judging pixels by their, uh, cover.
19 Mar 2009 02:22 amA few days back a friend was contemplating the cover design for her next story. With my bookseller-cap on, I naturally had feedback but then held back (partially, at least, because I wasn't up to sitting still long enough to type much, haven't been for awhile). But seeing the alternate covers got me thinking, or at least just scrutinizing cover art in ebooks a bit more closely.
A day or so later I came across this note in a publisher's submissions guidelines/faq (edited for more generic version after seeing roughly the same sentiment at three different publishers):
We do not allow authors to provide cover art... We have a staff of artists who produce all our cover art... we're proud of the quality of our cover art.
Which I find amusing in some respects, because some of those companies are the same ones with the covers for which my only reaction is, "my goodness, that's unfortunate."
( Ruminations on art direction in tpub and epub. )
However, all that is beside the point for those epubs whose cover artists -- no matter how dedicated the staff may be -- still suck. Some of them seriously make me wince, and all I can think is: oh, you poor poor author, stuck with that cover... my goodness, how unfortunate.
A day or so later I came across this note in a publisher's submissions guidelines/faq (edited for more generic version after seeing roughly the same sentiment at three different publishers):
We do not allow authors to provide cover art... We have a staff of artists who produce all our cover art... we're proud of the quality of our cover art.
Which I find amusing in some respects, because some of those companies are the same ones with the covers for which my only reaction is, "my goodness, that's unfortunate."
( Ruminations on art direction in tpub and epub. )
However, all that is beside the point for those epubs whose cover artists -- no matter how dedicated the staff may be -- still suck. Some of them seriously make me wince, and all I can think is: oh, you poor poor author, stuck with that cover... my goodness, how unfortunate.