Hey Heyer! An Interview About Cover Art, and a Giveaway from Sourcebooks

Book CoverMany of you are big fans of the Sourcebooks reprints of Georgette Heyer’s backlist, especially because the quality of the books themselves is stellar. Not only are they printed on some luscious paper, but the covers are gorgeous. I know a few folks who have written me to say that since discovering the reprints through Smart Bitches, they’ve bought several copies as gifts for friends and family. Heyer romances: the gift that keeps on giving!

This week marks the 107th anniversary of her birth (16 August), and to celebrate, we’re hosting a giveaway of rather epic proportions. Details are at the end of the interview.

What interview?

This interview! I was so curious about the design mastermind who is responsible for the cover art that makes the Heyer set so beautiful, and asked Sourcebooks if she’d be willing to do an interview with me. Meet Dawn Pope!

Dawn has been at Sourcebooks for 4 years now, and she’s the Assistant Design Manager. I had a bunch of questions for her, because I wanted to know how these book covers happened.

Book CoverSo many of the covers feature artwork highlighting women, particularly elegant women. It makes the Heyer reprints from Sourcebooks look stylish and unique – and definitely eye catching. I am so curious about the process that goes into creating the covers.

Dawn: Georgette Heyer is known for her heroines; the characters are enduring. We try to find images that represent these women. The cover process on our Heyer romances is ever evolving. I do have to say that this is a collaborative effort between my publisher, Dominique Raccah, and myself. Heyer is her passion and she knows these books inside and out. She knows the characters and the mood of each story. We work very closely on the image research. I start the search bringing in image selections for each title, we review the images, there are ones that work the first time around then there are ones that are a bit more of a challenge. 

Book CoverWe have just recently implemented another change in our Heyer covers, wanting take them in a Marie Antoinette direction. We are now starting to use a brighter accent color on the title bar. This is giving the covers a fresh more, contemporary feel, and when paired with the classic paintings, it makes a great package. When working on closing final covers for Cousin Kate, The Corinthian, and The Grand Sophy, is when we first started to rethink our direction. These three covers were changed midseason, to what we think are much stronger, and more representative covers. We are always thinking and rethinking these covers. We want to make sure we have the best cover for each title.

Book CoverYou will see the newer color palettes starting with Arabella, which I have to say, is gorgeous! We also just went back and redid the covers for The Nonesuch, The Talisman Ring, and Cotillion, these will be seen at reprint with much stronger colors and images for a better package.

  Where do you find the art, and how do you search for it? 

Dawn: I have two fine art stock houses that I work very closely with on the image research for the Heyer titles: Fine Art Photographic Library, and The Bridgeman Art Library. They are both amazing houses to work with and have been fantastic in the creation of these covers, getting me images, clearing licenses and permissions, to even helping in research.

Luckily, most of Heyer romances are set in the British Regency (1811-1820), so the time period is very specific. This narrows my search down quite a bit right from the start. Before I begin my search, when the books are first launched, I am given character and story descriptions, I usually take those and have a brief meeting with my publisher to see what she wants to focus on and portray for each cover. I then take that to my searches. I focus on the main character, so if she has red hair, I like to find paintings with woman and red hair, [and] they have to age appropriate too. If your heroine is 15, you can’t have someone who is 25 on the cover! It is the little details that we focus on that I believe makes our covers so strong.

What types of images do you prefer? Do you look for images that match the story? 

Book CoverDawn: I prefer to find images with a singular woman on the cover, as we try to highlight the heroine of each story. Now there are some exceptions as in the cover of The Devil’s Cub, coming out in November 2009, where we highlight Vidal, the son of Léonie from These Old Shades (which may just be my favorite cover yet!), coming out in October 2009.

So we are still highlighting a main character, and if that happens to be a male, then we will usually feature a couple. We absolutely try to match the image to the story—that is a must. We use the cover to convey what you are going to be reading. We want you to experience the same emotions from the cover that you will win you read the story. If you see a cover, you will draw a conclusion as to what it is about, and then you read the book. If the story doesn’t match the cover, you could be disappointed. In a way, it would be misleading you, the reader.

