I’m reading To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust, and have just come to the scene depicted on the cover–the angel Lilith riding the dragon (but also an angel) Belial through the air.
Two problems: 1) Lilith is dark-haired. The cover depicts a blonde woman. 2) Belial’s head is described as “twice her own height in length” whereas the head of the dragon on the cover is less than her height.
I see that this cover art is by Steve Hickman, who did the covers for the Jhereg series, so I’m guessing this was commissioned.
In some cases, it seems clear that somebody just pulled the art out of some drawer. The Penguin edition of John Wyndam’s The Chrysalids springs to mind–the cover has some weird alien, but there’s nothing like that in the book. Often the art’s a pretty good match, but the picture’s quite generic, so again, it seems like it came out of some bin 'o cover art.
In some cases, the cover art has clearly been commissioned for the book–the scene depicted is too unusual for there to be one like that lying around–but often it there are details wrong. Are these to be put up to artistic license? Does the artist not get to read the book–just get a vague description from the editor? “I need a chick on a dragon for this book about angels.”
Misrepresentation in cover art is a perennial discussion topic in all SF/Fantasy discussion groups, and usually turns into a litany of which covers suck, and which artists suck, as well as confirming that Michael Whelan DOESN’T suck.
I predict a long, healthy life for this thread, though it may get moved to IMHO.
Covers ARE often drawn from a synopsis, brief description or single scene given to the graphic artist, rather than the whole book. The artist has to earn a living, after all, and they don’t get paid enough (in general) to be able to take the time to read the entire work when considered as a business proposition. There will be exceptions, of course. Well established illustrators who get paid more CAN take the time (Whelan could probably demand that the author change the story to suit his illustrations, if he wanted to). But if a relatively little known author’s work is to be published in a standard manner, they will decide on a cover without much input from the author, and hand a description of what they want off to an illustrator to produce on a short deadline.
Somebody closer to the industry will be along to amplify or refute this soon, I am sure. But it seems to be the prevailing view gleaned from all those previous discussions.
I performed an experiment once. I went through my collection of paperbacks and looked for covers that depicted some scene from the book, and which seemed correct - not neccesarily aesthetically pleasing, but correct in the details shown. I was very surprised to have a high proportion of Darrell K Sweet covers as a result. Sweet seems to be a cover artist people love to hate.
Here http://www.stephaniebond.com/the_making_of_a_book.htm is an overview of how it’s done in the romance industry. Although Ms. Bond paints a more harmonious picture than what is actual fact. I personally know of 3 romance writers who had no input (or whose input was totally ignored) into what went on the cover of their book and where royally stiffed.
One writer went so far as to make up stickers for fans to put over the picture of the hero on the cover of one of her books. A bad cover is the death of a romance book. Romance authors take these things very, very seriously.
Usually the illustrator doesn’t get the whole manuscript but is given an idea and a chapter or scene from the book.
We’ve had good, bad, and absolutely awful experiences with cover art. One portrayed a very violent scene when the book was anti-violence and the publisher said it was a very weak book that otherwise wouldn’t sell. Lovely.
The covers we like best so far are for a series. The first book has a foot in a pile of horsepoop and the second cover has a foot in a pile of rotting seaweed. We’re all still trying ot think of what can be used for the third book. There’s not enough visual difference between pig shit and horse shit to matter ;). They’re kids books BTW aimed at reluctant male readers.
There’s one cover I’m not fond of. We got to choose the illustrator whose work I love. And she did a cover which is not to my taste. Other people like it - it was too far in the production process before we saw the roughs so we couldn’t ask for any changes.
That’s actually the worst of it. Sometimes you get the general idea from the editor but you don’t see the roughs until waay too late to request changes. Changes cost money and unless you manage to put in a cover approval clause in the contract, you’re generally sunk unless you pay for the changes.
