a balance between producing covers that meet the needs of the editors, marketing, store buyers and consumers, while maintaining a creativity level that’s personally gratifying?
Oh, the delicate balance… this is a tough balance. There are so many elements that not only go on our covers, but that affect the cover design. To achieve the perfect balance, it really comes down to knowing the category, what works what doesn’t. The only way to really do this is to spend a lot of time in the bookstores and online to see what is working in the market place, what works on shelf. Things you wouldn’t even think to consider like, the lighting in the store, the type of shelves your leading retailers have. For example, are their ledges on the shelves, will the authors name or title be blocked if placed too low on the cover. Lighting is important because you don’t want your cover to be too dark and not legible.
We work very closely with our editors, marketing, sales and publicity departments to make sure that the look, the language and design of the cover work for that category. Our publisher, Dominique Raccah, also has final say in the approval of the covers and she has a very wide breadth of knowledge in all aspects of this book; she knows what is going to work and what won’t.
Once you understand the market place and the audience you are designing for, it allows you to design to a self gratifying level, while having a successfully functional cover and a successful book.
If you were to talk to a classroom of aspiring designers, how would you describe to them what book design is? How is it different from other forms of graphic design (say, CD packaging)?
This is one of my favorite things, I actually do go back to my high school twice a year to participate in portfolio reviews and talk to the design classes there. Book design is a very complex process, there is so much that goes into consideration when designing book covers. Like the biggest issue is that a cover is never done, it is never perfect. You may go out with one cover, then the book doesn’t work well on shelf, if that book comes back up for reprint, then sometimes we redesign the cover to make it function better. A book cover is a marketing piece and you have 30 seconds to sell the reader. It is funny that they say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, because that is exactly what you do… it is that cover that gets you to pick up the book and read on. If you don’t convey the information in an eye catching easy to read way, you just lost a sale. I would say the biggest thing with book design is that it is always around. I got my start in magazine design for a non-profit agency, that was one month and the work was done and gone. With a book, a good book, it is around for a long time. Same way when you look at web design, it is an always changing platform. I have to say, that is why I love book design, I like my designs to be tangible, and something you can have around always.
What influences have contributed to your design style?
I don’t know if there are specific influences to mention, but I like very clean design. I like white space, and I am a typography nut... I love type and fonts. I love to see how you can arrange a title. I put a lot of emphasis on my type and my font choice. I had never considered myself an artistic person until I started taking a production graphics class in high school, I discovered a love for design and creating printed pieces that took me into college where I had to learn all about art, how to draw, how to sculpt, and how to design.
I took a book design class and it was setting mass amounts of type, for the internals of the page that fascinated me. It has been a learning experience every step of the way, and I just keep learning.
Who are the book designers you look up to?
I would say Chip Kidd tops the list... he is the definition of a book designer. Other than that, I admire all designs, some of the most classic designs I look up to come out of Chronicle, Penguin and Random House. They have amazing designs, and I can only hope to compete on their level with every one of my designs. How many of the books you design covers for do you read?
Unfortunately, I don’t get to read a lot of the books before I design the covers. Our editors provide us with cover information, the character descriptions, setting, time period and mood. A lot of times when we are designing covers, the manuscript isn’t ready yet. I do like to go back and I try to read every book, which is why currently I am reading three books... gets a bit crazy.
Is there any book for which you have a burning desire to rework the cover?
Oh geeze, any book from my first year in book design. I am still generally okay with my covers, there are a few that when I look at them, I think, “Oh, I could have done so much better...” but that is the beast that is book design. Like I said before, they are around for always, I see them over and over again, but when I compare them to what I do now, I see how far I have come. All I can think is that with each title and each cover it is a new challenge and a learning experience, and I can only get better. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us, Dawn!
Dude, I would buy that Japanese edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a heartbeat... sadly, it's not a real book.
According to Cinematical, artist Mitch Ansara created these images for his "Make Something Cool Every Day" project. They're a collection of fake, 1960s-style book covers for an imaginary series of literary adaptations of popular movies. Head over to Ansara's site to see better versions of the above covers, as well as several more titles.
We got an e-mail from Sourcebooks yesterday, letting us know the cover art for Georgette Heyer's The Unfinished Clue featured in our 2009 Preview is actually out of date. They've chosen new cover art, and while I liked the old cover quite a bit, I think this image is more eye-catching:
It doesn't have anything to do with the story, from what I remember, but it looks great! Seriously, I can't wait for these releases—The Unfinished Clue is due out on March 1st.
