Tag Archive for: Book Covers

Red Letter Days for Writers — and a Cover Reveal for Murder in the Mountains

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by Shari Randall

There are many special moments in the life of a book that are worth celebrating. Of course, publication day, the “book birthday,” is the day to pop the cork on a bottle of champagne. But there are other days that feel equally special to writers:

The day you type “The End” and finish your draft. Every writer knows that it’s really the beginning – second and third drafts, edits, editor’s letter, and copy edits are coming. It’s a hard won milestone. I don’t know any writers who celebrate this moment with champagne — we’re too exhausted.

Unboxing day: the day you receive the box of author copies and hold a book in your hands for the first time. Bliss!

And my favorite – seeing a book cover for the first time. For me, this is the moment a book feels real for the first time. I was thrilled when I saw the cover for my next project, a group cozy mystery story collection titled Murder in the Mountains. It’s part of the Destination Murders series. The first in series was Murder on the Beach and further adventures in exciting locations are planned.

This collection will include stories by Gretchen Archer, Leslie Budewitz, Karen Cantwell, Barb Goffman, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Tina Kashian, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Cathy Wiley, and I. There’s a special ebook preorder price of only 99 cents for a limited time. The book will be published February 1, 2022 and I hope you’ll plan to take a trip to the mountains with us! 

For the Love of Book Covers

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I’m a huge fan of vintage paperback covers, so I was delighted to find the multitalented Robin Agnew’s Instagram feed featuring cover art from her expansive collection. I asked her to talk a bit about her favorite covers and her time running the beloved mystery bookstore, Aunt Agatha’s. You can see more on her social media links (below). Enjoy! – Shari Randall

By Robin Agnew

For 26 years, my husband and I ran a mystery bookstore, Aunt Agatha’s, which was absolutely stuffed to the brim with mass market paperbacks, far and away my favorite of all book formats. They’re cheap, they’re easy to carry in a purse or a pocket, and you can take them into the bathtub or onto the beach. I never leave the house without one. One of my very favorite customers had been a fighter pilot during WWII. When I knew him, he was an incredibly charming older man who loved all things golden age, and we spent many hours discussing, for example, Agatha Christie vs. Ngaio Marsh. He told me he started reading Christie during the war – he could stick a book in his pocket (hence “Pocket” books).

When we closed our store in 2018, we had massive boat loads of paperbacks left. We reduced our prices and sold many, gave away many, and skimmed the cream off the top to sell online, which is an ongoing process. Our collection before we closed was around 25,000. Getting to a number like that takes literally decades.

When we first opened, we’d accept boxes of books from almost anyone. One memorable old guy pulled his Gremlin into our driveway with a hatchback full of Nick Carter books. As time went by, we had a rotating collection on display, and people would often buy them for the covers. I personally love covers from the 40’s and 50’s, especially before printing processes were more sophisticated. Something about the use of those basic primary colors in combination has always held a fantastic appeal to me.


I love this old Perry Mason/Erle Stanley Gardner cover for The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat (1941). It’s a beautiful and mysterious graphic of the cat, and the lettering is unusual and slightly sinister. It sets a tone. Gardner in fact had many, many great covers through the years. I also love these slightly later photo covers, especially The Case of the Careless Kitten (1950) and The Case of the Curious Bride (1956). The 50’s brought the modern innovation of photography, but these now look pretty vintage. They are also striking and make you look twice, which is the goal of any book cover.

Another favorite–book and cover–is Ngaio Marsh’s Death in a White Tie (1942), again a striking, simple image, with a use of color which would now be considered primitive. But doesn’t it get the point across?  I have always loved this book (and had many conversations about it with fellow fans) because I love both the victim and the killer. What a trick.

Sightly later (1962) is the cover for Spencer Dean’s Murder After a Fashion, with a cover that has the feel of a graphic fashion illustration. By the 60’s, illustration had evolved to be more sketchy and “arty,” and this cover certainly smacks of the 60’s. I don’t know anything about the story, but I love the cover.

