That looks...sounds..familiar

by Sandra Parshall

After seeing three current suspense novels with covers featuring what appears to be the same woman – wearing a red coat and boots, running away, dark hair flying – I began thinking about how hard it is to come up with original covers and, even more so, titles.

A few years ago, two books appeared simultaneously with identical covers, except for the titles and author names, of course. How does that happen? 

Lines like Obsidian and Berkley Prime Crime cozies have custom-painted covers, but they all have a similar style so they look very much alike. That’s deliberate branding of an entire line, rather than individual authors.
 
Many other publishers have covers built around images licensed from stock photo services. While the aim is originality, the probability is high that more than one designer will eventually use the same image. I suppose they’re more likely to do so simultaneously if the picture is new and striking.  Still, it’s not common for the covers to be identical in every respect, because designers combine images, imbedding one picture in another to get the desired effect. The covers with the running woman in the red coat all place her in different backgrounds.

Duplicate titles, on the other hand, are plentiful. The title Gone is a good example. A few years ago, Lisa Gardner and Jonathan Kellerman both had novels titled Gone on the bestseller lists at the same time. This year alone we’ve seen books called Gone by Mo Hayder, Cathi Hanauer, Randy Wayne White, and Jennifer Mills, along with books whose titles include the word: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Gone Missing by Linda Castillo, Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child, Long Gone by Alastair Burke, Miss Me When I’m Gone by Emily Arsenault, Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz, Little Girl Gone by Drusilla Campbell, Gone West by Carola Dunn, Tuesday’s Gone by Nicci French, and no doubt others I haven’t seen.

You might conclude, correctly, that Gone is a favorite of authors and publishers. But a handful of other words also appear over and over in mystery/thriller/suspense titles. Search Amazon for titles containing murder, dead, deadly, death, kill, secret/secrets, hidden, dangerous/danger, and you’ll get thousands of results in the crime fiction category alone. Murder is the most commonly used, but death and dead are included in a multitude of titles. 
 
We choose these words, of course, to clue in readers: This book is a crime novel. But is it any wonder that they have trouble recalling titles of specific books? I have this problem myself, and it’s not always during a senior moment. I can recall the plot and author, but the title may be so generic that it doesn’t stick in my mind. When I look at my notebook of books I’ve read (or listened to), I frequently can’t connect those similar-sounding titles to the stories they represent.
 
When I come up with what I believe is a great title, I don’t broadcast it until I’m getting close to actual production of the book. I don’t want to see it on another published book before I’ve had a chance to use it. The Heat of the Moon hasn’t been duplicated on a crime novel as far as I know, probably because it wouldn’t fit many books. I was amazed when I checked on Disturbing the Dead and discovered it hadn’t been used on a mystery before. Broken Places and variations on it have been used, though, and the same year my book was published Karin Slaughter published her international bestseller Broken. Although I didn’t like the title Under the Dog Star much (and still don’t), and it had appeared on a couple of other books some time ago, it was unique as a mystery title and I couldn’t come up with anything I liked better. Bleeding Through is similarly uncommon (although I keep getting Google alerts about a rock band with that name). The title of the book I’m writing now? I’m not telling, not yet.

I’m curious about how others view titles and cover design. Will you take a minute to answer a short poll?

Does the duplication of titles annoy you, or do you feel it doesn’t matter?

Are you attracted to books with words like dead, deadly, gone, secret, dangerous, etc., in the titles?

Are you attracted to crime novels with “literary” titles that don't sound like mysteries?

Are you attracted to novels with place names as titles?

Further reading: In this 2011 blog, six writers talk about covers they’ve loved and hated.
http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/six-writers-tell-all-about-covers-and-blurbs
   
A quote from Kate Christensen: “The cover for the hardback of Trouble made me unhappy, but no one would budge on it, so there it stayed. My mother thought it was a picture of me; I thought it was flat-out weird. I still dislike it.”

Lifecycle of a Book: The Naked Truth, Part Two

Last month, I talked about the contract, book covers, and other expectations. We’ll pick up the story from there.

The pre-order pages on Amazon and Barnes and Noble went live and I received a printed book jacket to frame for my wall.

Crispin #2

In the meantime, I was polishing the next book in the series (because the next three were already written), and reviews were starting to come back from the debut. The Big Four industry magazines—Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal—all gave it smashing reviews. The Boston Globe gave it a wonderful quotation as did the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the only big newspapers my publisher's publicist could seem to get to give it the time of day.

