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My latest: Book of Lies, published by Orchard Books 24 March!

I'm taking a break from blogging about writing this time, and moving on to something that can strike hope, fear, joy and despair into the heart of all authors... sometimes at the same time. Yes, you guessed it: book covers. 

Thy started her design career at Warner Music UK. The three years on sleeve design gave her a unique insight into the visual world of teens and young adults; the move from music to books was an obvious transition. She joined Orchard Books as senior fiction designer at an exciting time – Orchard were building their middle-grade, teen and YA lists, having acquired incredible talent like Ally Carter, Teri Terry and Jonathan Meres . 
At the beginning of 2015 Thy began her role as Art Director for middle-grade to YA fiction, working across the Orion and Orchard list. It was an unique opportunity to work on two distinctly different imprints, and to work with amazing debut and prizewinning talent including Annabel Pitcher, Dawn Kurtagich and Leo Hunt.

Below are a handful of book cover related sites to check out. There is so much out there, independent designers, design agencies, illustrators etc…so this is just a starting point: 

http://abcoverd.co.uk/

http://booketing.tumblr.com/tagged/design

http://bookcoverarchive.com

http://www.casualoptimist.com/blog/2015/12/14/52-ya-covers-for-2015/

http://mendelsund.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.itsnicethat.com/

And also follow publishers' instagram/pinterest boards. A lot of them are set-up by the designers and they're a little more inspirational than the actual websites which are set-up by the corporate bods as a business tool rather than celebrating the design side of publishing. 

And finally, let her/him know to expect to work VERY hard, you need a good portfolio to get into a Design degree. Design is challenging work and not just about making something look pretty. Fantastic design is almost always about a creative concept/approach, followed by great execution.

...thanks to Thy Bui, the very amazing cover designer who has done all my Orchard Books covers. I kept looking at the cover for Book of Lies while I was editing it, and thinking, I have to make this good enough to live up to this cover.

Thanks to Candy Gourlay for the photo

From left: Kathryn, Candy, Jo, Teri (me!), and Addy. Missing are Nick and Maureen. I'd say photo by Candy, as it is in her photos, yet - strangely - she is in the photo...

Now that we’ve revealed the cover for the amazing Perfect Liars by Kimberly Reid (coming in May!), let’s talk about the cover design process. As with Ink and Ashes last year by Valynne Maetani, Perfect Liars is a YA mystery title. How do you give a book that mysterious air you need? How do you tell readers, “This book is for YOU!”?

The challenge in all YA book design is to create a cover that looks like it belongs in the YA section, but doesn’t look too much like the rest of the YA section. And to do that, you need a good designer. We found that designer in Liz Casal, who’s also designed covers for Little, Brown and Soho Press. Looking at her portfolio, we knew she was just the designer for the job.

We always start with some comp designs, to figure out what direction we’ll want to go in. Liz gave us some really amazing options. Here are a few of my favorites (these aren’t all of them).

What I loved most about Liz’s designs is the care she put into finding photos of models who would look like the main character, Andrea Faraday, who is biracial (black and white). On top of that, her sense of contemporary design is just spot on. It was hard to choose which one we loved most!

We each loved multiple choices, so how could we narrow it down? I showed the potential covers to coworkers here at Lee & Low, to the author, and to her agent, soliciting opinions. We all had reasons for why we liked what we liked. But which direction was the best direction for this book?

There were some easy ones to rule out—the last one (with the girls in the hat) was a great picture, but didn’t convey the feeling we wanted to convey with this book cover. It was too convivial, not mysterious enough. As Kim put it, “I imagine totally loving this for some other book I’d write.” A couple others felt too much like other books, and we weren’t sure we liked the cropping of some others (we didn’t want to lose the character’s full face, even though that cropping created a great sense of mystery).

We all loved the red cover (upper left of the original design), but we felt very strongly that a silhouette wouldn’t be the right choice for a book starring a person of color—we didn’t want to obscure our character’s ethnicity, we wanted to celebrate it! However, that book had a very commercial feel to it. Could we tweak it so that it would clearly show that she’s a character of color?