I do the best I can to make sure I find the images that fit each story. A great example of this is when I was working to close the final cover of Cousin Kate, I took the cover in for final review, and we were still questioning the image; it just wasn’t working. We decided to see if we could find something better, and in doing the image research for this, came across the images for The Corinthian and The Grand Sophy. As soon as we saw them, we knew they were better. So we made the change and closed the covers. I think we have much stronger, more vibrant eye catching covers. It paid off, and it goes to show it is all about the image.

  Have you read the Heyers that you’re designing covers for? 

Dawn: Unfortunately, I have not read any of the Heyer romances, they are on my list. It is hard to choose which one to read first… Any suggestions?

When we launch a season of Heyer romances, we usually launch eight at a time, I have about 10-12 weeks before I have to have final covers approved for that season. That eight is in addition to other titles from that season. I just don’t have the time to read them all. And luckily I work very closely with someone who has read all of them, most of them more than once, so she gives me the summary of what scene we want to set for each title. I do promise that someday I will read them… I can’t wait, I know I love the covers!

Do any of these pieces of artwork hang in museums? Have you gone to visit? 

Book CoverDawn: A lot of the paintings I have used are from private collections, or estates. There are some that are in museums, but none that are in any of the major art museums. But a majority of the pieces I have used are from private collections that are represented by the art houses, like The Bridgeman Art Library and Fine Art Photographic Library, both based out of London. I unfortunately have not been to London, so I have not gotten to experience the finest museums. I had an introduction to Fine Art in College, through my Art History classes, but working on these covers has given me a new appreciation for fine art, and I want to get to see more in the museums than what I have. They have sparked an interest to learn more and enjoy more.

Which of the covers is your favorite?

Dawn: Oh, my favorite? How do I pick… While I think about it, I will give you my top 5: Black Sheep, Cousin Kate, The Corinthian, Arabella, and Beauvallet. But if I absolutely had to choose, it would be the new cover for These Old Shades. The image is one I had seen a while ago, and just haven’t had the cover to use it on. The girl, her expression, and the dress are stunning. The treatment on this cover will be different from the others. It will be just a touch more fancy, as we are using a rose colored metallic ink for the title bar. It is going to be stunning. And did I say I love the image! I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.


Thank you, Dawn, for the interview – I know you’re super busy so I appreciate your taking the time to answer my nebby questions.

And thanks to the most excellent Danielle and the folks at Sourcebooks, it’s giveaway time! Leave a comment and tell us your very favorite Heyer scene, or the piece of art you’d like to see on a Heyer cover, and you’re entered to win.

We have copies of their next Heyer release, The Grand Sophy to give away – 9 copies, in fact. Plus one grand prize winner will receive a copy of every Heyer book they’ve released this season – 10 in all – plus a Frango Mint Chocolate Trio sampler. Which books? Have a look:

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What could be better than a stack of books and a box of chocolates? Not much.

Leave a comment and you’re entered to win. You have 24 hours – ready, set, chocolate and Heyer!

ETA:

Update! I emailed Sourcebooks about the Arrow releases in the UK and Australia, and Dawn replied:

“Arrow is the UK home to Georgette Heyer, and our Sourcebooks editorial team works directly them when it comes to our re-issues of Heyer’s work each season. The Arrow editions of the Heyer Romances are the cleanest and best packaged of the Heyer reprints. We do look at their covers for art direction, and at first we were looking to find those images, but as we have worked our way through our list, we have started to look for more of our own art that we think represent the book and will speak to readers. We do have a copy of every Heyer from Arrow including the mysteries, here in house.  As for the mysteries, the only cover that we have kept the same image with the same title is on Behold Here’s Poison, and that was because it was a fantastic cover!!

Since that, we may use some of the same images, but they are different titles. For example, as the commenter pointed out, our Why Shoot a Butler is actually the image from the arrow edition of Envious Casca. I think as readers see more mysteries coming from us and they see the newer romances, they will realize that we are moving in our own direction away from the Arrow editions, but they definitely have been a big inspiration and great partner to work with bringing Heyer to the US!”