And finally, there’s Anne Rowe’s The Little Dog Barked (1943), which for some reason languished in our garage before I rescued it. I love the image of the dog; I love the font used for the title; and I even love the kind of swirly thingy above the dog–what is it?  I think I love the older covers because the artists weren’t afraid to let their freak flags fly, and it made for some really unusual and memorable work.

This collection is a result of decades of owning a store, of customers bringing books left to them by departed parents, aunts or uncles, or people who wanted to sell or trade them. These are some of the surviving jewels. They keep the flame of book love alive for me!


Robin Agnew and her husband, Jamie, ran Aunt Agatha’s in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, together for 26 fabulous years. Robin now writes the cozy column for Mystery Scene Magazine and maintains a review blog under the Aunt Agatha’s banner, at www.auntagathas.com. Meeting writers at the store, often at the beginning of their careers, remains one of her favorite things, as does continuing to read many, many of the wonderful and spectacular mysteries published every year. 

Facebook – @auntagathas 

Twitter – @AgnewRobin

Follow the covers on Instagram @RobinAgnew

Readers, what do you think? Do you have a favorite book cover?

 

 

Judge a Cover

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Don’t judge a book by the cover. 


How many times have you heard that bit of advice? 

Of course, it’s usually a reference to a person, but sometimes it actually refers to a book. I know I’ve scrolled through online retailers, glancing at covers to see if it might be a story I’d enjoy. 

I’m having new covers created for the novellas in my Holly Price series, partly to set them apart from the “main” story line, but also because it’s fun. And with the way 2020 is going, we need all the fun we can find. 

Step one in the process was reading all about current ideas and trends in cover design until my head spun. Then it was a matter of researching cover artists and wearing out my fingers and eyeballs perusing their websites and galleries. (Note to self, this is supposed to be fun.)

But I found several I liked! Score! 

The difficult part is deciding which cover to use. I asked my newsletter peeps – and of course, it was a tie. 

Head. Desk. 

So all you lovely website followers and Facebook gurus, weigh in! 

Double Down cover

Green cover for Double Down Fancy cover for Double Down



Cover 1 – Keep it the same as the rest of the series 

Cover 2 – Is Maddie the gold-digger the Kaufman clan claims? 

Cover 3 – Is Maddie an ice queen like Malbec Mayhem’s Sofia appears to be? (This one is going to need a frame…)

Leave me a comment about your favorite! 

Thanks! 

An award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark suspense and light amateur sleuth stories.  When not writing, she battles with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure. She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd.  Visit her at http://cperkinswrites.com or on Facebook 

Sign up for her new release announcement newsletter in either place.

She’s hard at work on the sequel to The Body in the Beaver Pond, which was recently presented with the Claymore Award. 

Celebrating Pretty Books

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by J.M. Phillippe

There is nothing quite like seeing your book in print for the first time. I adore eBooks, and am just as thrilled when someone buys a digital version of my books as when they buy a print one, but actually seeing my books in print does something to me that seeing it digitally just doesn’t do. In print, it’s tangible, solid. My first memories of books were of course the print kind, and seeing my words as I flip through the pages feels magical.

I am particularly excited because today, the print version of my latest book, The Glitter of Gold, a space age retelling of Rumpelstiltskin and part of the Galactic Dreams Volume 2 boxed set, is being released, and I can’t wait for folks to see it because the inside is just so pretty!

 I love all the details inside the book, from the font choices to the additional little illustrations found in the section and chapter headings. A quality design can really add something to the way a reader experiences a book, and I am super excited for the experience that readers will have with this book.

Maybe Bookstagram (taking pretty photos of books for Instagram or other social media) has made me even more aware of just how pretty books can be, but lately I have been thrilled to see what designers are doing to help add to the experience of readers investing money (and shelf space!) on print editions.

So here’s to pretty books — may the stories they contain be just as memorable!

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of the novels Perfect Likeness and The Christmas Spirit, the sci-fairy tales Aurora One and The Glitter of Gold (part of the Galactic Dreams boxed sets) and the short stories The Sight and Plane Signals. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a clinical social worker in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free time binge-watching quality TV, drinking cider with amazing friends, and learning the art of radical self-acceptance, one day at a time.

