How To Give Feedback On Your Cover With Nicole Maggi

I love talking to 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 Nicole Maggi, author of The Twin Willows trilogy, The Forgetting and What They Don't Know.

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

I’m not really a visual person, so I really didn’t. I was at first thinking along the lines of a bold graphic design, but in discussions with my editor I found out that for trade paperback originals (which this book will be) photographic covers sell better. Who knew? These are the kinds of things that authors just don’t really know about. Once I learned that I was on board with having a photographic layout for the design.

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

The book was originally set to release in Summer 2018, and I was shown a preliminary cover at the end of September. But unfortunately that cover just wasn’t right for the book. Due to many factors (the cover being one of them) the book was pushed back to October 2nd, and we finalized the cover in March. So there was a pretty long period of five months where we worked on getting the cover just right – definitely longer than any other book cover experience I’ve had.

Did you have any input on your cover?

I did. My contract grants me “cover consultation” so my publisher was in no way obligated to listen to my input, but they did, and I’m very grateful to them. When the initial cover was revealed to me, I just had a gut feeling that it sent the wrong message about the book. Together with my agent we discussed with the publisher why it wasn’t right. They listened and came back some weeks later with a complete redesign. From there it was a matter of fine-tuning things like font, tagline placement, color…all the little things that you don’t really think about when you first look at a cover, but when it’s your cover, and you’ve been staring at it for weeks, you become obsessed with. Haha! My publisher took all of my input into account, and I’m very happy with what we landed on.

How was your cover revealed to you?

By my editor, via email. That’s how I’ve always seen my covers. I love that scene in that Sex & The City episode where Carrie actually has a meeting with her editor and publisher in their office and they show her a poster-board mock-up of her book cover. That never happens!

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

Yes, there was, though I set it up myself. I’ve done both, where the publisher sets it up and where I’ve set it up, and this time we decided to have me set it up with a Booktuber I know well, Caden Sage of A Thousand Books To Read. She revealed it on Instagram on April 7th.

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

Probably about a month. I received the final full cover layout for the Advanced Reader Copy of the book, and then once we had the reveal set up I was sent a high-res photo of the cover.

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

Not really…also I’d been showing a lot of people on my phone for weeks what it was going to look like so I guess I spoiled the surprise anyway, hahaha!

What surprised you most about the process?

Honestly, I think I was most surprised by how receptive my publisher was to my ideas. I’d heard a lot of horror stories about other authors with other publishers just being steamrolled over on their covers, and I was scared that would happen when I pushed back on the initial cover design. I’m very grateful to the Sourcebooks team for listening and taking into account my thoughts and ideas. I think the design team did a wonderful job capturing the tone of the book, and there are some details on the cover that I just love, like the pages falling out of Mellie’s journal, and the handwritten DON’T to reflect the journal-entry format of the book.

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

Keep calm and use your voice. If you don’t like your cover, speak up immediately, and get your agent involved right away. List real, concrete and reasonable reasons why it’s the wrong cover; just saying “I don’t like it” isn’t enough. Back up your argument, and do it strongly but diplomatically. And once it’s done, celebrate it! Your beautiful book has a cover! That’s a BIG step. Take a deep breath and enjoy it.

Meg Kassel On The Cover Art Process

I love talking to 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 WHAT is Meg Kassel, author of fantasy and speculative books for young adults. A graduate of Parson’s School of Design, she’s always been creating stories, whether with visuals or words. She is the 2016 winner of the RWA Golden Heart® contest in YA and a 2018 RITA® Award finalist. Her YA Debut, Black Bird of the Gallows, is available now.

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

I did not! And this is remarkable because I come from an art/graphic design background. I think when you’re so close to a project—like the book you wrote—perspective can be compromised. In other words, all my professional training and experience flew out the window. I knew it should have something to do with crows, and it should look creepy. My five-year-old could probably have described the book in more articulate terms during that time.

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

We stared a few weeks after the contracts were signed with a form from my publisher. They asked for all sorts of info, like different lengths of bios, author photos, stuff like that, and a questionnaire about my cover.

Did you have any input on your cover?

Yes! But I didn’t offer much insight! I just wanted it to look good, and I was worried that if I started in on ,“I want this...I don’t want that...” that I could wind up limiting the designer from creating something amazing. This book endured a long and harrowing journey to publication (two publishers, two agents, several years of limbo), and I had a lot of jumbled thoughts about it by the time cover decisions came up.

How was your cover revealed to you?

My agent emailed it to me (she loved it).

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

Yes! Young Adult Books Central hosted a cover reveal eight months before release day.

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

I saw my cover about a month prior to the reveal.

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

Keep it to myself? Ha! I whipped out my phone and showed that thing to my family, close friends, hair dressers—pretty much anyone I wound up in conversation with. I didn’t post it online until the “reveal,” but I wasn’t shy about showing it off.

