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I had the chance to hang out with
Jessi Kirby in Houston last year, and I can confirm that she is fantastic and fun and smart and all the things she seems to be. Also, her book,
In Honor, contains a Tim Riggins type. SOLD. (Read a review from
A Book and a Latte.)
Here's Jessi to talk about the cover:
"My publisher asked for input before they got to work on the cover, and I said 'It’d be really great if you could somehow include the car, (which is a 67 Chevy Impala), and Honor in her dress and red cowboy boots.'
"When I saw the cover, I absolutely LOVED it. Truly, madly, deeply loved it. From the font, to the car, to the boots, it was EXACTLY what I was hoping for..."
But of course there were a couple of changes! Read Jessi's full story on
melissacwalker.com.
Jo Knowles is here to talk about her latest novel,
See You at Harry's. (Read a rave review on
Stacked, and note that it got a star from
Kirkus!)
"I think I imagined [the cover as] an image of the restaurant described in the book [as I was writing]. Or the family posing for their annual Christmas card. But… nothing really concrete. I was just hoping whatever it was, I would love it.
"My publisher didn't ask for input. But I gave a few suggestions when I was arguing to keep the title, which is another whole story.
"When I first saw the cover, I felt... Relief! I thought the image was perfect. I liked that the background was blue, not pink. I liked that it wasn’t an image of a sad or lonely girl. I loved that the empty dish had two spoons, not one. I felt that the image captured the mood of the book just right, without giving too much away..."
Read the rest of Jo's Cover Story, and see the cover that a big book chain didn't love, at
melissacwalker.com.
Matthew Quick is here to talk about the cover of his latest (and incredibly great) novel:
"The idea I pitched for the cover of
Boy21 was a shot of Finley and Russ from the neck down. Finley would have been in his team uniform and holding a basketball. Russ would have been in his space costume and holding his makeshift astronaut helmet. I still think that would have been a good cover, but I have to admit that what the designer came up with was much much better. Maybe this is why I am a fiction writer and not a jacket designer!
"When I saw the design, I yelled, 'YES!' Alicia [his wife] came running into my office to see why I was yelling, looked at the image on my computer screen, and said, 'That's so much better than what you pitched them. That cover is amazing! Amazing!' It was a happy day.
"At one point they changed the photo of Russ, who is depicted on the cover. The photo they swapped in featured an older-looking teen who appeared harder and maybe even menacing. It didn't look like Russ at all. I immediately wrote an e-mail explaining why the original photo captured Russ perfectly. The teen on the cover now has an intensity--especially if you look into his eyes--but he also looks a little vulnerable and as if he would be a complex person. Russ is a very complex character, who is troubled, but is also wise and compassionate and intuitive. I believe there was a meeting regarding which photo to use and, happily, everyone at Little, Brown agreed..."
Read the rest of Matthew's Cover Story on
melissacwalker.com.
PS-Trailer!
The fantastic
Elizabeth Eulberg is here to share the story of her latest cover.
Take a Bow is told in four points of view (so hard!) and I've heard only raves about how awesome this book is (
MTV's Crush gave it a standing ovation). YES! Also, the cover is blindingly eye-catching, no? Here's Elizabeth:
"I usually don't start thinking about the cover until I'm almost done with the book. I didn't really have a clear idea of the cover until I had the title (the book was untitled for awhile). Then once we settled on Take a Bow as the title, I automatically envisioned a cover very similar to the final cover. It's really freaky how in sync the book designer (the fabulous Elizabeth Parisi), my editor (David Levithan), and I are. We've been on the same page for all of my books. Just the other day, I told David my thoughts on the cover for my next book and they were already mocking up covers with the exact same concept - scary! The only difference between my idea for
Take a Bow and Scholastic's was that I was picturing four people 'taking a bow' to reflect a key scene in the book, but I think the one person is more dramatic and personal.