 

Comments are Closed

  1. June says:

    Devil’s Cub will always be my favorite—it was my first Heyer.  It also set me up for what I like in a heroine: the courage to shoot the hero.  It made quite the impression on me when I read this at age 12.

    Perhaps why Lord of Scoundrels is a fave too?

  2. SB Sarah says:

    @Cassie: So what you’re saying is, my stomach is Australian?

    I can live with that. I love Oz.

    It’s like the new version of happy hour: it’s chocolate dessert time somewhere!

  3. SB Sarah says:

    @june

    what I like in a heroine: the courage to shoot the hero

    Amen, amen, amen!

  4. Robinjn says:

    Oh my. How do you pick a favorite scene? I have to say that I think These Old Shades and Devil’s Cub are my two favorite books. Something about the very wicked men falling hopelessly head over heels and the way Heyer reveals that to us, the readers, without the heroine having the slightest clue.

    One of my favorite scenes is a very minor one in Devil’s Cub, where Mary’s dandyish cousin(?) comes to visit wearing an appalling puce outfit and proceeds to try to cheer her up by telling her how much more attractive he finds her than he finds Sophie, her feckless but very beautiful sister. To which Mary retorts, dryly, “yes, but then you chose puce.”

    I haven’t read any of Heyer’s mysteries or several of the other books in the giveaway and would love, love to have them. As a graphic artist I have so enjoyed these new Sourcebook editions.

  5. Cassie says:

    So what you’re saying is, my stomach is Australian?

    What I’m saying is, your stomach claims asylum from whatever nation state is currently in the designated “chocolate dessert time zone”.

  6. MamaNice says:

    Oh, and great interview, it’s always so fascinating to hear about the process a book goes through before we see it on a shelf.

    As to the art…I love that first image on The Cotillion, it seems like a real moment, the characters are more approachable than the traditional “portrait” style images. So more like that.

  7. Janet W says:

    I have every Heyer Regency already but some are in tatters so I would dearly love to win. I might even return some Heyers to my mum … gee, they’re only on a longterm borrow LOL.

    Regency Buck was my first (and Pamela Regis wrote about it in her marvelous meander through the centuries of romantic fiction). I’d be hard pressed to choose between Friday’s Child, Cotillion and Devil’s Cub. April Lady is an intensely different, sweet and occasionally chilling book—how marriages can come close to crashing, even when there’s love. And who could forget the burly footman staggering under the weight of the young sister-in-law’s diamond chipped dressing case (April Lady)

  8. SeaGrace says:

    Please, please pick me to win! I have yet to read a Heyer book because my library has old nasty copies.  I would love a brand new book(s).  Thank you for holding this give-away!

  9. SB Sarah says:

    @cassie

    your stomach claims asylum from whatever nation state is currently in the designated “chocolate dessert time zone”.

    My stomach is definitely, without question, your very best friend.

  10. hollygee says:

    Fredericka returns to Whatshisname’s with her dog and an entourage of tradespeople and one interfering old biddy. Whatshisname solves the problem of the Baluchistani hound scattering the dairy cattle.

    I luvs me my Heyer’s. And, as an illustrator, I really appreciate this interview.

  11. Laura says:

    I have just started reading Heyer and I can’t stop.  My twelve year old daughter hears me laughing, so she has started reading them, too.  Her favorite is The Grand Sophy.  I love the new covers and the feel of the books.  Our library has most of them so I am very happy!

  12. phinea says:

    I know it is not right period but I would love to see a John Singer Sargent paint for one of the covers. He’s work is so beautiful and I think it would complement Heyer writing.

  13. Monica says:

    Almost every Heyer I’ve read, I have a favorite scene for, but really, in my heart of hearts, my most beloved scene is at the end of Cotillion where Freddie actually manages to “land a facer” on Jack, much to every single person’s surprise. Oh, Freddie! My most beloved unlikely hero of them all. I would take you above even Monseigneur (sorry Leonie) because really, just like Kitty, when am I ever going to need a hero riding into a ball on a white horse? I am always going to need one who always knows exactly what to do in company.