Market Research

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By Bethany Maines
As we have been exploring the question “Who are you like?”
this month on the Stiletto Gang, I’ve been exploring what other books in my
genres look like.  This is sometimes
gratifying on the base level of my fonts
are so much better than yours and also sometimes mystifying on the level of
why are there so many bared midriffs in
contemporary fantasy?  On the topic
of midriffs, and purely for example’s sake, I’ll put the cover of Shifting Jock in Love here.  The cover is obviously… uh… fully functional,
because I can’t stop staring at the uh… weight lifting bar.  Now that we’ve covered that topic (no, we
haven’t covered anything?), let me move on to my point.
Market research, which is what I call shopping and (gently)
making fun of book covers over a glass of wine, is important.  It’s hard to review my own book cover
submissions if I don’t know what the trends are.  Not that trends should inform every decision,
but I like to know how far out of the current I’m swimming. In addition to
finding the occasional good idea that I could be copying, I also find really
interesting authors.  Research shows that
most people buy books based on word of mouth, but in this online age, that can’t
ALWAYS be true.  From Facebook to google
ads, to the wonders of Amazon, we get a lot of recommendations about authors
and books online.  And without a person
to ask, readers are stuck trying to answer “so who are they like” question
based on the marketing surrounding the book. 
But as we all learned in grade school, you can’t always judge a book by
it’s cover.

One great resource I’ve found in my wading around the
internet is a great website – www.literature-map.com  Simply type in an author you like and it will
produce of an animated cloud of similar authors aka a handy new To Be Read list.  And you can click on the question mark in the
corner if you want to add authors to the database to improve results.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go
enjoy a little more market research and a Riesling.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Book Covers & Boots

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by Bethany Maines

Author’s Note: I will not be writing about 9/11.  I think we’ll probably see enough of that elsewhere today, so I will be writing about something much more fun – book covers.

Just as it is a truth universally acknowledged that a rich
bachelor must need a wife, it also known that a book cover can make or break a book.
But what makes a good book cover?cThe easy answer is that a book cover should clearly state
the title, author, and give a visual impression of the contents in the simplest
possible manner. Easily said, but not so easily done. Capturing the tone of a
book, much less a central theme, and an idea of characters or plot, in one
single graphic image is incredibly difficult.

As the release date for my new collection of short stories,
Tales from the City of Destiny, approaches I find myself once again fascinated
by book covers. From Romance novels with their assortment of bare-chested
heroes, to the illustration covered sci-fi/fantasy novels (see examples below), to Contemporary
Fiction with their photo based covers of women with no heads (yes, headless
woman books are a thing – check out this slideshow) each genre appears to have
their own language for how to speak to their audience. And that’s what I find
interesting! All of these books have targeted a specific audience.

Ask an author who their audience is and nine times out of
ten we’ll fumble around and say “lots of people.” If we’re really on the ball
we can probably narrow it down to half the population – ie men or women. But in
all honesty, authors write for an audience of one, themselves. Perhaps,
afterwards, they’ll be able to narrow it down to a more specific genre, but thinking
about our work like that forces us to turn our precious creative effort into a
commodity, not just in the real world, but also in our own heads. Believing in
the reality of our characters is part of what makes writing fun, and without
that, what’s the point? 

And there’s the dirty little secret of writing: sometimes
marketing kills the fun.  Which is
why it’s nice to have someone else do it for you, or at least to have a team
supporting you. So to all of those authors who grit their teeth, put on their
big girl boots, and go out and market their books, I salute you!  And as I reach for my own boots, here
is a sneak peak at the new book cover for Tales from the City of Destiny.


Bethany Maines is the author of
the Carrie Mae Mystery series and Tales from the City of Destiny. You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube
video or catch up with her on Twitter.

Sneak Peek of My New Cover

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This is the cover for my next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, Bears With Us, due out mid August.