I was so turned off by the cover art for Kelley Armstrong’s Personal Demon that I didn’t even feel like requesting a review copy, much less actually purchasing one. This is no reflection on Ms. Armstrong’s considerable writing skills, but an expression of my unwillingness to be seen reading anything that looked so much like an X-rated version of those R.L. Stine Goosebumps books that were popular when I was in elementary school:
See what I mean? The neon font (which is even brighter in real life)! The vaguely sexual pose involving a young woman feeling up a gargoyle! Why have Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld covers gotten steadily worse over the course of her career? Shouldn’t the opposite be true? She’s a big-name author now!
Anyway, I stuck to my guns for over a year, but eventually my mother bought a paperback copy, and I folded like a cheap suit. It was there and it was free, so I read it, my stance on butt-ugly cover art be damned. And you know what I discovered? Not only is the cover hideous, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the book. Nobody fondles a gargoyle in this story, and I’m pretty sure the heroine, half-demon tabloid reporter Hope Adams, never wears a strapless leather corset. Instead, Personal Demon is another entertaining installment in Armstrong’s horror/romance/suspense series, with a complex, well-structured plot that owes a considerable debt to The Godfather. (It focuses on a conflict between the “Cabal”—Armstrong’s supernatural mafia—and a Miami gang of otherworldly young thugs.)
I’m not sure who makes cover art decisions, but I hope whoever made this one has found a different line of work. Because when Laurell K. Hamilton’s most recent release (Blood Noir) has a cover that is both more interesting and less kinky than that of a Kelley Armstrong book, something is seriously amiss with the publishing world.
Got blank walls and literary tastes? Art.com is having a 20% off sale today, and they carry a much wider variety of titles than Urban Outfitters did when they offered an identical line of book-art-inspired posters:
All three of these posters are 23" X 33", and they all cost $29.99 (disregarding the sale).
When Mary Street’s The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy was first published in the U.K. in 1999, it looked like this:
Now, almost ten years later, it is finally being published in the United States. The new edition from Penguin looks like this:
Quite a step up, huh? The new version is a much better fit for Street’s novel, which is one of the best Pride and Prejudice-inspired titles I have ever read. Unlike many of the novels that have re-told Austen’s story from Darcy’s point of view, Ms. Street’s novel is G-rated, well-written, and sticks closely to the Pride and Prejudice storyline. (Unlike some people, Ms. Street obviously understands that most readers are only mildly interested in a creative interpretation of what Darcy does during the time he is absent from the original novel.)
The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy has its flaws: Street’s attempt to imitate Austen’s style results in a lot of strange grammar choices, and her vision of Mr. Darcy as a man of overpowering-but-ruthlessly-suppressed passion gets a little silly. (He’s like a pot about to boil over, all of the time.) Still, Ms. Street’s novel is extremely entertaining, and American readers should be delighted that this well-written Austen tribute is now available—and with such respectable cover art.
We're a little behind on the calendar, so I was surprised to learn that Kelley Armstrong's new book Personal Demon is already out... and I was even more surprised to learn that this is the cover:
A babe in a vinyl dress, fondling a gargoyle? What on earth were they THINKING? Kelley Armstrong's old covers all looked more or less like this. Don't covers usually get more tasteful as the author becomes better known, rather than tackier?
Note: On the upside, I hear she's about to come out with a young adult series, which I am totally stoked to see!
Lynsay Sands is a fun writer, and her Argeneau Vampire series is totally cute. (Seriously—pleasant, non-violent, Canadian vampires! They're adorable!) Unfortunately, I'm seeing a disturbing trend here:
This came out in early 2004. Sands's books are pretty cartoonish, so this seems like a good fit for the series:
And then this came out in late 2005. I'm not crazy about the more dramatic look, but the book's kind of working it. (Although... is that guy wearing blush?):
And then this just came out this year. Frankly, I am appalled:
What happened? Even I, seasoned romance-novel-purchaser that I am, would hesitate to bring this up to the counter. What's up with that guy's HAIR? (Are we supposed to find that greasy-looking mullet attractive?) And that pose is ridiculous—the couple looks like they're posing for one of those advertisements for sexual instructional videos you see in the back pages of women's health magazines.