What surprised you most about the process?

I was surprised by how amazing my cover turned out. I remember staring it at and feeling a whole lot of emotions. Like I said, this book took a difficult route to publication. Seeing the cover made it all suddenly, very real. The designer, L.J. Anderson at Mayhem Cover Creations, brought the vibe of my book alive. I was very fortunate to get a gorgeous cover, and couldn’t have imagined a better one.

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

The biggest worry is that you’ll get a bad cover, right? Plenty of authors get covers they don’t love, and sometimes publishers are willing to make changes if an author has strong objections. If that happens to be you, take a deep breath and talk to your agent. But ultimately, traditionally published authors have limited input on their covers, so the best thing you can do is try to give yourself space from it and put your energy into the things you can control, like all those words that go between the covers.

Meagan Macvie On The Cover Art Process

I love talking to 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 (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) is Meagan Macvie, author of The Ocean in My Ears, which was named a 2017 Best Teen Book by Kirkus. Her short work has appeared in Narrative, Barrelhouse, and Fugue, as well as the regional anthology, Timberland Writes Together. 

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

I’d been dreaming up cover ideas well before my book ever had a publisher (so yeah, for many years), and of course, those ideas shifted radically over time. As an avid YA reader and follower of YA authors on social media, I keep an eye on cover trends. I’m always sizing up a book by its cover. That’s kind of the point, right? A good cover opens a visual door into the story that readers are keen to enter.

Soon after my book was acquired by my publisher, I began saving covers that made me feel something and, more importantly, made me want to read the books. The moment I saw the reveal for Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay, I knew I wanted an illustrated cover (rather than a photo image). The art, the colors, the mood—that image took my breath away. It was the most beautiful cover I’d ever seen.

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

I published with a small press (Ooligan Press), and they started discussing cover images with me about a year before my pub date.

Did you have any input on your cover?

Thankfully, yes. Per their request, I had the opportunity to send Ooligan a document full of my thoughts and ideas—everything from trend observations to cover examples. Of course, the We Are Okay cover was my top example, in addition to several other gorgeous illustrated covers, including American Girls: A Novel by Alison Umminger, The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lillian Rivera, and Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block.

In addition, I sent photos from the town in which my book is set—Soldotna, Alaska—and even tried to create a few cover concepts of my own using a phone app. I’m not sure I’d recommend this last one, unless maybe you have a background as an illustrator. My own unskilled mock-ups were horrible and embarrassing.

How was your cover revealed to you?

The reveal was a process. First, they sent three concept ideas. I provided feedback, identifying for each design what I considered the strengths and improvement opportunities. Ooligan is a teaching press, so everyone in the press weighed in on the designs. The designers then presented two designs based on all the feedback they received, and the press (including me) voted to decide final concept. In the end, both designs had strengths, so the final cover took the best ideas and incorporated them into the final design. I had thought the final would be winning design as-is, so was super happy to see the actual final cover after all the ideas were incorporated and last-minute tweaks were made.

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

Yes! We did the cover reveal in February and my book published in November.

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

Not that long—maybe three weeks. But I’d seen all the concepts leading up to the final, and that process (the design phase) took about four months.

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

Definitely. But it was also nice to have a chance to process the final design before having it out in the world.

What surprised you most about the process?

I guess I was surprised by how stressful putting a singular “face” on your work can be. It’s kind of like reading a book and having a strong connection with the characters then seeing the movie version and being weirded out by the actors chosen to portray the characters. It’s tough to transition to another person’s concept.

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

Other authors have shared how great it is to have an agent serve as a buffer between them and their publisher during high-stress times, but I didn’t have an agent (am still unagented), so I used techniques from my former job as a communications director to try to stay professional and courteous during what is generally a difficult process. I was moderately successful.

Here is my best advice: Stay as positive as possible. Think about how much more inspired and productive you are as a writer when critique partners and beta readers tell you what’s working in a piece as well as what’s not, and when they deliver critical feedback in a way that tells you they are bought in and want to help make the writing and story better.

Provide the designer(s) with feedback in a similar way. Take the time to highlight excellent aspects of the design in addition to the elements you think could be made stronger. Try not to get into an adversarial space. During the design phase, you will likely hit points where you want to scream. Maybe unplug and take a walk when you’re feeling that way. Or call a good friend and rant for a few minutes.

Most important is to give yourself time and space to adjust to another person’s artistic vision. That may mean “grieving” the loss of your cover vision, kind of like breaking it off with an ex. Once I let go and got on board with the designer’s concept, I totally fell in love with it.

Trust the process. Remember that everyone is working hard to make your book a real thing. They’re on your team; they want the outcome to be as spectacular as you do. As the writer, I had to surrender my need to control the design and embrace the amazing gift of having a skilled, talented artist create the book’s cover image. The outcome was so much better than anything I imagined.