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Guest Author: April Martinez

Hello, Friends! April Martinez is someone whose work I’ve always admired. Sure, I may have snarked her in the past once or twice, but she was always a good sport about it. Girl can take her licks and keep on goin’. She currently designs covers for Loose-id and Liquid Silver Books.

The Rejects

People aren’t always pleased with my covers. I have a Cover Rejects folder with nine stillborn concepts. These were not rejected in part, but in their entirety. No small tweaks were required—just an entirely new concept, which meant I had to go right back to the drawing board, start all over again, and trash these nine files. Piss!

This is all part of the business.

But I wanted to share some of these rejects because it’s what any morbid mother would do. “Meet my baby, the one my doctor wanted to shove back in and forget.”

Reject #1: Persuading Jo.

The author’s first of two concepts:

One scene in particular has the heroine reclining on a vintage lounger (possibly wicker?) as she watches the two men be intimate. Some sort of image with a female reclining on a lounger with two men looking on is what I had been envisaging.

First draft:

Publisher’s feedback:

While this is lovely, it’s just not sexy enough to sell the book for Loose Id. It’s too ‘cute’. Sorry!

She was right, of course. It wasn’t sexy enough to make it obvious this is a menage story. So I tried the second concept:

The other I had thought of was a closed shower door showing the shadows of the three characters from the first ménage scene.

This can more easily be made sexy, and bingo! Final draft:


Reject #2: Vixen Virgins.

The authors’ concept:

A bare chested cowboy (with an awesome six pack and ripped muscles of course) with a gunbelt slung low on his hips in black pants with no shirt and a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a rope in the other. He’s wearing a dark hat that shades his face although he has a 5 o’clock shadow. In the right hand side background have an old fashioned steam train—like a ghostly shadow. And on the other side behind him a petticoat on a wooden floor with a bridal bouquet on top—again a ghostly shadow—ya know see through.

My reaction? Yikes. Too much detail for a cover—no way I could fit all of that into the small space with text and still make it look good. Plus, with the art focusing on the cowboy and the title being Vixen Virgins, people might think the cowboy was the virgin.

So I did a stupid thing and came up with something different. No discussion. First draft:


Authors’ feedback:

The clothes and boots are a little too modern for our story, as well as the colors—I was really hoping for a sepia tone. Christy agrees with me on this one—it just doesn’t quite fit the stories. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Could we also make the font a little more feminine—maybe like the one you did for Bone Deep or a Week of Pleasure?

Stupid me. A lengthy discussion took place, and we had this for a final draft:



Reject #3: The Lost One.

Author’s concept:

The first time they make love is in an Egyptian temple, with columns and a pond nearby. This strikes me as being the perfect cover.

First draft:

Publisher’s feedback:

Can we get guy on top? … The guy’s a dominant as far as I know, and that looks a little too carefree.

I wasn’t sure I could find a similar shot of the couple with the man on top. So I went for a different angle of the scene and started anew. Final draft:


So that’s three of my nine cover rejects. Anyone want to recycle them?

Do y’all have questions for April? Post them in the comments and she’ll try her best to answer them.

April will also be designing the cover for Boundless, an anthology I share with Annie Dean and Bonnie Dee. It will be released by Liquid Silver Books sometime in the fall. Thanks for coming, April!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 6:47 am and is filed under Guest Author. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

20 Responses to “Guest Author: April Martinez”

  1. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:03 am
    1

    I’ve long admired your work, girl. You’re the best.

  2. Bonnie Dee
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:50 am
    2

    Hey, I love recycle bins. You never know when you might be able to re-use a scrap of something. With each book I write, I keep a “rejected bits” folder. Sometimes a cool turn of phrase, an image or even whole sentences can be stitched into another book another time.

    Love your covers, but you know that.

  3. Lila
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:55 am
    3

    I really like the original Vixen Virgin one. Your ‘reject’ covers are still some of the best out there.

  4. Paige
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 8:10 am
    4

    Thank God she didn’t bitch about how many drafts she had to do for ppl, I still owe her a box of chocolates for Plain Jane!

    I love April covers, and yep, even the rejects are awesome. ;)

  5. Angie
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am
    5

    I actually like the original cover of The Lost One better, it looks steamier to me.

    This was a fun post!

  6. Teddy Pig
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 9:30 am
    6

    April to me it’s not just the shot you are using but the textures you add to finish it with. Like the water droplets on Persuading Jo or the reflections overlays in The Lost One.

    They might look like simple after the fact but the deal is you are were the genius that combined them just that way. I am a fan.

