Cover art

[serria]

There was a little bit of discussion on Fandom!Secrets about book cover art. I guess a lot of new authors have the misconception that their publisher will let them have some say in the cover art - but unfortunately, it seems that authors have next to no input. Cover artists are, if I understand correctly, usually given a short summary of the book or a scene, and told to go from there.

I admit, if I'm in a book store glancing around at thousands of books, it's going to be the cover art that makes me notice a certain book. I think that's normal - I don't have time to read the back of every book just to give them a fair chance. But I once heard a fantasy/sci-fi author speak, and he mentioned how horrified he was his first couple books at the atrocious art (and that was in the 80s, and there is nothing like 1980s cover art), and I wonder how many awesome books have been screwed over by a terrible cover. Or maybe a cover did successfully get a potential reader's attention, but the author feels like it doesn't represent his or her work.

Anyone have any experiences?

What's the worst cover art you've seen?

How about the best?

If your novel was published, what would you want to be the cover art?

Comments

[ljwrites]

Thanks for empathizing! It might in fact be a boon for certain kinds of subject matter, since it might imply familiarity with certain groups' experiences. On the other hand Arthur Golden did just fine writing Memoirs of a Geisha (and also pissed off his protagonist's real-life model by casting her mentor as the villainous Hatsumomo, or so I heard).

Serious question, if you self published, would you design your own cover? Or get a friend to do it or something?

I can actually answer that non-hypothetically! My husband and I are self-publishing a crowdfunded Korean translation of the indie roleplaying game Polaris, now in the layout correction stage. We're lucky enough to have a very talented and dedicated designer working with us, so she pitched some cover art candidates and we kicked around ideas until we settled on a design. It's going to be an abstract cover with a white star on a black background, though ironically we have a ton of great character art in the book itself. (See the crowdfunding page for a couple of examples. I should warn you the second image is violent.) Part of the issue is cost, since a black cover with a glossy white design is cheaper to make than, say, a full-color illustration. Partly because it looks tasteful and restrained. Come to think of it I don't think we even considered having any characters on the cover, lol.