We looked at a number of options for that cover direction, and in the meanwhile also explored a few other options. We narrowed our options down further, looking at filters and cropping, fonts and angles. And then we decided to go to the experts: teens.

We chose our three favorite covers (we were on about round 3 by now), and during a visit to our office by students from the Grace Church School (who were there to talk to Joseph Bruchac, author of Killer of Enemies and Trail of the Dead), we asked students to tell us which book they most wanted to read.

Every teen in the room pointed to the cover on the right, the one with the characters wearing sunglasses. We were a little surprised—we thought that opinions might at least be split, or possibly favor the cover we’d been continuing to try to tweak so it wasn’t strictly a silhouette.

Why, we asked, were they most interested in that book?

“Because she looks like she’s hiding something,” said one teen.

For them, those sunglasses meant a sense of mystery.

What do you think? Were our teen experts on to something? We think so!

Check out the final cover at Diversity in YA!

Headline news can be depressing. Which is why it makes me happy to find news stories like this one: This Teenager Discovered a New Planet on his Third Day of Work. Seriously. At 15, this kid shows up for day three of his “work experience” project, they’ve assigned him the task of wading through all […]

Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani is Tu Books’ first New Visions Award winner. Seventeen-year-old Claire Takata discovers a secret about her deceased father that should have remained a secret.

The New Visions Award, modeled after LEE & LOW’s successful New Voices Award, is for unpublished writers of color who write science-fiction, fantasy, and mystery YA or middle grade novels.

Ink and Ashes is set to be released Spring 2015!

Claire Takata has never known much about her father, who passed away ten years ago. But on the anniversary of his death, she finds a letter from her deceased father to her stepfather. Before now, Claire never had a reason to believe they even knew each other.

Struggling to understand why her parents kept this surprising history hidden, Claire combs through anything that might give her information about her father . . . until she discovers that he was a member of the yakuza, a Japanese organized crime syndicate. The discovery opens a door that should have been left closed.

The race to outrun her father’s legacy reveals secrets of his past that cast ominous shadows, threatening Claire, her friends and family, her newfound love, and ultimately her life. Winner of Tu Books’ New Visions Award, Ink and Ashes is a fascinating debut novel packed with romance, intrigue, and heart-stopping action.

Thanks to the following blogs for participating in the Ink and Ashes cover reveal:

YA Interrrobang

RT Book Reviews

YA Highway

We can’t wait to hear what you think of the cover! Thanks to Sammy Yuen of Sammy Yuen Interaction Art and Design for the cover design.

Released in September, Little Melba and her Big Trombone, is the story of Melba Liston, a little-known but trailblazing jazz musician who broke racial and gender barriers to become a famed trombonist and arranger. We asked illustrator Frank Morrison to take us behind the scenes for creating the art work used in Little Melba and her Big Trombone. 

Illustration Process

1. After reading the manuscript for Little Melba and her Big Trombone, I immediately searched for references that could help me  bring the story to life. This included clothing from the time period and a trombone, which I have never painted before. I was fortunate enough to find a CD by Melba titled, “Melba Liston and her Bones” as well.  After gathering all of my materials my studio begins to sound like a jazz session as I begin reading.
2. I make thumbnails sketches and jot down notes on the sides of the manuscript while the Be Bopping is blaring from the speakers. My sketches are loose like a trombone’s slide and they take about a minute each. 
3. When the thumbnails are completed I being drawing defined sketches from them and at the same time placing them in page order. Sometimes I may have two or three different ideas for a page as shown in the cover sketches.  
4.  Once my sketches are approved, I transfer the final drawings to an illustration board. This, of course, is done after I’ve measuring the dimensions and taped off the edges, which includes a half-inch border.
5. I spray a fixative on the drawing so it won’t smudge then coat it with a clear gesso. Next I tape the image to a wooden board. The board allows me to work sitting down at my art table or placing the painting on my easel. 
6. Finally I use a lot of jazz music, dancing and oil paints to finish the final art.