No, it’s not going to (ever) get a New York Times book review. (Although, here is an interesting article about the fact that it doesn't mean much.) Probably not USA Today. Not People. Not any big magazine. It’s a sub-sub-genre. It’s not even going to be a bestseller on the New York Times Book Review list because to get there, you have to have sold anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 books that week (as reported by certain bookstores who are official reporters to the NY Times, along with Bookscan records). You see, my print run for the hardcover was only 6,000 (it’s only gone up slightly in following books and goes up more for the trade paperback). And believe me, they didn’t sell out in a week. A nod from President Obama, or a movie or TV deal would be the only things propelling it higher in sales than it goes now. But that’s all right. Knowing these things helps curb disappointment and unrealistic expectations. The books are what they are. Slowly, the readership grows. 

A word about placement in bookstores. You know those tables in the front of the stores and down the center aisle that showcase a boatload of books? And those endcaps with covers facing out? Bookstores don’t just decide to make a nifty display of those. Publishers pay for that. That’s expensive real estate. It’s the Beverly Hills of the bookstores. My little sub-sub-genre novel did not get that treatment. It was not going to get a big marketing campaign. Why? Because as I said last month, St. Martin's knows exactly how many books it's going to sell in any given genre, and that's how many they print and how much time and money they spend on it. Does it make sense? From their point of view, I guess it does. But it is a bit disheartening to an author. If they are going to all this time, money, and trouble to publish it, why not spend a few more bucks putting it out there? It's one of the many mysteries of all traditional book publishing.

Speaking of bookstores, if your publisher has no plans to spend money on an endcap or table, you will only get the push in a bookstore when the book first comes out and ends up, cover out, on the "New Release Mystery" shelf, but that only lasts so long. And the window is small. You’ve got six weeks in a bookstore once it’s released. Six weeks to sell, sell, sell. After that six weeks or less, the bookstore may choose to send any of your books left on the shelves back to the publisher. And further, though my books were in Barnes and Noble (inexplicably, Borders chose not to carry books from the Minotaur imprint. Have no idea why) they weren’t in every Barnes and Noble. Not even in every Barnes and Noble where I lived. So telling readers that you can slip on over to BN to get the books meant that, more often than not, they’d have to order it. There's always the internet.

While in my travels, I’d stop off in area Barnes and Nobles just to look around and often found my books on the shelves (which is a huge thrill I hope I never tire of). I’d bring them up to the front desk and ask if I can sign them while leaving some bookmarks (always carry bookmarks). They were more than happy to allow me to do that and put special stickers on them, saying "Signed by the Author." It is a myth, however, that once a book is signed they won’t send it back to the publisher. Books have been shipped from the publisher’s warehouse to other bookstores where I've done signings, and I found some of the copies were already signed.    

Crispin #3

Crispin #4

Back to the story. A year later, we were offered my first two-book contract for Crispin numbers three and four, with a slight raise in my advance. Still not as high as the St. Martin’s Malice Award, but them’s the breaks. A year after that, we were offered a contract on Crispin numbers five and six. Same advance. (Number five, BLOOD LANCE, will be released October 16, and number six, SHADOW OF THE ALCHEMIST, I am finishing up now, with a scheduled release of fall 2013). I began more networking on social media--Facebook and Twitter--and discovered that it brought in more readers than blog tours, and is easier and more fun. I only do blog appearances now when I'm asked. I do my best selling in person.

By the way, if you're thinking about developing an online presence, it's really almost too late to start up a blog or website or social media by the time you get a publisher. Be aware that you should be cultivating your online presence long before you put pen to contract. Where are your readers to come from, after all? Once you have the contract you will want to start an online newsletter (there's a flock of online resources for that). And you might even want to think about getting a PO Box, because you sure don't want your home address out there. Don't forget to buy your domain name (your pen name and real name and even your character's name). And do get your website professionally designed. This is your small business, after all. Treat it like one.

