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…

“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.

Share! What information was this? I have friends that would find it useful.

Otherwise, it’s all fairly snazzy work, you guys. My favorite kind of covers tend to be the ones that are earthy and simple.

Hi Ann, maybe we get too know each other in the future - looking definetly forward to it.

Thanks again for having us this week.