16 Responses to “Covers: Wot’s All this then?”

1. Anne Cain Posted: Oct 8th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

   1 Hey, Anne is guilty of only one thing okay, maybe two or three…or four or five or…more , and she swears it’s not kidnapping Cris! But she has tried to leach some of cover artist John Picacio’s talent through internet-osmosis, the fiendess. )

2. SweetNSourGirl Posted: Oct 8th, 2007 at 5:59 pm

   2 Cool article. I had no idea so much work went into a single picture. Amazing pics, too. Love ‘em.

3. Tumperkin Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 2:18 am

   3 Nice post. This would so be my dream job if I had any artistic talent. My favourite covers at the moment hark back to classic pulp fiction but that’s not a style you see much in romance.

4. Bonnie Dee Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 8:01 am

   4 Thanks for doing a cover art week. I love the topic, am always interested in the process, and wish I could do that instead of write. Art was my first major at college but quickly relegated to a minor when I realized how very average my talent was. Nothing I love more than a well-designed, eye catching cover. I’m still convinced that the book Twilight would never have sold as well as it has without a cover that just about demands you look inside before walking past. The artists you have assembled here are all amazing at their craft.

5. Teddy Pig Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 8:23 am

   5 Croco Design’s web sites are rockin! April and Anne’s covers are always striking. I watch the coming soon piles just to catch their latest creations.

6. Anne Cain Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 11:42 am

   6 SweetNSourGirl~ Thanks so much; it’s great to share an inside look at the process with everyone. Creating covers is way more than just putting some text over a photo…it’s art! Tumperkin~ I love the look of pulp too, and also graphic novel art. Kensington has a couple of books out that feature line drawn artwork (Hell Kat is the title of one, I believe), which I think is awesome. Dorchester’s Shomi line also has some covers like that. Let’s hope this becomes a trend! Bonnie~ Are you talking about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, with the woman’s hands and apple on the cover? If so, that’s an excellent, eye-catchy design. The symbolism in it is also excellent! Teddy Pig~ *bows* You are too kind, my good sir!

7. Ann Aguirre Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 11:59 am

   7 April does amazing work and so does Anne. I am not as familiar with Frauke but I have heard great recommendations.

8. Croco Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 12:15 pm

   8 Thank you, Teddy, for loving my websites so much. My roots and main interest will always be website designing, but I love creating covers a lot when time allows. They are like quickies for me, and a nice break from the web stuff. So I hope that you like some of my covers, too. Hi Ann, maybe we get too know each other in the future - looking definetly forward to it. Thanks again for having us this week.

9. Jules Jones Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

   9 I know April and Anne’s work, because some of it has helped sell *my* books. So I’m grateful to them for that. But April also put together some good advice for authors a few years ago on how to give cover artists the information they need to put together a good cover, and I’m grateful to her for that as well — it’s been very useful to me when filling out cover art request forms.

10. TA Chase Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

    10 I’ve been lucky to be the recipient of awesome covers by both April and Anne. You’ve definitely gathered some of the best cover artists in the business, Bam.

11. Ella/L Posted: Oct 9th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

    11 The only thing I ever have against a cover is if someone’s a blond and he/she is clearly brunette in the book. =P Otherwise, it’s all fairly snazzy work, you guys. My favorite kind of covers tend to be the ones that are earthy and simple.

12. Teddy Pig Posted: Oct 10th, 2007 at 10:07 am

    12 “But April also put together some good advice for authors a few years ago on how to give cover artists the information they need to put together a good cover, and I’m grateful to her for that as well” Share! What information was this? I have friends that would find it useful.

13. Barbara Sheridan Posted: Oct 10th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

    13 Anne is the bestcover artist evar! But then I admit to being hopelessly biased. ^_^

14. April Posted: Oct 11th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    14 “But April also put together some good advice for authors a few years ago on how to give cover artists the information they need to put together a good cover, and I’m grateful to her for that as well” Share! What information was this? I have friends that would find it useful. Teddy, some of what I wrote to help authors help us artists: I don’t know if this will help any authors decide what to put on their cover art request forms, but I like to know as much about the book before starting on a cover — synopsis, setting, characters and their motivations, thematic objects, colors, moods, etc. THE STORY! The request forms that have only the driver’s license type of descriptions for the characters’ appearances do absolutely nothing for me. Even if I got the characters’ looks okay, I don’t know what sort of texture and flavor to add to the cover. If you are not a visual person, tell me about your book. Sell it to me with your words. Give me as much of the story as you can without actually making me read the entire manuscript. Heck, send me what you sent to your submissions editor before you got offered the contract. Intrigue me. Inspire me. Excite me. Lend me a thousand words around which I can create a piece of art. … I really do need as much as you can give me, whether it’s ideas or your story’s background, and then I need some leeway on top of that. If all you want is your characters on the cover, give me more information anyway. It helps a lot because whether I use Poser, photos, or painting, the people covers all start to look the same to me unless there’s some texture, detail, and variation to their expression, style of dress, body language, and surrounding objects and setting. There are only so many things you can do to the basic Poser models available, and there are only so many stock photos of sexy people out there. What counts is what they’re imbued with. So tell me about your book. Sell it to me with your words so I know how to sell it to the readers with my images. The thing is, there’s usually so much paperwork that the author fills out, the cover art request form being only one of them. I think many authors assume that all these forms will also get to the artist somehow, when that normally isn’t the case. So the blurbs and synopses which the author wrote to sell the manuscript to the editor end up being on other forms and not on the form that the artist actually gets. Result? The artist really doesn’t know much about the book, just the very dry details on the cover form. So my basic advice was to treat the cover art request form like a pitch to an editor. You must sell the book to the artist, really inspire the artist to visualize the story such that they can sell the book to the reader and help others to visualize the story as well.

15. Jules Jones Posted: Oct 11th, 2007 at 12:09 pm

    15 I’m not a very visual writer and there have been books I’ve written where I had no idea what one or more characters looked like, apart from a very general idea of build and colouring — at least until I saw the cover art. And my cover art sheets often have the POV character described as “x height and build, white Briton, otherwise not described in book”. But I usually copy my synopsis onto the end of the worksheet, so that the artist has a feel for personalities and situation. Specific details that matter I *do* make sure are marked on the sheet. For example, I wrote a May-December romance where one of the things the younger man is physically attracted to when he first meets the older man is that his hair is starting to silver at the temples, and he’s made no effort to cover that up. Anne used that detail on the cover, making it clear that it was a May-December romance. This is the sort of thing that makes an author happy…

16. Anne Cain Posted: Oct 11th, 2007 at 10:24 pm

    16 Jules~! I remember reading that detail about Steven and thinking how cool the touch of gray was. It’s not very often in yaoi-themed stories that an ‘older man’ is involved (usually, 30 considered ‘old’ LOL).