"I really don't like having faces on covers of books, it's just a personal preference I've always had..."
Read the rest of
Elizabeth's Cover Story on melissacwalker.com.
And read about
her newly redesigned paperback cover here!
Congrats to Elizabeth on her new release,
Revenge of the Girl With the Great Personality! Read her
amazing twitter #GreatPersonality roundup.
Jen Calonita shared a fun Cover Story here a while ago,
for Reality Chick, and she's back, yay! The first book in the
Belles series is, well,
Belles. Here's Jen to talk about the cover:
"Designer Tracy Shaw has worked on all my
Secrets of My Hollywood Life covers and did
Sleepaway Girls as well so to be honest, I wasn't really worried about the design--I knew she'd come up with something beautiful.
"The team is always nice enough to tell me what they're thinking, and I figure they know best so go with it! The only concern I had when they were doing this cover was who the cover model was going to be. I had hoped she'd resemble one of the two protagonists--Mira or Izzie. This cover definitely feels like Mira to me--a true Southern belle. There will be four books in the Belles series and each cover will feature a different girl from the series. Hopefully Izzie will get her turn at some point! The Winter White cover (Belles 2, out this October) features a girl who looks like Savannah, Mira's best friend (well, best friend when we start out in book one!).
"The girl on the cover is a real model! I know that because she actually friended me on Facebook and told me this was her first photo shoot..."
Read the rest of
Jen's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
Susane was here last year to
talk about the original hardcover (pictured below) and now she's back to discuss the brand spanking new paperback version (left):
"Can I just say how much I adore the shiny new paperback cover of
So Much Closer?
"This is the first time one of my book covers changed from the hardcover to paperback edition. I loved that the photo shoot for the
So Much Closer hardcover was done on the High Line. The High Line is my favorite place here in New York. It plays a big role in the book and has a really unique energy. But my publisher received feedback that the original cover (right) was too street..."
Read the rest of
Susane's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
You guys, I'm reading
Miranda Kenneally's
Catching Jordan right now, and it's filling my
Friday Night Lights void! Yay! Here's Miranda with her Cover Story:
"I imagined my main character, Jordan, lying head-to-toe in a patch of grass with her best friend, Sam Henry. She’d be holding a football and he would be playing with some white clover.
"[My publisher] didn’t ask for input, but I couldn’t have been happier with the first options I saw.
"There were three options, and I didn’t have any comments other than, 'I love them!'
Read the rest of Miranda's Cover Story, and see previous cover tries for the book, at
melissacwalker.com.
I've got a new copy of Melissa Kantor's
The Darlings in Love, and she's here to share the Cover Story! Here's Melissa:
"I had a
fantasy of the cover, which might be different from an idea. When I was a kid, there was this book
Forever, by Judy Blume. On the cover was a locket with a picture of a girl's face, and when you opened the cover, you saw more of that picture--the girl's whole body, the boy she was standing with, etc. It was this amazing reveal. Well, since pearl pendants play a big role in the story of the Darlings, I wanted the cover to picture a chain with a pearl on it, and when you opened the cover, you saw that the pearl was actually on a girl's neck and that girl was standing with her two best friends. There's a name for that (a cutaway? something like that). But my editor said that covers like that tend to snag and rip and that's a real problem. As happens with so many things in life, reality intruded on fantasy.
"Once the pearl necklace idea was nixed, I think we discussed there being three of something, to symbolize the thee Darlings. The only thing I
didn't want was three cupcakes. There are a lot of cupcake covers out there."
"When I first saw my cover, I
hated it. I am not exaggerating. I remember calling my editor and making it clear that I was
furious. I was like, This is the
worst cover! What were you thinking? I
hate this cover, etc. She's a very calm, rational person, and she tried to get me to be specific, so I more or less listed everything about the cover (from the font to the color to the cookies) and said why I hated it..."
