The Right to Bitch

[image error]

Terry Goodkind isn’t pleased with the new cover of his book because he feels it’s a poor representation of his characters. And quite obviously, there’s the feminist trope of a badass girl that men bow down to. Can’t imagine he likes that either. So naturally, the feminist authors on Twitter went aflame. Which only makes me like him more given that he took a poll on his Facebook on whether or not the cover sucked.

Terry Goodkind—best known for The Sword of Truth series—has publicly apologized after posting scathing criticism of the cover art for his latest book, Shroud of Eternity. The author eventually laid the blame on his publisher, Tor Books, but the artist who created the cover says it’s not good enough.

Goodkind recently wrote a post on Facebook calling his latest fantasy novel, “a great book with a very bad cover. Laughably bad.” In the post, Goodkind invited his readers to share their thoughts about the cover in a poll (which currently has almost 14,000 responses), saying he’d pick 10 random commenters to receive a signed copy.

Part of the Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles series, the cover art Goodkind criticized shares a similar look to the series debut, Death’s Mistress—no surprise, as they both share the same artist, Bastien Lecouffe Deharme. He’s a notable artist known for his work on Magic: The Gathering, but he’s also created book covers for several publishing houses, including Tor Books, Random House, Del Rey, and Orbit Books. Deharme said he was shocked when he found out what Goodkind had said about his latest work.

“[A friend] sent me a message that I found in the morning when I woke up, telling me that Terry Goodkind was using bad words to describe my artwork,” Deharme told io9. “I am a very confident person. I have had a long career, long enough for me to be able to take that… but this behavior is just not acceptable. Not only for me, but for all the artists that could be in the same situation.”

“I can take that, it’s no problem,” he added. “[But] if this happened to me five years ago, I think this would have destroyed me.”

After Goodkind posted his criticism of Shroud of Eternity’s artwork, Deharme responded to the post, sharing his frustration at the author’s behavior and garnering the support of notable authors and artists like Chuck Wendig and Leesha Hannigan. Goodkind has since apologized on Facebook—though he purposefully kept up the original post and poll “for the sake of the contest.” In his post, he said he wasn’t upset at Deharme, but rather the publisher, Tor Books, who reportedly didn’t send him the artwork until right before it went to print.

It’s funny to me that the artist should whine about how five years ago a comment like this would have career destroying effects when I’ve seen authors have THEIR careers destroyed because a publisher had an “artist” take some stock photos with some quick copy and pasting then VIOLA! A shitty cover that ruined the author’s prospects because the publisher couldn’t be bothered to pay a descent amount to make sure the book sold with any kind of continuity to merit another book in their contract. 

Goodkind doesn’t have to like his cover. Many authors don’t. And many poor graphic designers and publishers have killed debut novelist’s prospects with cheap ass covers that didn’t give them a chance. So I don’t feel much sympathy for the artist or the publisher. Especially since I see common stock photos used on the covers at Barnes & Noble all the time that look cheaply cut and pasted.

I’ve said it many times, but you’re better of going indie. Not only do you get to control these things, but there are many graphic designers who are gifted with Photoshop that can make you a wonderful cover to your specifications. Unlike the publisher who probably doesn’t even give the artist a good concept to run with because they want that money from sales as fast as possible.