  14. Heike M. says:

    …thanks k for the remark of the Arrow Books 2004-2006 repackaging of Georgette Heyer’s works in the UK & Australia – before that I thouhgt I was having a deja vu 🙂 But I only bought my last Heyer books in the UK

    I’ve a lot of favourite scenes from Heyer, and a lot of them were already mentioned. I love the romantic and the hilarious scenes, one of the latter that wasn’t mentioned so far: In Cotillon, after Freddie rescued Kitty from an awkward social situation, Kitty and Freddy’s sister, Margaret, talk about the perfect hero (Kitty thinks, it has not to be someone, who carries a lady off from a a party on a horse, like Walter Scott’s Young Lochinvar, but a socially adept man like Freddy), and then they imagine what Freddy would say about Lochinvar and have a collective laughing fit – I always have to laugh then, too (I’m writing this with a big grin, good thing, that my colleague doesn’t sit vis-à-vis)

  15. RStewie says:

    I too am a Hayer virgin.

    /shame

    Please enter me, though, because reading some of these excerpts/scenes is really making me want to get that fixed.  With them being trade, though, I’m hesitant to run out and buy them having never read any of her work.

  16. BORK says:

    The back of covers of the new editions of Heyer’s books are nice also.  (not to mention the stuff between the covers – Heyer’s books deserves to be read and reread).
    Thanks for this comp: I’d love to win books and the choccies.

  17. Lori says:

    My best friend is a Heyer fanatic and almost at gunpoint made me read The Grand Sophy. It was like eating a Frango: you want to gobble it up but you have to take the time to let it melt on your tongue…

    I’m so glad they’re doing the reissues. I was ordering the books used from Britain and now woo-hoo!! the library doth grow!

  18. Christine M. says:

    I haven’t read Meyer yet…. I just got back into romance about 6 months ago but I’ve read a lot about her on here so if I win some of her books I’d be delighted because, really, I don’t know where to start….

  19. Carol H says:

    Wow, never read any Heyer, but those look gorgeous!  Okay, added to the “to do” list.

  20. Rhian says:

    I hugely enjoyed reading this interview – thank you for putting it all together! I’ve often wondered how cover art is chosen (sometimes it seems truly arbitrary, sometimes it’s just perfect) and I love the choices that Sourcebooks have made. Although Heyer’s one of my favourite authors, I don’t own copies of her books, so I’d be tickled pink to win – and equally tickled for anyone else who won, because everyone should experience the joy of Heyer romances!

  21. Leslie says:

    I haven’t read a Heyer in years.  With the new releases, I must start again. Books that come with chocolate is a great way to start!
    The covers are lovely. In this case you CAN judge a book by it’s cover. 
    “Miss Craigie” by Allan Ramsay looks like she would be a great heroine. He painted lots of portraits that would be great cover art.  A lesser known artist and a potential romance hero himself in my eyes, I was smitten at the Portarait Gallery in London. As you can tell I’m a bit of an Allan Ramsay fan…OK, my husband calls it an obsession.

  22. SB Sarah says:

    @Lori

    My best friend is a Heyer fanatic and almost at gunpoint made me read The Grand Sophy. It was like eating a Frango: you want to gobble it up but you have to take the time to let it melt on your tongue…

    That’s the perfect Heyer analogy: like eating really, REALLY good chocolate. Don’t eat too fast – savor every part. YUM.

  23. Abby says:

    Wouldn’t it be nice if more publishers spent that kind of time creating gorgeous covers for other authors?  They really make me want to read Heyer’s work.

  24. nurel says:

    For Georgette Heyer, I de-lurk.
    As others have said: there are just too many good scenes. There are many scenes in Faro’s Daughter that got me laughing out right. The scene where Deb was first introduced to Lady Mablethorpe; the kidnapping of Mr Ravenscar (ooh, that name!) episode and the whole back and forth about the debt papers.
    I love it when Heyer wrote of a hero who seemed to have a high regard of himself as being serious/stern/no-nonsense, only to have the heroine let him see the lighter side of things and have him fall full-tilt into the adventure, like Deb and Ravenscar in Faro’s Daughter, Sarah and Shield in The Talisman Ring.
    And “thumbscrews”, “boiling oil” and “restorative pork jelly” are some of the favorite words I picked up from reading her books.