I am very disappointed. I recently went on a quest to find an attractive, non-battered copy of Gene Stratton-Porter's deliciously over-the-top novel A Girl of the Limberlost, and this—this!—was my best option:
Adding insult to injury, the publisher describes Stratton-Porter's book in exactly one line: "The story of Elnora, who collects moths to pay for her education, and lives the Golden Rule." While there's nothing out-and-out wrong with that sentence, neither it nor the insipid cover art give the slightest hint of this book's soap-opera-worthy charms.
A Girl of the Limberlost was published in 1909, and is set in rural Indiana. Impossibly noble teenager Elnora Comstock lives on the edge of the Limberlost Swamp with her widowed mother, Katharine. Elnora's mother alternately neglects and abuses her, blaming her only child for the death of her husband—see, Katharine was unable to save her husband from drowning before her eyes, as she was busy giving birth to Elnora at the time. Determined to attend high school (and equally determined not to ask her mother for help), Elnora discovers that she can pay her way through school by collecting and selling moths. Elnora does eventually win her mother's love (after a neighbor helpfully informs Katherine that her husband was cheating on her before his death), but this is only the beginning of her troubles....
Come ON, publishers! This is a book about passion, crazed resentment, unbridled sentimentality! It doesn't need prim, squeaky-clean cover art, it needs something almost pre-Raphaelite. Something more like this:
Only, y'know, with swamps and stuff. And no dead girls.
And speaking of new and improved cover art, somebody has FINALLY done a makeover on L.M. Montgomery's novels. Behold the New Canadian Library's versions of Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon:
Not exactly mind-blowing, but I think everyone will agree they're an improvement over these:
Unfortunately, they only seem to be offering books from these two series, and American readers probably need to special-order them from a Canadian bookstore. So we're still stuck waiting for an American publisher to give all of Montgomery's books a much-needed facelift... but this is definitely a step in the right direction!
I'm normally a little irritated when a paperback author re-releases previously-inexpensive older material in new, pricier editions. (See: Meg Cabot, whose The Boy Next Door was previously available for FREE on her website, and Nora Roberts, who's re-released a zillion of her old standalone titles in new hardcover editions.) Still, I can forgive a lot when the author in question is Jennifer Crusie, and even more when the hardcover in question is as pretty as this one:
I don't like the font they used for the title, but I love everything else. Plus, it's only $16.95 (less online), which isn't TOO bad for a hardback.
Okay, everybody, can you pick out the REAL Gorey cover?
Seriously, just look at them. It's not that I don't like the Gorey-esque covers - on the contrary, I think they're remarkably eye-catching - but I'm pretty sure Mr. Gorey's estate could sue (if he had any heirs, which I don't think he did).
At the very least, the cover artists should make a symbolic donation to the Edward Gorey House.
I've been waiting a long time for somebody to give Lucy Maud Montgomery's books new cover art. I've seen a few decent-looking editions of Anne of Green Gables recently, but nobody seems to be leaping to renovate Montgomery's lesser-known works... with one happy exception: my favorite of her independent stories, The Blue Castle. Here's the butt-ugly edition of my childhood, which, sadly, is still widely available:
And here's the new version:
Not exactly mind-blowing, but way better, huh? Tasteful and grown-up. I'm not sure how widely available this edition is in the U.S.*, but you could probably special-order it. This charming, funny, starry-eyed romance is totally worth the effort of a little hunting.
*The big online stores say they have it, but let's face it: they lie.
We've blogged before about Penguin's Graphics Classics reprints, but their recent edition of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers is so awesome that it's worthy of its own post:
Dumas's story is pretty cartoonish anyway, so it's a great fit with this cover art.
Okay, I am now convinced that there is a place where you can have bad covers designed for you on purpose! Because, without fail, Jayne Ann Krentz finds the world's worst covers for her Ghost Hunter series:
See? A cover that aggressively bad can't be an accident.
There is also a YouTube video that goes along with the release of Ms. Krentz's book:
I thought the video was insane, but Julia seemed to have a bigger problem with that Silver Master title.
They look just like James Bond covers... if James Bond covers had been drawn by the people who draw the cover art for sewing patterns.
There are at least three books in this series--they're written by different authors, but but they're all campy spy spoofs featuring "B.L.I.S.S.", a top-secret crime-fighting organization run largely by women. So far I've only been able to find Lynsay Sands's The Loving Daylights (a gleefully ridiculous story with a hero named Abel Andretti and a villain named Dirk Ensecksi), but I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for the rest.