Last fall, Tu Books released Killer of Enemies, a post-apocalyptic steampunk adventure by Joseph Bruchac. Readers were introduced to seventeen-year-old Apache hunter Lozen, a kick-butt warrior who kills monsters to ensure the safety of her family.

Set to be released next month, Joseph Bruchac has written an e-novella that’s a prequel to Killer of Enemies, titled Rose Eagle.

Rose Eagle is set in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where readers are introduced to seventeen-year-old Rose Eagle of the Lakota tribe who is trying to find her place in a post-apocalyptic world.

Before the Silver Cloud, the Lakota were forced to work in the Deeps, mining for ore so that the Ones, the overlords, could continue their wars. But when the Cloud came and enveloped Earth, all electronics were shut off. Some miners were trapped in the deepest Deeps and suffocated, but the Lakota were warned to escape, and the upper Deeps became a place of refuge for them in a post-Cloud world.

In the midst of this chaos, Rose Eagle’s aunt has a dream: Rose will become a medicine woman, a healer. She sends Rose into the Black Hills on a quest to find healing for their people.

Gangly and soft-spoken, Rose is no warrior. She seeks medicine, not danger. Nevertheless, danger finds her, but love and healing soon follow. When Rose Eagle completes her quest, she may return with more than she ever thought she was looking for.

Thanks to the following blogs for participating in the Rose Eagle cover reveal:

Beyond Victoriana

Finding Wonderland

Rich in Color

We can’t wait to hear what you think of the cover!

Book covers are something of an obsession for writers, editors, and booksellers. A good cover sells itself, achieving the almost elusive combination of intrigue and aesthetic that makes you itch to pluck the book from the shelf to read its contents. Creating such a cover is, of course, part design skill, part muse-inspired, and part […]

by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Lisa Brown

published 2014 by McSweeney’s/McMullens

Do you know Because of Winn-Dixie? (Have I told you about the time I told Kate DiCamillo I wrote because of Winn-Dixie and obviously meant because of Because of Winn-Dixie but she cackled and my heart soared?)

Anyway. There’s a thing called a Littmus Lozenge. It’s a candy that makes you taste your sorrow and your sad and your sweet, all at once. Maybe it’s the thought of a lozenge sounding like something medicinal, or maybe it’s cause this pharmacy gave me both comfort and the heebie-jeebies, but reading this book felt a little like tasting a Littmus Lozenge.Something unsettling hovers around this place, but it beckons me, too. And I’m not alone in that: those two myth-collectors/busters are at once intrigued and terrified.

It’s weird and charming and confusing and a head-scratcher all at once.

I think that’s exactly what makes it a successful story for kids. Everything doesn’t have to make sense. Offbeat is okay.

Because let’s face it: kid are weird and charming and confusing. They teeter in that fuzzy place between wonder and reality. This is a book that honors this and celebrates that. Is it suspicious, a lady going in and coming out in the same outfit? No. Not necessarily. But see: you are an adult. You are past your prime of delighting in the bizarre and making sense or screwballs out of it. When you read this, rest in it. Let it catapult you from being a grownup. It’s good for you. And then share it with a kid. They’ll get it.Physically, I love the compact trim size because it feels like a manual, like a notebook, like some peculiar pamphlet to some oddball prescription in the pharmacy. It’s like a secret. A hush.Then! The cover unfolds to show the depths of the Swinster Pharmacy. When you flip it over, there’s a map of the town. Don’t ask me why I didn’t show you that. Just trust me. (If you dare.)

P.S. – Another numbered book I loved recently is How to Bicycle to the Moon to Plant Sunflowers, by Mordecai Gerstein. A total must read if you love quirk and lists like me.

The publisher provided a review copy of 29 Myths on the Swinster Pharmacy, but thoughts and love are my own.

Click here to enter the Kindle Fire Storytellers release day giveaway!

Fictional Candy is posting an exclusive excerpt today. Click here to read!

Thanks for joining the party! And because if how many of you commented yesterday, I’ve posted the first five pages of THE STORYTELLERS here. 

