Letters to Kel: THE QUEST FOR COVER ART

Ah, cover art.

Love it or hate it -- sometimes those are the only two choices you have, two extremes -- cover art is a vital element in the sales of your books.

And the horror of cover art is that sometimes you have absolutely no input, no control, no voice, no influence in what gets put on your book.

There's the (probably apocryphal) story of a book where the cover showed an Amazon with long black hair -- the blurb on the back described her as a petite nymph with short red curls -- and the actual heroine as described by the writer (whose book was not consulted in the process) was of medium build with long white-blonde hair. Go figure.

Then there is the story of a "name" writer in romance whose cover art came out with THREE arms on the heroine. The publisher caught this glitch after the books had been shipped, and tried to get the books back to be destroyed, making the limited books in existence collector's items. The author was smart enough to capitalize on it and build up a buzz for her book in the process.

My own horror story is what I call my "stripper Zorro" cover. I described the heroine as being a "daughter of Zorro" type, dressed head to foot in black, with a cape and floppy-brimmed hat, sitting astride a black beast that was a cross between a bat and a horse, looking down on the hero in space-age body armor. I got some bimbo in a seductive pose, shown from shoulders to calves, dressed in a black patent leather bikini and thigh-high black boots. When I complained, the publisher said, "Sex sells." The problem was that there was only ONE KISS in the entire story, and it was along the lines of, "Thanks for saving my life." Umm, when you promise something with the cover art and the book doesn't deliver, that makes readers ANGRY. Go figure.

Then you get publishers who make up for all the pain by making you participate in creating the cover. True, the 15-page questionnaire is another type of pain, but it's WORTH IT. You describe your characters, you describe the elements in the book that are important to the story, you describe key scenes that would make a good cover illustration, and you describe your ideal cover. You might not get what you want, but your input helps ensure the cover art FITS THE STORY.

Here's my newest cover art, for an upcoming book. This is in the Commonwealth Universe, part of the Downfall era, and is a prequel to an SF romance novella, "The Saddle and the Sleuth." It FITS the feeling of the book. The publisher and artist asked for my input, even sent me to an art site to pick images that spoke to me, the author, the one who (ideally) knows the book the best. Look for it from Writers Exchange in a couple months.

The point of all this? Everyone judges a book by its cover. When you can, work with your publisher to make sure that the judgment is the right one, and that the cover gives a good idea of what readers will find inside. The effort is well worth it. Be prepared to fill out that questionnaire. Be ready to answer questions about the elements and images vital to the story, and the "feeling" you want to convey with the cover art. This is your baby -- be involved as much as you can. Push to be involved more than they want to allow you.