Cover Art

Cover art has always been important to me. A cover doesn't just sell a book, it also represents the author's care and attention (in my opinion). When I used to look at publishers I would look through their catalog and examine each cover they posted online. If the artwork was poor then I was very unlikely to approach them for publication. When we started writing "The Beginning of Whit" we had some thoughts on a cover. In a moment of boredom I actually worked on a rendition of "Night Hawks" that could work as the cover but when the flash drive that the image was on died, so did the image. 

(The original "Night Hawks" image by Edward Hopper.)

While I came up with a lot of images throughout the process, to get the right "feel" for the book we finally approached some actual artists. Even though we still were kicking around the idea of doing a play on "Night Hawks" we knew that if we started a series with that image then we'd have to maintain a series of covers based on famous art (if we wanted continuity between book covers). 

Ultimately, when I found an artist whose work was something I was interested in, I went with a design that fit her already established portfolio. The final image is something I think really represents the book and the care that my co-author and I took in selecting a cover. The color choices for the cover give it an urban fantasy feel and the youthful/fun feel of Whit. The scary chickenman in the shadows gives it some intrigue and the stake and donuts gives some hints about the character and the book.

Two parts of the cover are extra touches conceived by the authors. Andrew chose to have the broken egg at the bottom of the page. I chose to include the one-eyed cat beside Whit. When I told Chewie that she was featured on the cover, this is how she reacted:

Rejection

Just got my first rejection from a serious publisher. Now just to be clear, this is not the first time my work has been rejected so maybe that's why it's not really fazing me. I know it's something all writers face and probably everything that can be said on the matter has been said but I figured I'd share my experience anyways. I sent a query letter to Ace last April. In November, I received a response requesting the full manuscript. A week ago I received the formal rejection. It's hard not to look at it like a year down the drain, but I'm still resilient. My co-author and I are going back to the drawing board and accessing which publisher we want to send it to next. It's hard not to get a little frustrated when you think about if it will take a year with each publisher and if it will take 10 publishers or more before someone wants it. I mean, if it takes 10 years to publish that would be insane. I'll still write because it's impossible for me not to but I might give up on trying to get published after 10 years of rejections.

Anyways, I've also been researching the social media practices of authors I admire and I went to the website of Moira J. Moore, author of the Lee and Taro series, and found something interesting (and related). While Ace had been publishing her series (or at least the first 5 out of 6 books), the decided not to publish the 6th/final book. I think it would almost be worst to be picked up by a publisher only to have them drop my series halfway through completion. Hearing about her situation gave me some perspective. I know that publishers are having a hard time staying profitable and while "marketing" was listed as a reason not to publish my book; perhaps Ace is having trouble making even already published series profitable and not willing to take risks with new concepts/books/authors. Well, unless they appear to be the next Harry Potter series.

Lastly, Moira is sharing her 6th book of her series on her website for free (or for donation if you have the money and are willing to part with it). http://moiraj.livejournal.com/ While I'm not a fan of reading the last book in a series, first, knowing it's online for free might prompt people to start reading the entire series. And maybe that's how it will end up being for me as well. Like I said, I'll always write, but I won't spend the rest of my life fighting publishers to finally publish my stuff. Sure, I'll try a couple more and see if someone wants what I've got, but maybe it'll come down to publishing it myself or giving it away for free. Stories were meant to be read, profit or not.