Read the rest of Melissa's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Mari Mancusi has written a ton of YA novels, the latest of which are the Blood Coven series [
read those Cover Stories]. Her very first Young Adult book, though, was
Sk8er Boy. Now it's out of print and she's got the e-rights, so she was able to create her own updated cover. Cool, right? Here's Mari with the story:
"You never forget your first. And for me, that was
Sk8er Boy. My first true love and the title of my first young adult romance, published in 2005. Perhaps the most autobiographical book I've ever written, it's a sort of Romeo and Juliet with text messaging.
"I originally sold the book to Dorchester, a romance publisher who had just introduced a new line of young adult books called Smooch. I had done one other romance for them, but this was my first teen book. So you can imagine how excited I was to see the cover.
"It looks pretty silly now (right), but you have to remember, at the time, those iPod commercials (see below) were really big and so I guess the artist felt it would appeal to a teen crowd. Still, though I knew it was trendy, I never felt as if it captured the feel of my actual book. It's not romantic, for one thing. It's not sweet. You don't get a good feel for the plot or characters. Oh and I hate the girl's purse! At the time, everyone had hobo bags and large purses--hers looks like something out of the late eighties. As does her outfit...
Read the rest of Mari's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Publisher's Weekly named
Jenny Hubbard's debut a
Flying Start last spring, and summarized the novel thusly:
"Set in the early 1980s,
Paper Covers Rock is structured as the journal of 16-year-old Alex No Middle Name Stromm, who is holding onto some secrets about the recent drowning death of one of his classmates."
The title and cover caught my attention, and here's Jenny to explain that gazing boy from
Paper Covers Rock:
"I didn’t envision a cover while I was writing, but after I found out it was going to be published, I envisioned a black-and-white photograph of three boys in silhouette on a rock, their backs to the viewer.
"All I said [to my publisher] was, 'Please don’t put a face on my narrator.'
"The cover that is currently on the book is not the first one that was designed for the book. The first one caused me to burst into tears--truly. It was entirely wrong, both in mood and character depiction. What the reader would have seen was a free-spirited, smiling, skater-dude boy in mid-jump over water..."
Read the rest of Jenny's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
The lovely
Laura Resau has a new book out! The Jade Notebook is the third in her beautiful series about Zeeta (read her
Cover Story for The Indigo Notebook).
Kirkus Reviews says, "In this third in a series of novels focusing on Zeeta and her wanderlust-stricken mother, readers are immersed in the details of a lovingly described coastal town in Mexico and an action-filled mystery surrounding the poaching of ancient sea turtles that make their home there... a graceful conclusion to Zeeta’s story."
Here's Laura to tell the tale of the cover:
"I'm happy and honored to be back on your blog, Melissa--I could spend all day reading these fascinating
cover stories!
"
The Jade Notebook is the third and final book in the travel-adventure-themed Notebooks series, each of which is set in a different country. The series went through a few different cover looks over the past few years. If you're curious, you can read the story behind the hardcover look of the first in the series,
The Indigo Notebook,
here. For that cover, my publisher, Delacorte, did a photo shoot of an open, vintage-style suitcase containing items that evoked each different setting..."
Read the rest of Laura's Cover Story on
melissacwalker.com.
Arlaina Tibensky's debut novel sounds like something I need on top of my pile. ("Sylvia Plath and an old typewriter usher an angsty virgin through the worst summer of her freaking life.") Also, the cover spoke to me. So I spoke to Arlaina about it. Here she is: "I had this fantasy that the cover of
And Then Things Fall Apart was going to be a newer, updated version of a classic
The Bell Jar cover, like the one with the creepy letters and the rose, or the Victoria Lucas (Sylvia’s pen name) with the dark purple letters, or even the cool one with the spirals. Like one of those, but 'updated, for the youth of today!'
"I mentioned my 'Updated, for the youth of today!' idea to my editor… and we never spoke of it again.
