Cover

I've never given the cover of my yet-to-be-sold-or-published-book a second thought until this blog post.  Maybe the book was never quite real to me until I got to this almost-last draft.

My published friends sometimes gush over their perfect cover. Less often, they may express real regret about one that just doesn't communicate the contents very well. And we've all been to those remaindered booksellers, where the volumes are piled high, arranged somewhat by genre but not at all alphabetically by author--books who've seen some hard shipping days and very little love.  Their covers are seldom appealing.

Once I took a big step back from the yards and yards of tabletops, and squinted my eyes. The weak art, poor layout, hideous colors, and unfortunate typeface choices all blended together. These sad books with their bad covers were destined to be judged harshly, then discounted, then discarded. 

Poor books!

I rather like a solid color, cloth binding with a 50s-era abstract paper cover, like the lovely reprints of Flannery O'Connor's books:

I doubt such a gambit will sell my book, about a financial fraud investigator who follows a trail of missing casino millions right back to her own front door. But putting a bunch of chorines and mobsters on the cover would be misleading--it's about money, and friendship, and family; things that a laser focus on acquiring more at any cost can destroy. Something I think a lot about these days--just as I did when I lived in Las Vegas as a child.

So, of course I want an image of my heroine on the cover. She's strong, smart.

Something in between these two extremes, I think....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I'm just grateful I don't have to come up with it myself. My husband arranges for the covers of the books for his graphic novel sereis, and it's always a very difficult thing to try and capture the essence of a book on the cover.

What images have perfectly summarized a book for you?

Comments

[Camille Minichino]

It's always interesting when you have more than one cover for the same book. The paperback version, foreign version, large print—these almost always are different. I've had cases where my hardcover and paperback are about as far from each other as the 2 you have above.

[Mysti]

Yes, I always wonder why they change them up between versions!

[Susan Shea]

I had no voice for my first book's cover, and am waiting eagerly to see the design proposed for the second. Agree with Camille about the confusion of 2 covers for subsequent editions of the same book - how many of us have bought the same book twice, not realizing it? (Me, with Donna Leon, Tim with so many of his favorite crime writers!)

[Michael A. Black]

Hi, Mysti. I can't wait to see your new cover. As far as cover images that best summed up the book for me, I'd have to go with the recent biography of boxer Jerry Quarry that I read. The cover had a photo of Quarry's fists. He had HARD LUCK tattooed across his knuckles. He died at 53 from the effects of pugilistic dementia.