  7. April
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 9:59 am
    7

    I went for exactly 600 words on this post, Bam, so you wouldn’t have known this: my first unedited draft mentioned that these rejects were specifically to provide you with some ammunition to snark me again. ;)

    Annie, merci! :) The feeling is mutual.

    Bonnie, it never occurred to me until now how useful a recycling bin can be for writers, too. I’ll bet you have really great stuff in yours!

    Lila, I like the original Vixen Virgins, too, and I still hope to use it on a cover some day.

    Paige, while it’s not necessary to shower me with gifts, I wouldn’t say no to chocolates! :D

    Angie, I like the original Lost One better, too! I like it so much, in fact, that I actually tried to use it again for another book — so that’s the only cover reject that’s been rejected TWICE. Gasp!

    Teddy Pig, I like your discerning eye. Your comment alone makes all the attention to detail worth my while. :)

  8. SweetNSourGirl
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 9:59 am
    8

    Wow, I love that “Lost One” original. I’m actually writing an Egyptian romance right now and that’s inspiring! The shot of the ceiling is incredible. How’d you do that? The detail is amazing and historically correct!

  9. bam
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 10:08 am
    9
    Author Comment

    my first unedited draft mentioned that these rejects were specifically to provide you with some ammunition to snark me again.

    What, like this and this? ;)

  10. Anne Douglas
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 10:19 am
    10

    I never saw that original cover for Persuading Jo! Don’t know if it ever got relayed, but I gushed something severe when I got the final copy.

    Funny thing is, you got all the people right in round 1 - the one guy with his horrible flowery shirts, the other with his tight T’s and jeans, and Jo herself who doesn’t look wafer thin. But that was so not what was in my head when I was thinking of cover suggestions.

    *makes note to self: diagrams and MUCH better descriptions on next cover request form

    Having read The Lost One, cover two does it better for me. In the first it looks a little like she’s about to kiss a greek statue …

  11. April
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 10:56 am
    11

    SweetNSourGirl, that cover is a composite of at least three photos — one shot is from inside an actual Egyptian temple, another is of a loving couple bathed in golden light, and still another is of Egyptian hieroglyphics, which I used for the texturing of the entire thing. I put the whole image together with a combination of gradient masks and color washes, the goal being to make it match the cover of the first book in the series, which also has that rusted gold color scheme to it.

    Bam, lol, those are the ones! :)

    Anne, I’m glad to hear I got the people right in the first draft at least. :) You might have described them that way in the cover request because I don’t see myself inserting specifically those two guys at random and without good reason. But what really helped me most with the cover was that you suggested more than one concept, which gave me some wiggle room. Some authors can be too restrictive in their cover suggestions and provide only one unbendable concept.

  12. May
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 11:20 am
    12

    I preferred the second version for all three covers.

    Would you say that a significant portion of the concepts you are given come from scenes in the book??

  13. shuzluva
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
    13

    I haven’t read Vixen Virgins, but that first cover should definitely go in the re-use pile. It’s sexy, sweet and hot at the same time.

  14. April
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
    14

    May, good thing they’re the final draft, then! :) As for your question, that depends on the author. I think most authors do take a scene from their book. Others try to capture the mood or the theme of the book, which is better for making movie poster type book covers.

    Shuzluva, if I ever get the opportunity, I will definitely try to reuse all of my rejects — that’s time and money I don’t want to waste! :)

  15. Darragha
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
    15

    You are an artist, April. I’d say that pretty much anything you cover-wise, is damned good. It may not be what the vision of the author is, but sometimes we should listen more to our cover artists, huh?

    Darr

  16. April
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
    16

    Darr, I usually don’t feel that I have enough authority on the book to contradict the author/editor/publisher on the suggested concepts or to even offer up an alternative. In rare cases I’ve been known to read the book first and come up with a completely different cover concept that in the end turned out to be a better one, but I’d go nuts if I had to read every book at the rate that I cover them. So I have to trust the author’s vision.

  17. Rae
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
    17

    April –

    When I asked for a maze for Treading the Labyrinth you didn’t even choke, just sent me the most beautiful cover ever. You are da bomb, sweetie.

    Rae

  18. L.E. Bryce
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
    18

    Man, even your rejects are nice! You should see some of the rejects for my covers. They’re scary.

  19. Teddy Pig
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
    19

    Oh man, that would be SWEET all the authors share their rejected covers pile here on the site. Oh the few I have had the chance to see were priceless.

    One rule… you cannot name the artist but… oh how I would love to know.

  20. April
    Posted: Jun 25th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
    20

    Rae and L.E., thanks!!! :D

    Teddy, I wouldn’t mind seeing that myself. ;)

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