"At first first first, I thought the cover was a little too cute. But too cute or not I fell in love, immediately, with the typewriter. The BLUE TYPEWRITER. And my huge ego loved that my name was right there in the middle. I was also happy there were no bodies on it, no anonymous 'teens' acting 'quirky' in stripped tights and pink hair..."
Read the rest of Arlaina's Cover Story on
melissacwalker.com.
Linda Joy Singleton has been here to share her
Cover Story for Dead Girl Walking, and she's back to talk about her latest novel,
Buried: A Goth Girl Mystery:
"For this cover, I actually thought they would show more of a Goth girl. I wanted something with a girl in dark flowy clothes, netting, piercings combined with a mysterious setting. "Flux usually asks me for suggestions and I did a search on Goth girls and sent some of my favorites in as examples. I wanted something beautiful, edgy and mysterious.
"When I first saw the cover, it was a surprise, not what I visualized but dramatic and mysterious...."
Read the rest of Linda Joy's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Today, Shirley Marr is here to share her cover for
Preloved. It's such a sweet title, right? And the concepts are as emotional as the final cover. Here's Shirley:
"I'm a very visual and 'big picture' person, so with every new novel I start, after I come up with the storyline and title (which I make happen at the same time), I look around for an image which I think best sums up what I am trying to write.
Preloved is a vintage-flavoured romantic ghost story with themes of second chances and second hand things. I found a particular image with the theme, motifs (whimsical vintage bike!) and 'feel' I was going for.
"So yes, I make myself an 'unofficial' cover. I don't go as far as putting my own name on it, but the image itself is as influential to me as any notes and research I collect, I will often glance at it for inspiration.
"I didn't have any input into the covers that were created..."
Read the rest of Shirley's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Kirsten Hubbard's Like Mandarin came out in the spring to great buzz. Read bibliophile brouhaha's review for taste of that. The cover always intrigued me for its use of white space and pastels. I think it's lovely.
Here's Kirsten to talk about how it came to be:
"I've always felt like the most iconic images in Like Mandarin are wild girl Mandarin Ramey's long black hair, and the Wyoming badlands where the book takes place. My publisher did offer me input, and I made note of a few covers I really liked, and described the sort of black hair, badlands scene I'd always imagined on the cover of Like Mandarin.
"There's a part in Like Mandarin where Grace's thoughts blank out, then come back as a series of exclamation points instead of words. That's pretty much what happened when I saw my cover. It was taped to the bookshelf in my editor's office the first time I met her. I didn't expect to see it -- nor what I saw! It contained none of the elements I'd suggested, but it was so strong, and simple, and beautiful.
"Interestingly, my editor pulled out the image of another cover they'd been working on: a dark-haired girl from behind, against a backdrop of badlands. If I remember correctly, it was in black and white, and the font (a different one) was some bright color, like pink. It looked like an album cover, while the cover we went with looks almost like a movie poster -- just stronger overall..."
Read the rest of Kirsten's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
Cynthia Leitich Smith is a huge supporter of the YA writing community who truly rocks. I recently wrote a guest post for her awesome blog, Cynsations, about writing "true" vs. "likeable" characters. She also happens to be the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-selling author of the Tantalize series: ETERNAL, TANTALIZE, and BLESSED, Gothic fantasies from Candlewick. TANTALIZE: KIEREN’S STORY, illustrated by Ming Doyle, is a graphic edition in which Cynthia re-envisions her dark fantasy through Wolfish eyes. How cool is that?
Here's Cynthia with the Cover Story for TANTALIZE: KIEREN’S STORY:
"I anticipated that the cover would nod overtly to Kieren’s identity as a human werewolf-hybrid. We often see this with books that involve a shape-shifter protagonist. I tend to prefer those in which it’s more subtle, like Vivian’s wolf shadow on the original cover of Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate (right).
