I did a guest post over at The Night Bazaar: Cover Art Co...

I did a guest post over at The Night Bazaar: Cover Art Covers are kind of a big deal. Even as ebook sales increase, readers who browse bookstores and libraries are still a large part of the reading/buying audience. Even if the publisher does get the book placed in the new release stands at the front of the chain stores, or faced out in the regular shelves, a passing glance at the cover may be all the chance it gets to make a sale. Covers are also important for attracting the attention of the chain book buyers. They don't give space or prominent placement to covers they don't think will sell.

There are a lot of theories, and superstitions, about what makes a good book cover, like the superstition that having non-white characters prominently featured will cause the book to magically fail. This one has been offensive to writers and readers for a long time.


Juliet E. McKenna: Women being published in SF - an issue for all genre readers


If you're on Twitter, check out the #YAsaves tag, as a response to the Wall Street Journal article on YA fiction.