When I was asked by the cover artist what I wanted on the cover, I said a stylized Native American looking bear. Did I have a picture in my mind? No, but this particular artist has done all my covers and she has always been able to come up with something that fits the story and looks like a Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery.

I was on vacation when the publisher sent me a picture of the cover–I was and am ecstatic. She definitely nailed it.

In this particular book, the mountain community of Bear Creek is plagued by bears. Though there is a fish and game warden, he can’t be every place at once and Tempe finds herself having to chase bears out of people’s homes. Of course there’s plenty more to keep her busy, but for awhile the bears are her biggest problem.

I’ve been fortunate with all my covers lately. Both publishers have artists who really aim for giving a hint of the book and trying to interpret the author’s vision.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Covers!

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Studies have shown that the single most important factor influencing a buyer’s purchase of a book is the cover. (I’m talking about print books here—I haven’t looked at ebooks, which do have covers, which I assume are intended to catch the eye of a potential reader.) That’s kind of depressing, because most writers, at least those with larger publishers, have little control over what their cover looks like. If they’re very lucky, they get to see it in advance of publication, usually with a note from the editor that says something like “isn’t it adorable?” Not, “are you okay with this?”

Of course, you the writer have the right to respond and say, “But my protagonist isn’t blonde!” or “There are no pineapples in my book!” Too bad, because Marketing loves the cover, and they’re the ones who matter because they know what sells. We hope.

Of course, seeing the cover kinds of depends on where the publisher and/or the bookstore decide to place your book (that’s a whole different topic). If it’s face out, people will see the cover. If it’s spine out—you’re out of luck, unless the reader happens to buy only books with red spines and yours is red.

There are definitely visual conventions for book covers, not to mention “branding.” I’ll admit I’m drawn to the Twilight series because the covers are so simple and elegant—and recognizable from across the room. Thrillers tend to have embossed covers with shiny metallic patches—you see a lot of them in airport bookstores. And cozies have cats.

That’s not a bad thing. If a reader wants to find her favorite kind of fiction, she will recognize the cat as a key symbol (hmmm, the former academic side of me is thinking a paper called, “Feline Iconography in Genre Fiction”.) Or a cat plus a craft (knitting, crocheting), although I would argue that cats and yarn are a perilous combination. Or a cat plus food—most often dessert, because you don’t want a cat sitting next to a juicy pork chop, do you? Can you guess from this trend that most of these books are aimed at female readers? Men have been known to put false covers on them if they want to read them in public.

I’m not complaining, because most of my book covers have been done by a cover artist who speaks the (visual) language of the genre. Not that I know her personally—I had to wait for my first book to come out before I could identify her on the publisher’s page. (She’s Mary Ann Lasher, and she does a lot of covers for Berkley Prime Crime.) She does accept suggestions, and some have even made it to the covers, like the spring-house on Rotten to the Core (which is based on one I found in an orchard), and the goats on Bitter Harvest (August 2011). Yes, they’re real goats on a local farm.

I threw her a real curve ball with Let’s Play Dead (July 2011), in which I invented a children’s book series featuring Harriet the Hedgehog and her animal friends, all of whom are actually critical to the plot. Mary Ann managed to get them all on the cover and still made it look like a mystery, with a sinister shadow looming.

Which brings up one last point: for cozies you’re not supposed to put anything suggesting violence or death on the cover, even though the point of the book is generally to solve a murder. That looming shadow is about as scary as you can get. No blood, no corpses, no ick. Just cheerful murders, with friendly cats.

Do you buy a book based on its cover? What do you look for?

_____________

Sheila Connolly, former art historian, investment banker, political staffer, genealogy consultant, and non-profit fundraiser, gave them all up to become a full-time mystery writer. Her first book, Through a Glass, Deadly (written as Sarah Atwell), was an Agatha nominee for Best First Novel. She writers the Orchard Mystery series, the most recent of which is A Killer Crop, as well as the Museum Mystery series, based in Philadelphia, which opened with Fundraising the Dead in 2010. In addition, she’s working on a new series set in Ireland, that will debut in September 2012. Sheila lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and three cats. http://www.sheilaconnolly.com/