Synopsis:

Four storytellers
One ancient demon
No way out…
Four women who call themselves The Storytellers have gathered one hot August evening to tell tales, as they have for years. But on this night, they unknowingly evoke the powers of an ancient Mayan idol that breathes real life into their stories. The Mayan idol isn’t the only ancient being awakened. A power-hungry demon is determined to see the women fail and become enslaved to him forever.
Now the women’s lives depend on surviving each other’s stories, defeating the demon and solving a centuries-old mystery.
If they survive until The End untold wealth is theirs. But some stories have a life of their own…

ADD ON GOODREADS:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18289410-the-storytellers

OMG! The road to this cover has been hilarious! There was the too-chicklity version the hands-down-the-pants version, the oh-kiss-her-already version and then…..the version that won….the Quentin Tarantino version! Cover design is an adventure for every writer. It’s near and dear to my heart because I loved working in graphics for decades and there’s lots to do here at what I lovingly call the fiction factory. I make the coffee and the popcorn, (you all know that  ) …I’m the janitor….tech support….I’m the buddy in the cubicle next to me who drives me nuts and chews my clock….AND…..I’m the book trailer gal, word maven, wine drinker, coach, and book designer. LOL! Next to writing, book cover design has got to be one of my favorite jobs as an indie––in a terrifying but fun sort of way. I love designing book trailers too but the covers are where I usually get to see my characters for the first time and that’s always magical. I hope you enjoy them. But enough about the book cover journey……

Click here for the giveaway!
Up for grabs? 5 e-arcs of THE STORYTELLERS

Get in on the special contest!
For every 100 adds Laura gets on goodreads for THE STORYTELLERS before the release (September 10th), she will reveal 5 pages of the book early!

If the book hits 600 adds before the release, Laura will release a bonus scene! She will also choose random people who use the tag #THESTORYTELLERS on twitter and facebook, or adds the book to their TBR list, to receive swag!

Goodreads link:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18289410-the-storytellers

Historical fantasy can be tough to market. You have to show that, despite being steeped in research and history, this is an exciting, awesome book. It should look different from all the contemporary books out there, but not old-fashioned. Because of the fantasy element, a photographic cover just couldn’t do this book justice, but for YA, illustration can be tough because you don’t want the illustration to make the book look like it’s for a younger audience. We needed an illustrator whose art had a more mature look, whose sensibility tended more toward something you’d see in the adult market than the middle grade market—and we found that illustrator in Andrew Mar. 

Because the cover is illustrated, there’s a lot more leeway in terms of what we can pick to show. So we get to see an important moment in the story: a character moment where the main character, Baltasar, meets one of his primary companions throughout the book, Jinni (who is a half-genie). We know there’s magic happening–she’s floating, after all!–and we get to see how the author envisioned these characters rather than having to find a model whose looks fit the character or a stock photo that’s not quite right. We can also see that this is a historical setting from the view out the window, the characters’ clothing, and the items on the table. We even get some nice detailing in Jinni’s dress, and I love the expression on her face compared to Baltasar’s!

How did we choose this particular scene? The illustrator and designer both read the book, and we all actually came separately to the conclusion that this key scene had a lot of potential for illustration. Check out a few of the early sketches to peek in on the illustration process. First we had to choose what position the characters would be in, and then we had to figure out where the type could go in juxtaposition with the scene. How would the reader’s eye travel across the artwork and type together? Would this invite them in to the book to read to figure out what will happen?

The modern look of the typography ties it all together–this is a book for today, looking at this controversial time period through a different lens than the old stories. We looked at several font choices—as you can see from the thumbnail sketches, that font is not the one we ended up with on the final cover. Then the designer, Isaac Stewart, had to place the typography in a way that stood out without overwhelming the great artwork.

The end result: a cover that says “READ ME!” to anyone who sees this book.

