As most of you may know, I create cover art as well as write. This year a cover I did for Pink Petal Books won EPIC’s Ariana award for best erotic contemporary cover and it wasn’t even one of my books! The award went to the cover of Latin Rhythm, a hot cougar story by Tess MacKall.
Tess was really happy with that cover and so was I. All the planets were in line or something, I swear. The images just jumped right out at me when I went looking for ideas and it was not a difficult cover to make. However, its simplicity is part of its allure. Along with the rich, saturated colors of the Miami skyline, the sexy dance moves of the couple pull the viewer in and make them want to know what lies beneath such a sultry cover. They say that the mark of a great cover is its ability to make people want to read the book just by looking at it. I know that there are authors who refuse to submit their work to some houses because of their lack of quality covers.
As someone who has been on both sides of the fence in the cover art process, I can tell you that what occurred with Latin Rhythm is not the norm. I’d already read the manuscript by the time I created the cover. Most artists don’t have that luxury. I did because Tess is a friend. I think we were pretty much on the same page with how we wanted the book to look because we’d already had discussions about the story and characters. Knowledge of the book helped make that cover shine.
Unfortunately, cover artists rarely get to read the books they have to create covers for. They get cover art forms and the information can be very limited. Every press is different. Some presses have very spare forms and ask for very little input from the authors and some even give authors no say in their covers. You get what you get, period. Some presses act as a liaison between the artists and authors and the author never gets to express their ideas to the artist except within the limits of the cover art form. Other presses hand the artist’s email address to the author and tell them to get to work, leaving the author to contact the artist and start the process.
Whichever way the houses you write for work, filling out a cover art form can be daunting. You need to give the artist a sense of your main characters, what they look like, how they act. You also need to convey to the artist the mood or theme of your book. So you take the picture in your head of your characters and transfer that to the art form and hope that the artist gets it. Sometimes you may reference real life people or celebrities to help give the artist a frame of reference. You tell the artist how you envision your cover from what kind of fonts you like to the types of images you want and the color of the models’ eyes. Then you sit back and wait.
When the artist receives this form they read it and hopefully ideas percolate. In the case of an art form that is very specific
about what the author wants, the percolating ideas are put on the back burner while the artist tries to figure out how to accomplish the difficult task the author has given them. Coming up with an author’s vision of their cover can not only be difficult to do, but it often is impossible. The kinds of cars and people that the author can clearly see in their head are not available on the stock image sites. Or the images are available, just not for commercial use or for such a high price that it’s impractical to purchase them for a cover. When this happens – and it happens a lot – the artist is bound to disappoint the author.
To avoid this happening to you as an author, try to be flexible in what you want from a cover. Let the artist be an artist. Don’t try to direct every facet of a cover. If you micromanage the cover and demand to have it the way you envision it, you may get a rep as an author who is difficult to work with. Compromise is the name of the game with cover art. The stock image agencies often have very few images on file of a man with long dark, curly hair, one blue eye and one green eye, biceps with a tattoo of the Loch Ness Monster on them, and dressed in a gypsy outfit.
The more specific you are…the more chance you have of being disappointed.
That is my rule of thumb and I live by it as an author and an artist. Artists have their limitations so I tend to give them loose, flexible ideas on the cover art form. I try not to fill my own head with visions of my characters as movie stars and rock stars. I want to enjoy my cover art, not be disappointed that the half naked man on the cover doesn’t look like Ian Somerhalder.
When well known artist Anne Cain asked me how I envisioned the cover of Where There’s Smoke, I was at a loss. I hadn’t envisioned it at all. I did however, have an idea about how my characters looked so I told her. And I told her I maybe wanted a bird…something that tied in with the theme of the phoenix. What Anne came up with pleased me to no end. It was classy and beautiful and I couldn’t have created anything better. But part of what made the process easy for us both is that I didn’t go to her with preconceived ideas of what I wanted. I let her great ability as an artist take the lead and she did not disappoint.
I’ve had covers handed to me where I had little to no input beyond what I’d put on the cover art form. The artist’s vision, created from that form, was what I got and I had no ability to request changes. Those of you who get to work with your cover artist are lucky. Many authors never get that luxury.
So I guess what I’m trying to convey here today is that authors who can work with their cover artist should try not to abuse that relationship. Try not to be overly demanding and persnickety. Most artists are going to try to give you exactly what you ask for. They are more than likely hugely disappointed when they can’t! They aren’t trying to thwart you. They want you to be happy with your cover. They want to proud of the cover. Try to be as flexible as possible and realize that
your vision of the cover may not be possible. If you cut the artist some slack, and recognize that they want to make you happy, you’ll go a long way toward fostering an environment where the artist feels free to create something wonderful that conveys your book in a way you never imagined.
Reality in the cover art world is that every author will probably suffer a disappointment or two when it comes to cover art. You can minimize this by adopting a flexible positive attitude about the process and what you’ll get out of it. Then maybe you’ll end up with an Ariana winning cover!
