Dancing with the Art Department

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It’s cover conferencing time for Where Shadows Dance. This is always a nerve wracking experience for an author, when somewhere in the deep dark recesses of a publishing house, editors and people from sales and marketing sit around a conference table with the art department—but without us—and brainstorm what our next book is going to look like. When they get it right, as they did with Why Mermaids Sing, the results can be stunning and exciting. When they get it wrong…Well, look no further than disasters like When Gods Die and What Remains of Heaven.

They always politely ask me for suggestions, even though they never really take them—or if they do take them, they distort them to the point they make me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. But ever a glutton for punishment, I spent some time on the internet looking at images and meandered around Borders last night, looking at covers.

It always amazes me how many really bad covers there are out there. If an author already has a huge, built-in readership or if a book gets enough hype—think The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—it doesn’t matter much what the cover looks like (although you still have to wonder what they were thinking). But for most authors, the cover—like the title—is critically important. And that’s a scary thought because titles and covers are essentially out of our control.

I remember back when Ballantine bought my very first book, my editor ended our first telephone conversation by saying, “Oh, and we’re changing the title to Night in Eden.” A few days later, a cover flat arrived in the mail—a brilliant sapphire blue background with giant cottage-style flowers. This for a book about a woman who is transported to Botany Bay for accidentally killing her adulterous husband in 1810. I decided they must have had the cover and title already made up for another book that was never delivered, and someone got the bright idea of using it for my book. I have spent my entire career listening to people say, “I’ve never understood why that book is called Night in Eden.” To which I essentially respond, “Neither have I.”

Anyway, back to my meander around Borders. I saw this book that really caught my eye:


Great title, unusual cover, and both complement each other enormously. I picked it up and read the cover copy—which is exactly the reaction you want the title and cover to provoke.

Another great cover:



Urban fantasy isn’t my thing, so I didn’t read the cover copy. But I still think it’s a dynamic, eye-catching cover. Most of what else I saw was just plain forgettable.

So I'm open to suggestions. What do YOU think the covers of this series should look like? God knows NAL needs help, because they're still floundering, searching for the right image for the series.

On a side note: some more good news; What Angels Fear and When Gods Die are both going back to press, AGAIN. And this time they’re upping the print run even more. So something is definitely happening out there. Do you think maybe this will inspire them to give me a good cover? Nah…