  25. Marion says:

    I’ve got at least one favourite Heyer scene per book… Right now, out of all of them, I’d pick one at the close of Cotillion: “I like you to have anything you want. Wish it was me, that’s all.” Those simple words are so poignant, because by then we know the speaker well enough to realize he means every word of them.

    And I’d like to add that I’m a bookseller and a lover of books, and these Heyer books are among the prettiest I’ve seen. They’re mouth-watering. It’s a joy to own something that’s not just beautiful, but made with a real care and respect for the book itself.

  26. Rhonni says:

    I just read my first Heyer last fall. It was scrumptious even without chocolate.

  27. bungluna says:

    “The Grand Sophi” is my favorite Heyer.  The new cover looks beautifu.

  28. arnique says:

    I quite like the new covers for a Convenient Marriage and the Grand Sophy. Cousin Kate’s anachronistic though. 😛

  29. Rebecca says:

    My favorite Heyer novel is Frederica. The main couple is great, but I really enjoyed the way the younger siblings play such a prominent role in the plot. I was nearly in tears when Alverstoke was looking after Felix, who had been injured and become sick.  Here is the jaded Marquis, with no interest in his family members’ offspring, staying up all night to take care of a boy of twelve with a rather overdeveloped taste for adventure who has hitched a ride on a hot air balloon!

  30. DS says:

    Just to be totally contrary, one of my favorite Heyer scenes is from Devil’s Cub and it is the one in which Mary Challoner’s mother goes to see Avon’s sister (because she is the only one that Mrs. Challoner can find) to try to blackmail the Alisdair family into forcing Vidal to marry her daughter. 

    It’s a very funny scene as Fanny at first thinks Mrs. Challoner is there to collect a bill, then the two ladies continue to talk at cross purposes.

    I also like the breakfast scene between Venetia Lanyon and her younger brother that opens Venetia.  Heyer was a mistress at laying out a back story without being either boring or doing an “as you know, Bob.”

  31. Ellen says:

    I’ve only recently started reading Heyer, but so far I love her. Count me in!

  32. Mae says:

    This was a great behind the scenes look at cover art. I loved to learn a bit about the thought and effort goes into it. Far superior to most of the crap tossed onto romance covers.

  33. Michele H. says:

    I have never read Heyer before…. I have heard that “The Grand Sophy” is a great place to start. 

    Frango mints as part of the package?  I grew up in Chicago, and no trip to Marshall Fields was complete without a box of Frango Mints.  They melt in your mouth….

    fall83: by fall, I hope my tbr pile is down to 83 books!

  34. Courtney says:

    I have never read her books but would love to.
    For my piece of art I will say The Cradle by morrisette.

  35. Christina says:

    Um, I like chocolate. And I’m starting to get hooked on romances too. Yes, plz!

  36. Grace says:

    Finally, tasteful covers for romance books.  Why can’t all romance books be given this much thought?

  37. Tarja says:

    I’ve been reading Heyer’s boosk since I was about 11-12 and the covers are indeed very beautiful. I think These Old Shades and Devil’s Cub both could be said to be one big favourite scene for me, though if I had to name only one particular scene from these, it would be when Mary short Vidal.

  38. Jen says:

    Too funny! I just bought my first Georgette Heyer last night (The Grand Sophy). I’m so excited to start on it, it’s been moved to the top of my TBR pile.

  39. JC says:

    The covers are beautiful.  My favorite is the one with the three girls, it just pulls you right in.  I’ve been meaning to read me some Heyer romances.

  40. SandyLou says:

    Such beautiful covers. I have just started reading Heyer-I have read The Unknown Ajax, These Old Shades, & Devil’s Cub. I started An Infamous Army, but put it aside when the new Eloisa James came out. I will have to check some of these out!

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