And yes, you will have to promote. I have spent a great deal of money on promotion (including an awesome book trailer) and travel, getting myself to lots of appearances and conventions, and, last year, I went on a multi-state book tour of my publicist’s devising—all on my dime. No, the publisher does not pay for it. I'm pleased that my St. Martin's publicist will do the work to book it. That is a huge burden off my shoulders. But still, I have to pick up the entire tab for airfare, hotel, car rental, and food. Also through my publicist and with the help of others (a book events coordinator--again, paid for on my dime, and lots of word of mouth from librarians and networking with other authors) I push the name out there by doing appearances and wrote articles for specialty magazines and did lots of online interviews. I spend money every year sending out special promotional materials that I design myself (I had a career as a graphic artist) to independent bookstores and libraries. St. Martin’s will also mail postcards that I supply to them, and they send them on to 3,000 libraries on their mailing list. My St. Martin's publicist also gets me booked at the American Library Association Conventions on panels, when the conventions sweep into my end of town. I am grateful to have him. I'm very grateful for all the connections I've made through organizations like Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.

After a little over a year of hardcover sales of VEIL OF LIES, I sold through. That meant that I made back the advance the publisher paid me, and now I collect royalties. Cool. During the ongoing recession, it has become harder and harder and has taken longer to sell through. 

Russian version of Serpent in the Thorns. Say what?

When I signed to St. Martin’s in 2007, ebooks were included on the contracts but no one paid much attention to them. Now they're all paying attention. Besides e-sales, my agent has now made foreign sales of the books, meaning that he sells the books to foreign publishers. It has nothing to do with St. Martin's at all. This is all free money for me since the books are already written and the foreign publishers are responsible for the translations, new cover design (see the difference between the cover at the top of this post and the one directly above. They are the same book!), and distribution. He just recently negotiated an audio book sales contract with an audio book producer (no, your publisher generally has nothing to do with that either. Audio books are very expensive to produce. You need an actor to narrate, a director, and generally new art for the covers unless they purchase them from the publisher [the publisher owns that art, not me]. And they sell for as much if not more than a hardcover. Sales are smaller but libraries like them.) 

Two years ago, with foreign sales income, royalties, and new advances received, I was able to quit my day job to write full time, but that was only possible because my husband supports us. Sort of. I have a host of bills I’m paying off from all this promotion and travel. It will be a while till it all evens out. I still might have to find a part time job again. 

  

All in all, I never get to rest on my laurels with the certainty that a publisher will want to continue to take a risk on my books. It’s never a done deal. But this is only one midlist author’s story. Your mileage may vary. A thousand other stories are out there, with a thousand and one variations.

I hope this was helpful. If it scares you, good! Just know that you have your own homework to do. Be prepared. Ask questions. Be professional. Learn the industry. And Don't Give Up.

 

 

Life Cycle of a Book: The Naked Truth, Part One

Even as more books are becoming self-published, the world of publishing continues to be a mystery. So for all the would-be authors out there, I'd like to tell you the truth, the naked truth, of one author's story of what to expect when publishing with a traditional publisher. I had a lot of expectations myself once I signed that book contract for the first time, six years ago. And even though I was networking with other mystery writers through Sisters in Crime and learned a lot, there were still some things that I didn’t count on. What can you expect? What will happen next? And what should you be doing in anticipation?

PART ONE:

St. Martin’s, one of the big New York guys, is my publisher. Specifically, the imprint called Minotaur Books. Publishers divide up into imprints that define the sort of books they like to publish. Minotaur Books does mysteries. Since St. Martin’s holds a contest each year that offers a mystery book contract with an advance of $10,000 as the prize, I thought that this was the very minimum I could expect when my agent said that St. Martin’s made an offer. So I rubbed my hands and waited until the news came back to me. 

Uh…no. It wasn’t that amount. It was about half of that and just a smidge more. This was disappointing, but as it was pointed out to me, a book has to sell a certain number to make the advance back. And if St. Martin’s is good at anything, it is knowing exactly how many books it could expect to sell in any particular genre. And let’s face it. I was writing an historical mystery, a sub-genre of mystery. And further, I was writing medieval mystery, a sub-sub genre. There were only so many readers out there that I might entice to buy the hardcover. Which became a much smaller number than I would have had to come up with had I gotten a $10,000 advance. It seems small comfort, but you gotta put aside the ego and look at the numbers instead.

So that was fine. After all, I was excited that St. Martin’s, a publisher I had targeted in the first place that I thought could do justice to my series, was going to publish me. I was over the moon.

