Melissa C. Walker's Blog, page 7

Photo Friday: Paperbacks!

They’re out! Here’s the full jacket. Yay!

If you spot them in the wild, you can win books. Here’s how. Happy Friday!

Win-It Wednesday: 9 Books!

This giveaway is going on for a few weeks, so read full details here and enter in various ways for a chance to win this stack of 9 books, all shipped in a box to your door! Wheeee!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Win-It Wednesday: A S%#t-Ton of Books!

Hey, guys.

I have been so lax about Win-It Wednesday that I feel required to make amends. First, the winner of a Tara Altebrando e-book is… Kay! Kay, let me know which book you’d like and I will figure out how to e-deliver it to you!

Next: I haven’t mentioned that the paperback of Small Town Sinners is coming out on 1/22, so let me just say this: THE PAPERBACK OF SMALL TOWN SINNERS IS COMING OUT ON TUESDAY! Ooh, there it is! Looking a lot like the hardcover with a zoom lens!

What thrills me most about a book release are sightings in the wild. Author friends can tell you that I often go into bookstores and snap phone shots of their books to send to them. Some may think I’m crazy, but I really do love that moment of: It’s there! In a store!

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to find Small Town Sinners, the paperback, in the wild for me. Snap a pic if you can, and email it to melissawalkerbooks AT gmail, or just tell me where you saw it in the comments. (If you buy it — YAY! — but not required.) Libraries also count, of course, though they’re partial to hardcovers. I will randomly choose one person from the emails and comments to win a full box of books:

That’s right. You will win a box full of these very books. Chock full of treasures, I tell you. Click to enlarge, but don’t drool on your screen.

I’ll keep this one going for a few weeks because you need time to find the book! And I will thrill every time you see it in the wild. Thank you!

PS-Yes I know it’s Thursday. I’m behind.

Cover Stories: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Gayle Forman has shared Cover Stories for her lovely novels If I Stay and Where She Went – these were epic tales of covers tried and tweaked. Her new novel, Just One Day, has a lovely, reflective cover. And this one? It’s got a pretty straightforward Cover Story:

“Penguin sent me a cover.  I liked it.”

Sometimes it’s that simple! Yay! And I think this cover is great. For me, it captures the introspective nature of traveling, and how going on a journey can point your  mind inward and help you figure out things about yourself. Can’t wait to read!

What do you guys think?

Cover Stories: Fangtabulous by Lucienne Diver

Lucienne Diver has shared her Cover Stories before, most recently the story of Fangtastic. She’s back with the story behind the cover of the follow-up to that book: Fangtabulous, of course.

“I would never make it as a cover artist!  I see the book like a movie playing out in my head as I’m writing it, but never as a still shot with an iconic image that would perfectly represent the book.

“Flux has always been great about asking for input on my covers.  When asked about Fangtabulous, I said, ‘Gina in a graveyard with something ghostly perhaps forming from one of the gravestones would be really wonderful.’ I’m pleased to have gotten the little ghost girl that Gina befriends on the cover with her.

“In the first version of the cover, Gina looked more mean girl than mischievous. (Also vapid, which isn’t Gina at all. She may be a fashionista, but not to the exclusion of all else!) Luckily, Flux was great about finding another image with the same model and changing the eye color to suit the character.

“The final version of the Fangtabulous cover is head and shoulders above the previous incarnation! I believe it’s stock photography, though how they got the ghost girl to show on camera…

“In terms of how I feel about the cover, I’m torn. I was really so taken with the covers for Vamped and Revamped—the unique design, the very striking reds—that I was nervous when Flux took the covers for Fangtastic and Fangtabulous in a new direction. I understood the change—the Vamped and Revamped covers looked like chick-lit, and that wasn’t a big selling point, so they wanted to give the later two books an edgier feel.  I’d love to hear what readers/viewers think.”

Read the Cover Stories for Vamped and ReVamped, and see those covers below:

 

What do you guys think of the original two covers and the new direction? I admit to loving those two first covers–the beauty aspect of lipstick and nails (hi, Lana del Rey!) feels so standout to me. The new ones, though, maybe are more accessible/relatable to readers? Thoughts?