"Usually in shifter books, the transformation is a powerful moment in the story, and as a reader I prefer to experience that in my imagination rather than to be offered a visual up front. However, in my story, because Kieren is a hybrid (and has some issues with that), he doesn’t shapeshift as easily or completely as, say, his mother who has no known homo sapiens heritage.
"I was wary of the idea that the cover might suggest that Kieren would go full Wolf and managing that more delineated duality would be the book’s focus. The story is more of a murder mystery with strong romantic elements than a straight-up creature feature, though certainly creatures abound.
"My first thought when I saw the cover was, He’s a boy. Definitely a boy..."
Read the rest of Cynthia's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
PS-Read the original Cover Stories for
Eternal and
Blessed.
Hi, look at that cover. The title alone intrigued me enough to want to red
Jen Violi's debut, but that cover? I love it!
Jen's here to share the Cover Story:
"I did indeed have my own cover idea, and revealing that will also reveal why I’m a writer and not a designer.
"So, when I was little, my parents had quite a record collection, and I loved listening to so many of them, from
The King and I soundtrack to Vicki Carr or Frank Sinatra or, my absolute favorite:
Aunt Carmela’s Italian Favorites. So many gems on there,
my favorites from Lou Monte. And the cover, priceless. Which of course I have to show you here. Please note the fabulousness of Aunt Carmela, right.
"Believe it or not, as I was writing
Putting Makeup on Dead People, I had a distinct vision for the cover to feature Aunt Carmela. As an enlivened corpse. Basically, my vision involved Aunt Carmela, sitting much like she is on the chaise lounge on the album cover, but instead, on a coroner’s metal slab, with a white sheet draped over her body, sitting up and grinning out at us. Why, one might wonder, would I think that was a good idea?"
Read the rest of Jen's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Beth Kephart has shared many Cover Stories in this space--for Undercover and House of Dance, for Nothing But Ghosts and for The Heart is Not a Size. Her latest novel is high in my pile, and it should be in yours too! I dare you to read a Beth Kephart book and not sigh at the beauty of her words. She's truly a poet (check out her blog for proof).
Here's Beth talking about the cover of her new novel, You Are My Only:
"For many months I have wondered just how I would write this cover story. In some ways, I still don’t know quite what to say.
"Should I start with the title, You Are My Only, which sets the mood? And if I start with the title, then aren’t I really starting (or shouldn’t I start) by thanking my agent, Amy Rennert, and her colleague, Robyn Russell, who helped me toward knowing what the title must be during a week of grave uncertainty?
"You Are My Only, then—a title that I was helped toward. Words that struck me once, and strike me again today, as singular and brave.
"To create the image, we turned, of course, to Neil Swaab, who had designed the gorgeous cover for Dangerous Neighbors [read that Cover Story on bn.com], and who seems to get books the moment he reads them—seems to settle on that symbol or scene that obsessed the writer or, in this case, kept the writer going. Both of my protagonists—Sophie and Emmy—are caught inside worlds, trapped in places they should not be. Both look out through windows on people and places just out of reach. What might symbolize that? What single image might tell the story of two young women separated by time and place and hurt?"
Read the rest of Beth's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
Back in 2009, Nina Malkin talked to me about the gorgeous cover for Swoon, and now the sequel is here with another enticing cover image.
Here's Nina:
"Writing is intensely present for me. With SWEAR I was so in the moment of the action and emotion as it unfurled, no way was I thinking about the cover. I was lucky if I thought about lunch. Besides, it’s such a privilege to be able to publish, I trust the pros at Simon & Schuster to do what they think is best for a book, and that includes the cover. After all, once you deliver a novel it’s no longer this magical collaboration between your conscious and your subconscious—it’s a product.
"Of course, I didn’t always have such a laissez-faire attitude. My first novel, 6X: The Uncensored Confessions, was about a band. Unbeknownst to me the publisher did an expensive photo shoot—too bad the girl on the cover looked more like a cheap hooker than rock chick (right). I threw some major hissy but got nowhere. And if I thought that cover sucked, the next one was worse. That’s when I realized the novels weren’t 'mine' anymore; I had to let them go..."