The contract was for a one book deal. Again, for a newbie in a niche sub-genre, this was probably a decent start. So after my agent hashed out the contract and I signed it, the next thing to happen was my editor going over the manuscript. I don’t know why authors say that editors don’t edit anymore. Sure, they have a slew of other things they have to worry about these days besides editing—marketing and budgets, for instance--and it no doubt cuts into that time, but my editor still edits. He reads it several times and I get back a few pages of notes, observations, and suggestions (this was about five to seven months later. It all depends on when your novel is scheduled for release or how busy your editor is.) Mine is the master of politeness. I don’t know where they go to learn this stuff, but, obviously, he has gleaned how to deal with egos over the years, and he phrases his edits as suggestions and in such a way that I feel that I am doing him the biggest favor ever if I change this or expand on that. I mean, it isn’t as if I have to drive him to the airport. I’m just tweaking a manuscript.

And here’s a tip. I say “yes.” To everything. Well, 99.9% of it. Because he is a professional—been at it over twenty years—and he knows whereof he speaks. Yeah, I know I’m the author, the “Creator”, the “Talent”, but what he’s doing is making smoother prose, making sure the story makes sense, has me expand on details and certain scenes that need more zing or that the reader should spend more time on. I respect that and he in turn respects that I’m a professional and that I should want a better baby. When I say “yes” 99.9% of the time, then that means when there is something worth fighting for—a British spelling on this or that, or opening my chapter the way I originally wanted to—he has no problem saying “yes” back. That’s what we call a professional relationship.  

So I made the changes and got the manuscript back to him within the allotted time frame and off it went to the copyeditors. The copyeditors checked my punctuation, grammar, spelling, did fact-checking, and read it again for word sense and sentence structure. In other words, they make sure I don’t look like an idiot. I appreciate the work they do. I hate getting caught actually being an idiot, but what do I know? I just wrote the darned thing, apparently not worrying about such trifles as punctuation and grammar. They send me a manuscript with the changes, asking questions and pointing out boo-boos. (That edit came back to me some three to four months after my editor's edits). Once I made those changes I sent it back with a note of thanks. I’m grateful they caught the stuff that they did.

Then it went on to be “typeset” and designed and put into first pass galleys. It comes to you in loose pages but paginated and in the font in which it will be printed. Basically, it looks just like the book will look. (this arrived a month after I sent back the copy edits). I read the manuscript yet again, and this is the absolute last time--barring any major catastrophes--you get to make changes. Before, with the editor’s notes and even the copyeditor’s notes, you have your chance to make big changes if you want to, adding paragraphs or deleting. But now that it’s been typeset and paginated, big changes will screw up all sorts of things. It’s not unheard of, of course, but it is time-consuming (which means $) and no one likes to do it. You will not be looked upon kindly.

And do read it. This will be the third time since I handed it in to my editor that I will have read my manuscript all the way through. Why? Because with each pass, that’s the only way to catch the clunkers and to make sense of it all. And since this is essentially the last time you will do that before it’s published, you really want to give it a careful once over. Even a twice over if you have the time.

Now it’s down to the wire. With changes made to the galleys, its last trip is to the printers. (At this stage, we were four months from publication date.)

Now, around this time, you’ll get to see the cover. Notice that I didn’t say you’ll get to “approve” the cover. At my level in the midlist, I have no say about my covers. Although, after the very first Crispin book was published with its nice historical novel art, the book was sent to the paperback division. And just so you know how much power they have, they said they wouldn’t print the trade paperback unless we changed the cover art because they hated it.

Original Hardcover

Re-vamped Paperback

Originally, I was thrilled with the cover art (left) because it was my first published book and it looked okay to me. Not perfect, not something that particularly characterized the “Medieval Noir” concept I came up with, but it was okay. Turned out they ran out of time designing the cover and they had to go with the art that neither my editor nor anyone else seemed happy with. But now, if we wanted a paperback—and we did—the cover would have to be changed. Was there enough in the budget for it? Beats me, because the “budget”—for printing, editing, paying the author advance, marketing--was one of those mysterious things I wasn’t privy to. But apparently, there was enough for that. And now we were going to do it right. My editor asked me what I thought it should have by way of art (now they ask me!). I told him that since the series is so character-driven, and it was so unusual to have a medieval PI, that I thought there should be a figure on the cover, maybe a shadowy rendition of the Crispin character with a dark medieval London in the background. He liked that idea, too, and found several cover artists/photographers who specialized in the kind of style we were looking for. Once he nailed down the photographer, he presented me with a model sheet of the Crispin model they had chosen. Looking at the model, I declared him “drool-worthy.” The model was hired, put in a (correct) costume, and photographed in a billion poses to be used for future covers. The London scenes would be dropped into the background and then the whole would get a digital painterly effect. (see the photo at right)

I love them. They look the way I always pictured they should look. By then, we negotiated a contract for the second book, with, again, a single book contract. This was now 2009, when the financial shit had effectively hit the fan, and sales were down everywhere, including library sales, the bread and butter of my hardcover sales numbers. The publisher was cautious. Understandable. Drove me nuts. Also understandable. But we’ll get back to this in a moment.

