Cover Story

Marianne Mancusi forwarded me news about romance novel covers making the news, thanks to her efforts:

I recently worked with Dorchester to do a story on how a romance novel cover is created, from concept to finished product. We followed CL Wilson’s next book through the process. The piece aired on our affiliates yesterday and now it’s up on our website.

Wanna see? Check it out. Am I the only one who is fascinated by the behind the scenes creative stuff?

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The Link-O-Lator

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  1. That was interesting.  Thanks for sharing it.

  2. R. says:

    Spiff!!  Know we know!

  3. Wryhag says:

    That was pretty danged cool, Sarah.  Now I know what I want to be when I grow up—not a cover model but a cover artist. Yeah, that’s it!

  4. Santa says:

    That was very cool.  The final cover looks like one that may draw me to that book.

  5. Thank you! Another mystery solved for a new writer. *g*

  6. Mel L. says:

    You wanna talk behind the scenes creativity???? Let’s talk about those HORRENDOUS author headshots.

    I’ll get to the end of an awesome book and then want to know about the author, so I check out the back and EEP!!!

    Why do some truly great authors have some truly horrible photographs?  As a portrait photographer I want to go meet them, shake them, and then offer to take their photos, free of charge, just so I can stop being annoyed when I finish reading their books.

  7. Kaitlin says:

    This was very interesting, though I have to say that model doesn’t instantly bring to mind Ellie.  🙂 

    I love how this site always finds such interesting stuff.  I learn the coolest things on here.  😀

  8. Cat Marsters says:

    You know what I loved?  How the male model was standing on a box in the clinch shot.  Priceless.

  9. Grace says:

    Mel, the authors I know have all had to provide their own headshots – so it’s whatever they had lying around, cropped to fit the dustjacket. I think most would be glad of a professional to help them out!

  10. C.L. Wilson says:

    Judy York (the cover artist) has done a consistently tremendous job with my covers, but the QUEEN cover totally blew me away. I adore it!

    And Marianne Mancusi did a fabulous job producing the feature story.

  11. Thanks guys! It was a really fun story to produce! Judy York is also the artist behind the upcoming Shomi covers – which look fabulous! She had just shot my Razor Girl cover when I did this shoot back in December and so I actually got to talk to her about it…which was so cool. I wish there was always more communication between authors and artists, but maybe it’d be a “too many cooks” syndrome.

    Oh and as for the male model standing on the box, he’s actually NOT the cover model used in the actual books. The real guy had some kind of union restriction and couldn’t be in the piece. So that’s the girl playing Ellie’s “in real life” boyfriend who agreed to stand in! 🙂

    Marianne

  12. Julie Leto says:

    Cat, I noticed that, too!  He wasn’t hot enough to be Rain anyway.  I’m glad he’s not on the final cover.  The model who is Ellie is gorgeous!

  13. Cat Marsters says:

    Marianne, that’s quite sweet, isn’t it?  Bless.

    And I for one was impressed when the artist said she read the manuscript.  The whole manuscript?  Holy mother of god and all her wacky nephews!  I’ve had covers where the artist didn’t seem to have even read the character descriptions on the one-page cover art request!

  14. DS says:

    Very cool link!  Thanks for posting.

  15. Yes! Judy’s actually a romance reader as well as a cover artist. So she says she loves getting the advanced manuscripts to read before designing covers.

    When they asked her to do the new Shomi covers, she went and read the whole line of books before starting. Since my manuscript wasn’t available (I hadn’t finished writing it yet – gah!) she heard that the heroine was inspired by a character in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and so she went and read that! Talk about dedication! I adore her.

    Cheryl posted the link to her website. It’s worth checking out to see her other work.

    Marianne

  16. SonomaLass says:

    That was interesting and way cool.  I really like the cover, too.  Guess it’s time I read some CL Wilson—an author who’s been on my “check it out” list for some time.

  17. karmelrio says:

    There should be a law against soft-focus “glamour shot” author photos.  Also, photos of the author with their pets.

  18. Esri Rose says:

    That was very fun to see.

    What’s wrong with posing with your pets? I didn’t do it, but I thought about it. Musette LaPlume routinely gets more click-through than I do. That cat was born to shill for commercial fiction.

  19. sarah says:

    http://www.judgeabook.blogspot.com/

    Some wonderful covers.  🙂

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