Miriam Spitzer Franklin: Make A Mood Board For Your Cover

I love talking to debut authors. Our experiences are so similar, yet so very different, that every one of us has a new story to share. Everyone says that the moment you get your cover it really hits you - you're an author. The cover is your story - and you - packaged for the world. So the process of the cover reveal can be slightly panic inducing. Does it fit your story? Is it what you hoped? Will it sell? With this in mind I put together the CRAP (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) Interview.

Today's guest for the CRAP is Miriam Spitzer Franklin, author of the MG debut EXTRAORDINARY, which releases May 5th from SkyPony Press. Besides reading children’s literature and writing, Miriam loves to teach. She's taught kindergarteners up to eighth graders in public and private schools. Her favorite subject to teach? You guessed it– reading and writing!

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

I knew that I wanted my cover to portray the story in an optimistic way. Because my book deals with some heavy subject matter (Pansy's best friend suffers a traumatic brain injury), I needed to make sure the cover didn't appear sad or depressing.

How far in advance from your pub date did you start talking covers with your house?

My editor asked me to start thinking about ideas for the cover in May 2014, a year before the book came out.

Did you have any input on your cover?

My editor suggested that I put together a mood board -- examples of MG covers that I liked and the overall feeling I wanted to convey.

How was your cover revealed to you?

Actually, my editor asked me for an author photo for the catalog because she said they weren't satisfied with the designs and they had asked the illustrator to rework the design. I was glad that they weren't accepting a cover they weren't satisfied with but disappointed that the catalog was going out without my cover! A few days later, my husband was searching the internet and found my cover! I e-mailed my editor to tell her I loved it and hoped it was the final design! Apparently they reworked the illustration in time for it to go out in the official catalog, so it all worked out the way it was supposed to.

Was there an official "cover reveal" date for your art?

I did not have an official cover reveal date, but I found out about it in late October, around 5 months before the book's release.

Was it hard to keep it to yourself before the official release?

I didn't have to keep it to myself since it was already out on the internet! Though I did check with my editor to see if it was okay if I shared.

What surprised you most about the process?

I was most surprised at the way the illustrator came up with the perfect cover for my book. I'm assuming he didn't actually read the book, but the Best Friend necklaces worked perfectly to capture the theme of Extraordinary.

Any advice to other debut authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

If your editor doesn't ask for input, you should let him/her know what you would like to see in a cover. Because authors may not have a final say in the cover design (mine was finalized before anyone showed it to me), you'll feel a lot better if you have the discussion upfront. Offering up a mood board to your editor is a good way to show what types of covers you'd like to see. In the end, you have to trust your publishing house and hope they will put out the type of cover that best represents your book, as mine did!

Erin Bowman On the Stunning Cover for Vengeance Road

I love talking to debut authors. Our experiences are so similar, yet so very different, that every one of us has a new story to share. Everyone says that the moment you get your cover it really hits you - you're an author. The cover is your story - and you - packaged for the world. So the process of the cover reveal can be slightly panic inducing. Does it fit your story? Is it what you hoped? Will it sell? With this in mind I put together the CRAP (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) Interview.

Today's guest is Erin Bowman, author of the TAKEN series, and the upcoming VENGEANCE ROAD. When not writing, Erin can often be found hiking, geeking out over good typography, and obsessing over all things Harry Potter. She drinks a lot of coffee, buys far too many books, and is not terribly skilled at writing about herself in the third person.

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

Western movies and literature seem to have a very passionate but narrow audience, so while I knew I wanted the VENGEANCE ROAD cover to immediately feel like 1877 Arizona, I also wanted something fresh and relevant to today’s YA landscape. No author wants a cover so fitting of their genre that it scares off readers who are hesitant to pick up that kind of story.

How far in advance from your pub date did you start talking covers with your house?

We started discussing cover art in the fall of 2014. So maybe about a year before pub.

Did you have any input on your cover?

I had tons of input, and I am so, so grateful because this isn’t always the case in publishing. Early on, I was asked what I might like to see on the cover, which resulted in big email exchanges and a few shared pinterest boards between myself and my editor. Once the design team at HMH came up with some preliminary concepts, I was allowed to weigh in on those. I think I saw about ten different directions for the cover, but I loved a highly typographic one best, which included some western-y illustrations framing the title. I told my editor it was hands-down my favorite, and luckily they were feeling the same way internally.

After HMH hired an illustrator to finalize the artwork, I got to weigh in again. There were a few different color palette options to choose between (I again stated my favorite, and it again aligned with HMH’s top pick), and I also requested a couple minor tweaks to the pistols to make sure they were historically accurate and better matched the model my main character carries in the book.

How was your cover revealed to you?

Via email, and I might have dropped an F-bomb when I saw it. In a good way. Because SERIOUSLY. This is the most gorgeous cover I have ever seen and I still can’t believe its the face of my book.

Was there an official "cover reveal" date for your art?

Yup. I first shared the cover over on Publishing Crawl.

How far in advance of the reveal date were you aware of what your cover would look like?

A few months, I think? Or maybe just a couple weeks…  I had a baby recently and the last four months have been a giant blur.

Was it hard to keep it to yourself before the official release?

Yes. Soooo hard. I wanted to share it immediately, because SHINY.

What surprised you most about the process?

How unique my cover ended up being. I can honestly say that I don’t think there is a single cover like it on YA shelves right now.

