New Cover

I'm taking it upon myself, and my turn to blog, to let you see the new cover for our anthology, SHIVERS AND SCREAMS, VISIONS AND DREAMS. The old cover, while nice, was too dark and hard to see, especially when reduced to bookmark size. Here's the new one:



So, what do you think? If you squint hard enough, you can see the book the ghost is reading is actually the old cover of our book. Clever, eh?

The relatively minor troubles we had with our original cover made me think about cover art in general. The cover art is the first thing a potential buyer sees, so it has to grab his attention, stand out from the hundreds of other books on the shelves, and of course also give a hint what the book's about, its tone, etc. Not to mention having that indefineable "something" that intrigues the reader. If the cover art fails to seize the reader's attention, he'll pass on to the next book without ever giving your prose a try.

The problem is, the person who knows the book best is the author...but the author usually gets little input into the final cover design. We've all heard horror stories about cover art where the heroine has three arms, or the hero is blond and smooth-shaven instead of dark and bearded. How many sales does it cost the author when the cover art doesn't do its job?

If you're an author, do you have cover art horror stories to share? This is the spot! We'll pull up a chair and sympathize.

Readers, do you have favorite cover art? Or art that turns your stomach? Share! C'mon, dish. ;-) We want to know.

Liz