Read the rest of Nina's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
The amazing Robin Wasserman is back to share the story of the cover--and title!--changes for her latest trilogy. Here goes:
"The last time I got to pontificate on this blog, I talked about how much I loved the cover my publisher had come up with (true) and how much we’d struggled to come up with the right title for the book (also true), and then ended with this: 'My editor promised me that after a few weeks of looking at SKINNED on the cover, I wouldn’t be able to imagine the book being titled anything else. She was right.'
"As they say…famous last words.
"Because fast forward three years later, and these books are getting brand new covers. And brand new titles to go with them.
"And I couldn’t be happier.
"Not that I didn’t like the original look for the trilogy, but who doesn’t love a makeover? (You’re talking to a girl who spent all of high school convinced that if she whipped off her glasses and shook out her ponytail in just the right way, she might become homecoming queen.) (Didn’t happen.)
"My editor first contacted me about the repackage about a year and a half ago (which means before the third book in the trilogy even came out!), and as I had the first time around, I jumped at the chance to weigh in:
'I'm so excited about the idea for new covers for these books! I'm the first to admit that I'm visually/artistically challenged, to put it mildly, but since you kindly asked if I had any thoughts on the subject, I took a look around to see what jumped out at me, and actually, I found that everything I gravitated toward had a sort of similar look, so I'm sending them along to you, in case anything sparks your imagination. You'd mentioned you were thinking iconic, which I think is a cool idea -- and I'm wondering what you think about using the *body* as a object, so to speak (ie instead of a chair or an apple or whatever), since that really gets at the heart of the trilogy.
I'm not talking about headless girl parts, so much as something like this - or even this.
In a sort of similar vein.
"We were all agreed that we wanted to move away from the photographic look of the original covers and find some kind of object that would really capture the theme of the trilogy. My editor and designer weren’t sure my idea of using the human body would work, so they suggested we try to find objects the evoked the same feel. I loved the way they were approaching it:
"'We’ve been talking a lot about the ideas of frailty v strength, something beautiful masking something unnatural, rebirth, etc—all with an iconic approach.' ---my awesome editor
"They told me they were going to look around from some stock photos of things that might capture this frailty/strength, natural/artificial divide, like cracked eggshells, frozen flowers, and silhouetted fruit.
"Which I thought was a great idea…but not as great as the idea they sent over a couple weeks later..."
Read the rest of Robin's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.
Keris Stainton was here last year to share the
Cover Story for Della Says: OMG!, and now she's back with the tale of
Jessie ♥ NYC!
Here's Keris:
"I didn't really think about the cover when I was writing the book -- I'd made a collage so I just pictured that... although it did have the Empire State Building smack bang in the middle!
"After I'd delivered the book I actually dreamed the cover and the title. I told my editor and she asked me to send over the details, so I made a few mock-ups and she loved them.
"The first version I saw was black and white (right) and then the next one was gold, but not as fabulously shiny as the finished product...
Read the rest of Keris's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Regina Roff designs book covers for Bloomsbury/Walker, and she was the one who created the final version of Lauren Baratz-Logstead's
Little Women and Me (read that
Cover Story from Lauren's POV).
Now Regina's here to share her side of that cover's story, and share a few other covers she's been working on (like that gorgeous one at left):
"When I came onto
Little Women and Me, it was already started by another designer. It was one of the first books I worked on at Bloomsbury/Walker, so it was a really exciting project for me. The art director explained the story to me loosely and showed me a few of the original cover comps (like the one posted below, right). The team liked that direction but they also wanted to see some other options.