Any advice to other debut authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

Whether you are involved every step of the way or end up as more of a spectator in the process (I’ve been both, and have loved my covers in either instance), remember that your publisher is the expert. They know what the market looks like and what gets people to pick up a book. And ultimately, that’s what you want. You can’t get sales if no one picks the thing up!

I’ve found that being flexible, open-minded, and polite is the best route to take when approaching cover designs. (It’s also good publishing advise in general). If for some reason you don’t dig your cover, call/email your agent before you shoot off a massive list of change requests to your editor. Your agent can help you formulate a plan to address your concerns.

Cover Talk with Angelina R. Jackson

I love talking to debut authors. Our experiences are so similar, yet so very different, that every one of us has a new story to share. Everyone says that the moment you get your cover it really hits you - you're an author. The cover is your story - and you - packaged for the world. So the process of the cover reveal can be slightly panic inducing. Does it fit your story? Is it what you hoped? Will it sell? With this in mind I put together the CRAP (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) Interview.

Today's guest is Angelica R. Jackson, a writer, photographer, and avid naturalist living in the Sierra foothills of California. Her debut novel, CROW'S REST, a darkly funny young adult urban fantasy, is coming from Spencer Hill Press in May 2015.

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

It was more like I had notions about what I didn’t want Crow’s Rest’s cover to look like—in the author form that Spencer Hill Press sends, I made sure to mention I didn’t want “Girls in ball gowns or drowning (because neither has anything to do with my story). Would actually prefer not to show main character’s faces, but I know it’s pretty common for YA books so it’s not a dealbreaker.”

Also, I said the most important thing to me is “to have some tension in the image, and for it to have relevance to the story (whether symbolic or literal)” and I feel like we definitely accomplished that!

How far in advance from your pub date did you start talking covers with your house?

I signed in April 2014, and my projected release date of Fall 2015 was almost immediately moved up to May 2015—so I got my author form pretty quickly after signing. I turned it in within a week, since I already had stuff like back copy ready to go, but then didn’t hear anything for a while. (And you know how good we authors are at waiting, lol) Then we got word that we’d need to do a cover reveal in a very short timeframe, and that got the gears moving again.

Did you have any input on your cover?

Absolutely—and the fact that SHP gives authors say in the cover was one reason I signed with them. If that hadn’t been the case, I would likely have moved ahead with self-publishing.

After I got one preliminary cover image (which I liked, but I felt like it didn’t stand out enough from other YA UF covers) we talked some more, and I actually got permission to take a test shoot with some models for a custom cover (I’m also a photographer). So I turned those in and put the Final Jeopardy song on loop.

While I was waiting, just for fun I started assembling a lightbox on Shutterstock with images for teasers down the line—and in the process, I stumbled across some artwork by Natalia Maroz. It was absolutely perfect for the feel of the story! So I inserted a model and made a mockup cover, and turned that in too. That’s the one that the Editor-in-Chief ended up liking, and I have to admit that I love it so much that the sting of having my test shots rejected was considerably lessened, haha.

I wanted to do the actual cover design, too, but Photoshop played a nasty trick on me and took away a lot of the tools I had learned for masking and other tasks in the latest version—and at that point we only had ten days before the scheduled release date. So I nominated Kelley York of X-Potions Design to do the design, because she has a fast turnaround and I knew she would do a fantastic job.

How was your cover revealed to you?

Since I worked pretty closely with Kelley, there wasn’t really a reveal moment for me—although seeing how Kelley realized my vision was pretty exciting. There was one funny thing, though—when we got the hi-res version of the artwork with the flying bird, it turned out to be a vulture rather than a crow or raven! But Kelley fixed that seamlessly.

Was there an official "cover reveal" date for your art?

It was August 18, and my publicist sent out an email blast so bloggers could sign up. The full-cover reveal was a little more casual, and I just posted it in my slot on Operation Awesome and Facebook, and people shared from there.

How far in advance of the reveal date were you aware of what your cover would look like?

I realize my situation is a bit unusual since I was so heavily involved in the design, but I have to say that even knowing what the artwork looks like, it was still love at first sight to see the cover on a real-life, printed book! I wanted to walk around with it in my bra so it would be closer to my heart.

Was it hard to keep it to yourself before the official release?

It really was! And I loved the front cover by itself, but once I saw the full cover, I really wanted to, um, crow it to the world. Kelley did such a good job blending the front and back artwork (the back image is also Natalia Maroz), and with the lovely font.

What surprised you most about the process?

What surprised me was my reaction to the first, preliminary image from the publisher. I went into it with a genuine curiosity and excitement about how another artist would interpret my story and characters. But when I saw that image, it was pretty much 80% what I’d said I didn’t want (but I did end up with a girl in a dress, lol) and I got very territorial. That may have ended up making me look like a diva at times, but it also made me define what I did want.

Any advice to other debut authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

Try to hold onto that “genuine curiosity and excitement about how another artist would interpret (your) story and characters” as long as you can, lol. But failing that, if you truly don’t like your cover, you’re better off offering some alternatives. I sent stock images of models that I thought would fit better than the one they used, stock images of landscapes that fit the story, etc, in that first email response. Offering to arrange a custom model shoot at a reasonable price also went over well (and those photos weren’t wasted, since I later used them in my book trailer). But backing up your reasons for why you think that cover doesn’t fit with hard data or alternatives will get you further than sobbing into the phone.

That said, you may still not have any say at all, and if you’re unhappy—keep it off the internet! Cry on your agent’s shoulder, make your dog’s fur soggy with tears, but don’t bash an artist or publisher online! Keep things professional, and it will pay off in the long run.