Cover Stories on BN.com

Here are a bunch you may have missed! Click through and enjoy as I take a short break from blogging to be Merry and Happy at home!

Photo Friday: Santa, Lights and the White House

Lost of Christmas-related pics this week. Take this fun I Heart Daily quiz and find out which holiday movie you should stream this weekend… I got A Christmas Story, which is my favorite ever.

Happy Everything! Merry Always!

Cover Stories: Deadly Little Lessons

Laurie Faria Stolarz has been here to tell the stories behind three of her previous books in the Touch series, and now book 5 is here! The covers all tie together so beautifully, I think. Here’s Laurie:

“DEADLY LITTLE LESSONS is the fifth book in the TOUCH series, so I already knew the cover would look similar in some way to the others in the series. All of the books feature a young girl, turned away so you can’t see her face. They’re all dark and mysterious, eluding to the genre of the novel. And there’s a romantic quality to the artwork, too. The girl is always dressed in long dresses with wind blowing. Her hair is always tousled. The books are paranormal romance, so I think the covers work really well conveying that.”

[See the first four books below]:

“From the first, I loved this cover. As I mentioned, I sort of knew what to expect with the girl featured on the cover, but the colors in this one – the striking emerald green – is just so beautiful to me. I have a feeling it’s a stock photo, because I’ve seen it used on the cover of another book. This is my favorite cover in the series, for sure.”

Thanks, Laurie! I love the wispy, faded tones of these covers, and the consistent title treatment is lovely too! What do you guys think?

PS-Contest alert! Enter the Karma Chameleon contest for a chance to win autographed copies of Laurie’s books.

Photo Friday: Unbreak My Heart Gift Pack!

Magan at Rather Be Reading has been putting together the coolest ideas for gift packages based around a book, and she just did one for Unbreak My Heart! So cute, right? Check out her post to find out why each item was included, and–hi!–take this idea because it rules!

 

Cover Stories: Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

Sarah Beth Durst seems to luck out with her covers. (See the Cover Stories for Drink, Slay, Love and Ice as proof.) Her latest novel, Vessel, is no exception. Here’s Sarah:

“I was in the parking lot at Dunkin’ Donuts when the email with the cover art came in. My husband was fetching Munchkins, and I waited for three extremely long minutes for him to return to the car. As soon as he opened the car door, I shouted, ‘It’s here! It’s here! It’s really here!’

“‘Wow, you must really like Munchkins,’ he said.

“I shoved my phone at him. ‘The cover art!!!’

“Great! What does it look like?”

“‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t look. You look.’

“He opened the jpg attachment while I scarfed down Munchkins. Then he said, ‘You can look,’ and handed the phone back to me.

“I looked and said, ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! I love it!’

“And that sums up the extent of my involvement in the gorgeousness that is the cover art for my new novel VESSEL. The cover was designed by photographer Jaime Ibarra and the Simon & Schuster art department, and I am in awe of their awesomeness.

“I actually had a hint of the awesomeness that was coming when I ran across a journal entry on Deviant Art about the cover shoot. There’s one photo of the model practicing whooshing the fabric and another of the makeup artist painting on Liyana’s tattoos. (The tattoos identify her as her clan’s vessel. You really, really don’t want a deity to possess the wrong person.)

“VESSEL is a sweeping epic adventure set in a harsh desert land where serpents made of unbreakable glass fly through the sky and wolves made of only sand hunt within storms. Liyana is destined to be a vessel, to sacrifice herself so her clan’s goddess can inhabit her body… but her goddess never comes. I think the cover art captures the novel perfectly. Thanks so much for inviting me to share it!”

Thanks, Sarah! Definitely click on the behind-the-scenes link, you guys. It’s crazy how a photo shoot can translate into such an ethereal cover.

What do you think?

PS-This book is racking up the starred reviews, and you can read the first two chapters here.