We’re getting close to the release of Awakening, the upcoming sequel to the YA science fiction dystopia Tankborn from our Tu Books imprint! Awakening continues the story of Kayla and Mishalla, two teen GENs (genetically engineered nonhumans) fighting for freedom and equality:

Last week, we were lucky to get some help revealing the cover of Awakening from some great book blogs:

Pretty in Fiction

Speculating on Spec Fic

Live to Read

A Reader of Fictions

This week, Tu Books Publisher Stacy Whitman shares the process of creating the cover:

Those who know Tankborn well will know that there’s something different about the girl on the cover of Awakening compared to the girl on the cover of Tankborn (aside from the fact that they’re two different people and, yes, represent two different characters). I’m not sure I should give it away, actually! But I’ll give you a hint: look at where the GEN tattoo falls in both covers:

 

But let’s start from the beginning. First, talking about Awakening will require a few Tankborn spoilers, so those who are spoiler-averse: beware!

As you can see from the early proposed concepts, we had a few possibilities to choose from:

But which one best represented the book? To make a decision, we had to dig into the essence of Awakening.

In Tankborn, Kayla was recruited by a group of trueborns and lowborns quietly working against GEN oppression. In Awakening, Kayla starts to chafe at the slightly more gentle bonds this organization puts upon her—she wants to control her own destiny. But while she works towards freedom (and a chance at love with Devak, a trueborn), a deadly disease is spreading among GENs–which is especially curious considering that GENs are people who are genetically engineered not to get sick. On her travels for the Kinship–while also avoiding bombs set in GEN housing and warehouses by a mysterious group that only identifies themselves with the grafitti “F.H.E.”–Kayla meets a couple other GEN girls who are connected to this disease, one of whom is rumored to be able to heal whomever she touches.

Some early concepts, like the ones above, included one piece of Awakening or another, but a couple looked too modern-day urban or romance genre (didn’t quite set themselves apart as futuristic science fiction); another didn’t get the full message of the book across in a way I felt the other concepts did; another felt like it was actually better held back for the cover of Revolution, the third book in this trilogy (so now you have a hint as to what book 3 may look like!).

In combining the concepts, the designer, Einav Aviram, did a great job of showing what this book is all about in one great cover: the grafitti (Freedom, Humanity, Equality), the mysterious GEN girl who can heal whoever she touches, the dawning of Kayla’s stand for her rights–all coming together.

I should also say, of course, that we were happy for another chance to put a person of color on a cover. Whitewashing of YA covers is still, unfortunately, a common occurrence, and one of the things we try to do at Tu Books is showcase our characters of color on the cover whenever possible, whenever the design allows it.

So there you go, dear readers. What do you think?

Further reading:

Design 101: How a Book Cover Gets Made, Part I

Design 101: How a Book Cover Gets Made, Part II

For a long time we’ve been talking about our upcoming anthology, Diverse Energies, and I am thrilled to be able to share the cover with all of you at last!

Diverse Energies is a YA anthology of dystopian stories with a focus on diversity, and features stories by several award-winning speculative fiction writers including Ursula K. Le Guin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, and Greg van Eekhout. So, without further ado:

Tu Books Editorial Director Stacy Whitman, on the cover:

The hanging letters came first in the concepts. I had already decided that the hanging letters were great, but it took us a while to settle on just the right image. This was a stock photo I happened across while looking for scenes of urban blight. It’s actually a reclaimed industrial space in Italy, which was turned into a park, but two things drew me to it: the way the lines would contrast with the letters in our design, and how much high energy the color of the light possessed. The energy of the colors matched the contrasting hope and darkness of the stories in this book.

The title Diverse Energies comes from a quotation from John F. Kennedy that inspired the anthology: “No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.”

Look out for Diverse Energies this October! Until then, you can learn more about it here, and stay tuned to the blog for more sneak peeks to come.

In this two-part guest blog post, designer Isaac Stewart and Tu Books Executive Editor Stacy Whitman discuss how they came up with the final cover for our new YA fantasy, Vodník:

Isaac: Before brainstorming ideas for a book design, I usually get a few pieces of key information from the editor:

1.     What age-range and demographic do we want the book to target?

2.     What would the editor like the cover to convey?

3.     What has the author said they would like to see on the cover?

Here’s how Stacy answered:

1.     The book’s design should appeal to both female and male tweens and teens, but should specifically target the male teen.

