Of all the things authors get blamed (and sometimes praised) for in their books,
the covers are where we have the least control. I've had people tell me what I
should have the publisher put on my books instead (yeah, I'll get right on
that). I've even run into people who assume I draw the covers myself. If authors
are lucky, we get asked what ideas we have for the book covers. If we're really,
really lucky, the publishers consider the input we give them.
I
recently caught up with young adult fantasy authors
Holly Black and
Sarah Rees Brennan during
their book tour, and they shared some fun stories about book cover development.
Even as a bestselling author,
Holly Black doesn't get to
dictate what goes on her covers, but she did get to attend the photo shoot for
her most recent release,
White Cat. The cover has a picture of a dangerous-looking man in
black leather holding a white cat. Holly said she was surprised to learn that
the cat used for the photo shoot wasn't a "professional" model cat who was
accustomed to being in that environment. The cat was the pet of someone who
worked at the publishing house. And the cat was not happy about being there. The
model was lucky that his costume involved a leather jacket and gloves because
the cat had its claws out, and the cat was so busy staring at the model with
intense loathing that they never got a good shot of the cat facing the camera,
in spite of the cat's owner being on hand to coax it into cooperation.
Sarah Rees Brennan also
had some interesting cover stories. The hardcover edition of her book
THE DEMON'S LEXICON had a
close-up image of a young man's face. For the paperback release, they changed
the cover entirely. They wanted a more action-oriented cover, and the original
cover image they sent her showed a young man holding a sword -- and that was it,
just sort of holding the sword like it was maybe too heavy, not holding the
sword like he knew how to use it and maybe even planned to use it, and soon. She
suggested to the publisher that he look like he was ready for action with his
sword. On the final cover, he seems to be threatening someone with his sword, so
it looks like Sarah won.
For her
most recent release,
THE
DEMON'S COVENANT, the publisher sent her proofs from the photo shoot, but
she was surprised by how few there were, since they usually take tons of photos
at these shoots. When she asked about it, she learned that to get the effect of
the model's skirt floating around her, they had the model jump on a trampoline,
and they took photos while the model was in the air. Unfortunately, the
combination of a short dress and a trampoline meant that most of the photos
turned out to be rather indecent. On the final cover, the model looks nicely
windblown but fully covered.
You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but sometimes there's a good
story behind that cover.
Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is the
author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York City, a
magical NYC. Visit her
website or blog
for more information.
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