Meanwhile, the uncorrected proofs of the book were printed and cobbled together into an Advanced Reader Copy, or arc, and the publisher sent them to newspapers, industry magazines, and other places (like bookstores of record, certain librarians) for reviews, which can be about six months prior to the book’s release. I was also sent the text for the book jacket to approve. At first I thought my editor wrote it, but was happier learning it was done by an intern. I made changes to that and to my bio. I gave them the photo that my photographer husband took of me for my author photo, giving him copyright credit, and it all went into the works.

Prior to my getting a contract, I was fortunate enough to go to my first Bouchercon, the biggest mystery fan convention on the circuit, and I scored some blurbs from some great authors. I gave St.Martin's those to use in their publicity and in their catalog that goes out the bookstores and libraries. That catalog, by  the way, is the main sales tool that publishers use. Not ads, not media blitzing (and certainly not on a little ole midlist author like me), but that catalog. Once it's in a catalog from a big publisher, it is the imprimatur to librarians and bookstore owners that it is worth their notice and their dollars. It helps to have good reviews from the main magazines they use to determine book buying, BookList and Library Journal.

They gave me a book release date. And early on I gave my publicist a list of other places, like certain blogs or magazines he may not have thought of (since I was deep into the historical novel community), to send arcs to and to set up a book tour in southern California and Arizona that I could drive to (he booked it, but I would have to get there and pay for it myself. All authors have to pay for their own book tours, unless you are a huge bestselling author, the people who, ironically, can afford to pay for it themselves.) Fortunately, living in southern California affords me many good opportunities for indie mystery bookstore and library appearances. I planned my book launch at a venerable independent bookstore in Pasadena where I used to live, with dueling knights and medieval food, and counted down the days. The pre-order page went up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s actually going to be a book.

I’ll have to cut it off there. Next month, I’ll continue this story. We’ll talk about bookstore placement and other secrets. Stay tuned.

...a book by its cover

Sandra Parshall

Have you ever been so entranced by a book’s cover that you bought the book on the spot? Or so revolted that you put the novel back on the shelf without so much as opening it to the first page?

Writers dream of having the first kind of cover and live in fear that they’ll end up with the second. Tales of bad covers abound – writers gnashing their teeth and sobbing to sympathetic colleagues, “I hate it! And I can’t get them to change it!”

Yes, believe it or not, those wise, all-knowing folks who run publishing houses sometimes insist on covers that anyone with functional eyesight should be able to see as awful and off-putting. If a writer is well-established, fans won’t care; they’ll buy the book regardless of the mess on the cover. If an author is a first-timer or someone still trying to break out of the midlist, he or she may worry that a bad cover will hold down sales. Seeing your beloved baby dressed in an ugly frock can take a lot of the pleasure out of promoting the book.

I’ve just been through my own nail-biting wait for a final cover for Broken Places, the third Rachel Goddard mystery that will be published in February. If you’ve already looked for the book online (bless you for that!), you probably think the cover will look like this.


But that’s a dummy cover, put forth by the distributor before I had even finished writing the novel. These days information about new books goes out long in advance, while final covers may not be available until just before the books are printed. There’s nothing wrong with the dummy cover, and I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have it on the book, but it seems too pretty and sedate for a novel that is, I promise you, intense. The book will go to the printer soon, and I learned last week that the final cover will look like this.


It still needs tweaking -- my name will be made more visible, and a review quote will be added (fortunately, it's had some nice pre-publication reviews; snippets are now posted on my web site ) -- but this is pretty much what the published cover will look like. I think it’s scary and perfectly tailored to the story. (Yes, a fire plays a vital part in the plot.)

While waiting for my own cover, I was obsessed with the whole subject of mystery covers and looked at hundreds, both on my bookshelves and online. Some are hauntingly beautiful. Some are truly awful. Some are simply bland, doing nothing to sell the story. What I find most fascinating are the differences between covers on various editions of the same book. If you go to my web site, you can see the US cover of The Heat of the Moon (which I like), along with the radically different UK cover (which I don’t like), and the Japanese cover (which I love).