2.     Stacy wanted a cover that felt ominous, fantastical, with a dash of whimsy.

3.     Bryce [Moore, the author] specifically mentioned that he found covers with bold shapes and colors both beautiful and striking. But if we decided to go for a more photographic cover, he wanted to see the vodník statue or Trenčín castle.

Trenčín Castle

He also suggested full-color interior illustrations by Michael Whelan, that the exterior title be in dripping water and his author name be on fire. He also asked for a trip to the moon and a hard drive loaded with Scooby-Doo reruns.

Both Stacy’s and Bryce’s input was invaluable in creating cover concepts. I had long conversations with each of them, trying to find that image that would really fit the book. Though their ideas were sometimes disparate, there was still some overlap that I hoped to be able to harness.

So I set to work reading the manuscript. The goal I kept in mind was this: Find a design that would compel the right audience to pick up the book (and make Stacy and Bryce happy in the process).

Stacy: You’ll note that Bryce had quite a bit of input into the process here. With a smaller company, it’s easier to coordinate with the author for suggestions. While we still have to take marketing information just as much into account when planning covers, we want our authors to be happy with the end result. Their ideas help inspire the designer and I think the covers are better for it. I also show my authors concepts–once we’ve narrowed it down to the best possibilities–so they can point out things I might have missed. (For example, Karen Sandler rightly pointed out that we had accidentally put the tattoo on the wrong side of the main character’s face on Tankborn!)

Isaac: I made notes of particularly visual scenes and looked for reoccurring details and symbols that could be translated into the book design. I’ll admit that several times I lost myself in the reading of the book and had to resurface for air and make notes after the fact! (You’ll see what I mean when you get to read the book later this month. It’s breathtaking. And not just because there’s an evil water demon who wants to drown the main character.)

2 Comments on Design 101: How a book cover gets made, last added: 3/9/2012

Today I spent the day inputting all the changes I so painstakingly made by hand awhile back to my mystery novel. I am eager to get these changes made on computer, and finally online so I can relaunch my ebook. I am always an early adopter of new media, and this book came out in 1999 as an ebook published by a press that is no longer in business. My reader at that time cost almost $300, and hardly anyone had one. Hardly anyone bought ebooks either. My novel was the best-selling mystery novel (ebook) for 1999, so that tells you how many were sold that year. Ha. Especially considering that it wasn't even published until October! Still, it did get good reviews, so I have high hopes for it in its new life. As it was written so long ago, it definitely needed to be brought into the new millennium, with cell phones and so on. Otherwise, it holds up. I'm going to need two more full days to finish the uploading.
I also want a new cover. And a marketing campaign. This will not happen overnight as much as I would like for it to. Why can't things happen more quickly? Life is too short, and yet things take too long. It has been ever thus.
Do you write mysteries? Do you have a designer you want to recommend to do my cover? I have someone in mind, but they don't specifically do mysteries. I'm open to suggestions.
Leave a comment.

Earlier this week I said that I was working feverishly on various projects to get them done before submissions started. One of those projects is the cover for the fourth in the Sacred Books Series, The Book of All Things.

I have developed various covers, one of which is my favorite, and one which is the author's. They are not the same.

So, I could now use a little help from all of you. Below you will find the top three cover options (so far). Look at the covers, click them to see them full size, and then ask yourself, "Which book is the one I would want to buy?"

After that, please vote in my cover poll below. The more input I get, the more statistically significant the outcome. So vote! Show your friends and family and have them vote!

Thanks!

Basic Black

Rainbow Connection

Heavy Metal

© Copyright 2006-2010 Madeline Smoot. All rights reserved. May be excerpted and duplicated for educational purposes.

Minimalistic graphic design for an imaginary poster, flyer or cover.

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Minimalistic graphic design for a poster or cover.

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