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THE MAKING OF A COVER by Nancy Mercado

Mention the words photo shoot to some people and they will instantly say how glamorous it sounds. And there certainly is something exciting about working together with a photographer and a designer to create something beautiful. But it’s not like we are all sitting around sipping cocktails. There’s a lot of work that goes into a photo shoot for a book cover!  

For the jacket of The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines we had an amazing team of people working together. Here’s how it all went down:

First, there were the cover concepts. (From our fantastic and inspired designer Alexander Garkusha)

 Then came the searching for just the right model. (And a model who was actually in NYC and not off on a modeling job in Europe. Enter Tsarina Merrin!)

 Then came the props:

 This camera was my grandfather’s. I thought it might work as a prop. (It didn’t.)

 This is Alex’s camera from Russia. (We used it in the shoot but didn’t wind up using any of those images.) 

This is the phone and fake newspaper (no actual paper inside!) we rented from Eclectic/Encore props.

Then came the picking out of clothes over email. (Courtesy of the photographer Michael Frost and his lovely assistant Nicky.)

 This shirt looked pretty, but wound up being too fussy for the photoshoot.

Then came the nervous googling of victory roll tutorials on YouTube the night before the shoot. (What if the stylist didn’t have any experience with that kind of hairstyle? I started fretting.)

Then came the stylist. (Who was awesome and knew how to apply just enough mak

CINDER by Marissa Meyer is probably one of the most anticipated titles for us in 2012. And we want to get the buzz going on this fantastic book and series that combines fairy tales, the future and space. This is not your ordinary fairy-tale retelling...

So watch this space for the big cover reveal later today at 5PM EST.

In the meantime, here are some "rejected" covers that we will be posting throughout the day to whet your appetite and for you to guess what the story is all about....

Marissa was able to get some friends to help out with our cover reveal and they drew up some ideas of what they would have the Cinder cover look like.

First Cover: The Pumpkin Carriage Spaceship by Leilani Adams

Second Cover: The Prince Charming Alien Abduction by Kaya Aman

Stay tuned for cover #3!

Liz Szabla, Editor-in-chief of the Feiwel and Friends imprint, gives us the inside scoop about the cover for The Girl Who Became a Beatle:

Every once in a while, a book comes along that demands a cover image outside the realm of stock photography. You know those sites—Corbis and the like—where many art directors and designers go for book jacket ideas and images. Why? Because it’s cheaper than setting up a photo shoot. Hiring the photographer, hiring models, renting props—photo shoots can be expensive.

But sometimes, a book needs an original cover. One with an image never before seen. Or, in the case of Greg Taylor’s The Girl Who Became a Beatle, an image that is a play on an iconic album cover.

My husband, Gary Spector, has been a professional photographer his entire career. In the 20 years we’ve been together, I’ve seen his industry change radically—and digital photography is only the tip of the iceberg.

When our creative director, Rich Deas, and our group were brainstorming cover ideas for Girl Who Became a Beatle, we couldn’t resist riffing on that fabulous image from “Meet the Beatles”—the portrait of four young, beautiful guys shot against a dark background.

Rich talked to Gary about it, and they worked out a concept. But when we started looking at models for the two teen girls and two teen boys in the book, we were underwhelmed. This has happened to us before—sometimes, professional models look too…perfect. Too coiffed, too polished, too unapproachable. The result can be, well, vacant.

Our characters for Girl Who Became a Beatle are anything but two-dimensional, and we realized we needed real kids—approachable, attentive, and adorable. Luckily, our MacKids family proved a treasure trove of personality. The kids on the cover are (from left to right): Emma, daughter of Feiwel and Friends publisher Jean Feiwel, Carmean and Walker, daughter and son of our marketing director Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, and Chad, Rich’s niece’s boyfriend (sadly, now her ex-boyfriend). Does Chad look familiar? He’s also the “face” of Feiwel & Friend’s Wereling books by Steve Feasey, as well as the guy behind the freaky glasses on the cover of Andrew Smith’s The Marbury Lens.

Gary loved working with these models. If I do say so myself, he has a way with people, and soon into the shoot, the models were comfortable and connecting with their characters, but also not afraid to let their own spirits shine through. The result is dazzling!

—Liz Szabla

The Girl Who Became a Beatle

By Greg Taylor

On Sale in Hardcover and Paperback today!