Karin Slaughter’s books not only have different covers in different countries, but often the title is changed. These, for example, are covers for the same book.


Tana French’s covers are markedly similar from country to country. These two remind me of the cover of my second book, Disturbing the Dead (on the sidebar to the left).


Lee Child’s cover designs in different editions often have similar graphics, although the colors are different.


Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has had many looks in many countries, but this is the one that captured the Anthony Award this year for Best Cover Art. It's on the US hardcover edition from Knopf.


I think it's rather blah compared with some of the book’s other covers, especially the third one below.

When Laura Lippman wrote paperback originals, all her covers had a variation of this design, with the picture sandwiched between two blocks of text.


On her first few hardcovers, the designs bore little similarity to one another, but now her covers have settled into a pattern, with the title in a box overlaying the art.



Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine has published so many books that she’s probably keeping an army of cover artists in regular work. Her covers, like Larsson’s and French’s, look strikingly different on different editions.





Some publishing imprints, primarily those that put out cozy and humorous mysteries, have distinct styles they use for all their authors’ books. An Obsidian mystery often has an uncluttered look with a woman as the focus, like this Elaine Viets cover.


Berkley Prime Crime, a Penguin imprint like Obsidian, usually puts extremely detailed and realistic art on its cozies, depicting the inviting environment of the story rather than characters. The cover of my friend Avery Aames’s first Cheese Shop Mystery, to be published next July, is a good example.

Some writers are one of a kind, and their covers often reflect that. Megan Abbott, for example, writes hardboiled mysteries set in the first half of the 20th century, and you know when you pick up an Abbott novel that you’ll be transported back to an earlier era.


Returning to my original questions: How much does a book’s cover matter to you? If you haven’t read the author before, will an enticing cover draw you in? Will an ugly cover make you put the book down without giving the story a chance? What are the elements that make a cover work for you? What’s the most striking book cover you’ve ever seen?

Writers, share your own bad cover stories!

Don't judge a book by its cover? Surely you jest???

By Lonnie Cruse

My friend, Suzanne Adair, has a new book coming out this month. She sent me a link to the cover to get my opinion. I think it's great! First I just saw the green. Then I saw the action. Great concept. And I've already read the manuscript, so I know the story is just as great. Her whole series is a terrific read.

I don't know who coined the phrase about not judging a book by its cover (and yes, I know it's meant more for people than for books) but it doesn't work for me with books OR people. Covers draw me to books faster than the author's name (unless I'm mid-series with an author and loving it.) Take Deb Baker's DOLLED UP FOR MURDER. I'd not read her work when I saw her book at a mystery conference, but I simply could not pass up a cover like that. Could you? If you grew up loving dolls, you'll love the book. And the series.

Author Carola Dunn is blessed with some of the best covers I've ever seen. Take a look at this one, it's my personal fave. But ALL of her covers are terrific. So is her writing. This isn't the first in her series, so you probably want to read that first.

I was browsing a book table at the Virginia Festival of Books in 2002 and spotted this interesting cover of Frankie Y. Bailey's book. I dithered back and forth, not having read her work before, but I knew I had to buy a copy . Her covers are all terrific and her stories have me hooked. I've read almost the whole series.

The cover created by an artist for Five Star on the front of my own mystery, FIFTY-SEVEN HEAVEN, was beautifully done and has sold a lot of books for me. The cover is on the left of this blog. A reader recently told me that the cover told it all. I agree. I was lucky. Lots of authors get NO input on covers. I was asked to give a brief description of the book and to give any suggestions I had. The artist outdid herself, and that cover has sold a lot of books for me.

I remember a friend whose books were drop-shipped to her at a huge mystery convention. When she opened the box, she was horrified by the cover. It was bland and nothing like she'd been told (or shown) it would be. Covers not only affect the buyer. They can send the author ducking for cover. (You'll pardon the pun?)

Of course, what is glued between the covers of a book has to be so well written that the reader wants to pass the word (and often the book, if they can turn loose of it long enough) to friends and family. And the author's writing talent makes the difference in whether or not the reader buys the next in the series. I know all authors try to write the very best book they can. But covers are what first catch the attention of the reader in a book store. At least they do me.

Do you have a favorite book cover? A cover so great that you could not leave the store without the book? A cover that introduced you to a new author? Care to share?