Well, in my experience, what happens is that after you’ve finished editing your big anthology of modernist/avantgarde poetry of the last century you & your coeditor spend a lot of time in the library pulling art books out & thinking about pictures, trying to get something suitably striking & with-it for the cover, & then the guy at Oxford happens to see a nice picture of a cottage with trees & thinks “that’s just the thing” & ignores your suggestions. I can only imagine what browsers will think, comparing the idyllic washed-out-Impressionist cover to the contents (things like Caroline Bergvall’s “Les jets de la Poupee”, which is a delirious mix of lesbian eroticism, material on the cloning of Dolly the sheep, & images from Hans Bellmer & Cindy Sherman).
Sorry, this has zilch to do with the original post, except to confirm: fat chance the author or editor of a book, whether s.f., romance or something high-end, has of doing much about a dubious image foisted on the cover.
A friend of mine is being published later in the year, and she’s an artist - she wanted to paint the cover herself. In fact,she has already done a wonderfully colourful work for it.
Except her publisher doesn’t like the writer to also be the artist.
It’s rare for a writer to be allowed to do a cover (not counting people who make their living as artists, the only I can think of are Keith Roberts and Janny Wurts).
Artists used to get an entire manuscript. Nowadays, they are just given a scene the art director has chosen (Vincent Di Fate recently said he’d have a hard time getting started nowadays; he like to work from the entire book, and he’s established enough to get what he wants, but most artists now don’t).
Cover art is chosen/designed to make the book sell. Some of this is knowledge, some voodoo (the infamous “green covers don’t sell” rule). Also, tastes change, so that if you had good luck with a vampire in mirror sunglasses last year, you may not have the luck this year – though marketing people will still try for awhile. For awhile, it was standard to be a sexy woman on the cover, supposedly because the truck drivers who put the books into the spinner racks at airports and the like will pick up the sexy cover, helping your distribution (Yes, I know – stereotypes – but an editor once told me this only half joking).
Science fiction and fantasy books tend to have representational art for their covers. The styles are chosen so that people can look at them and see at once the genre they’re in. Romance covers tend to look the same, while literary books can get away with more stylistic designs.
On that subject, sorta. Here’s a link to a local (SF, CA) radio station who releases a charity CD every year. They run a contest for the cover art. Exposure, right? http://www.kfog.com/
It’s in the center, second item from the top. “Live From the Archives”.
They do, of course, run “streaming audio”.
Peace,
mangeorge
Back n the 1960s they frequently ra sf novels, and especially collections, with cover art totally unrelated to the story. Sometimes they ran abstract art, like John Powers’ wonderfully blobby paintings. By the 1970s they were beng a lot more careful about matching the art to the story, but thy still slipped up occasionally. Of course, if the book isn’t a big production they still might slap inappropriate art on the cover. I have a collection of Jules Verne short stories published last year, but the cover art is clearly from Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. I guess they figured nobody would notice.
In my case, I’m happy to say that they let me pick my own cover art (a Gorgon vase interior from the Metropolitan Museum in NYC).
Slight hijack here, but I have to pass this along from when I worked for a game company.
The company hired a very good artist to do game covers. As part of his portfolio, he showed a number with fantasy/sci-fi themes. When the computer game division needed art for games along those lines, yep, you guessed it. They used his portfolio art because it was cheaper than getting him to do something that was about the game in question.
The story behind The Great Gatsby’s cover art is interesting. I can’t remember the whole story, but in the edition I have the history of the cover art is included. I found it to be a thoughtful addition.
I am working out the cover of my own book right now. I want it to look like my business card, which is a white background with the words BAD ASTRONOMY across it. The letters are actually made up of a Hubble image of a nebula, so it looks like someone has carved out the letters in a wall that faces the nebula. The banner on my website is something similar, using a moon instead of a nebula (see my sig for the link).
I am hoping the publisher will use it or something similar for the book, since it’s pretty neat. We’re doing a series of science books, too, so I think the font type can be kept, but the background image can change (a hurricane for Bad Weather, for example). Anyway, in the end I have input but not the final yea or nay, I imagine. The publisher is being very kind and keeping me in the loop for all this.