"So, I sat down and read the story, to get a feel for the tone, mood, etc of the novel. I was instantly transported into the world that Lauren Baratz-Logsted created! I wanted to capture the feeling of being from the outside looking in on this classic story of LITTLE WOMEN. At first, most of my cover comps were similar to what had already been tried: they featured images of girls reading, etc. Then I thought it'd be interesting to see the main character sort of 'spying' on the characters in LITTLE WOMEN. I had a few options where a girl pulled back a curtain on a scene of LITTLE WOMEN, but they didn't have the impact I was hoping for. After looking and looking for more 'spying' images, I ended up finding the image on the final cover, the girl popping through a piece of paper. That's where everything started coming together, with the original LITTLE WOMEN artwork and the modern girl coming through the page...."
Read the rest of this Cover Story, and see more of Regina's great designs, at
melissacwalker.com.
Sarah Beth Durst has shared the Cover Stories for her novels
Enchanted Ivy and
Ice, and now she's here to tell her perspective on the scintillating cover of
Drink, Slay, Love."Creating the cover for DRINK, SLAY, LOVE was a traumatic experience. The problem began when the vampire hired to pose as Pearl came to the photo shoot hungry. She drained three assistants before someone had the presence of mind to pass her the bottle of donated blood that you see on the cover. The photographer snapped shots of her as she sated the last of her hunger with the bottled blood. Though they'd originally planned for a panorama, he was forced to do a close-up due to the carnage that littered the studio behind her.
"Okay, that's not true. She only drank from two people and both survived..."
Read the rest of Sarah's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com.
Eileen Cook has been here before, sharing Cover Stories for
What Would Emma Do?,
The Education of Hailey Kendrick and
Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood (all awesome tales, btw). Her new release is
Unraveling Isobel, and there's a rainbow Cover Story to tell:
"When I finished this book I was certain I knew what should be on the cover. I pictured a creepy gothic house perched on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean. I’d been imagining the house in the book for so long I could imagine it perfectly. I’d even drawn floor plans of the house when writing the book. Of course the problem with having this type of clear vision, it’s really hard to find something in the real world that matches.
"I’m incredibly lucky to work with the team at Simon Pulse. They always invite me to participate in the cover design process. They talk to me not only about what I imagine the cover looking at, but also the feeling I want the cover to impart. My cover designer, Cara Petrus, wanted to make sure that the cover had some of the creepy gothic feel, but also wasn’t too dark as the book has humor too. Cara picked up on Isobel’s interest in art and also her feeling of being trapped..."
Read the rest of Eileen's Cover Story, and see the other color scheme possibilities, at
melissacwalker.com.
Diva Holly Cupala was here to talk about the cover of her debut novel,
Tell Me a Secret. Now, her second novel,
Don't Breathe a Word, is out this month, and it has a cover that manages to convey both darkness and sparkle! Here's Holly with the Cover Story:
"After the gorgeous cover HarperTeen put together for
Tell Me a Secret, I knew to expect something fantastic for my second,
Don't Breathe a Word… though it came about in a completely different (and for me, much more nail-biting) way…
"The original working title was
Street Creed, which is what the design team initially had to work with. The first cover concept was… steamy (below). It featured two gorgeous creatures, probably Italian models, who met as if by chance after a swirling, beaded-dress-bedecked night for an almost-kiss. Sigh.
"But it didn’t feel like my book.
"
Don’t Breathe a Word is the story of Joy, who runs away from home to escape an abusive relationship to the streets of Seattle. She finds allies who have secrets of their own, including Creed—a homeless boy who dreams of making it in the music industry.
"There is a steamy relationship (and Creed is swoonworthy!), but there are no beaded dresses. In fact, the only scene where that dress could have appeared was at a fundraiser party where Joy meets her boyfriend Asher—the dark reason she has to leave. Also, I was worried with the final title, it would look like 'Don’t Breathe a Word about that naughty thing we did after the prom.' No. Oh no..."
Read the rest of Holly's Cover Story at
melissacwalker.com, and read about her
amazing launch contest too!
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