It only occurred to me on Wednesday to think--oh, Bookmarked for Death is coming out in large print next month. I wonder what the cover looks like. So I went in search of it.
Mind you, when I saw the cover for the large print edition Murder Is Binding, I thought it was okay. Not as wonderful as the cover Berkley Prime Crime did for the mass market paperback edition, but not bad. After all, it was done by the parent company that did the cover for Murder On The Mind (horrible) and Dead in Red (which was fantastic). Of course, I have to remind myself that cover art--like everything else in publishing--is a crapshoot. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Authors don't make a lot of money on large-print editions. But what if the cover art was just as stellar--maybe more copies would be sold, which would benefit not only the author, but the publisher as well. At least, that's a theory I'm willing to embrace.
But the absolute worst thing about the cover: THEY SPELLED MY NAME WRONG!!! Note, there's only one "T" on Barrett.
UPDATE: Just after I wrote this, I heard from my Five Star editor. (Five Star is a division of Thorndike--the parent company, famous for their large-print editions.) I'd written to her to report the cover goof. She was AMAZING! Less than two hours later, the cover had been fixed, and she'd sent me a copy of the new cover. Also, they'd caught it in time because the books hadn't yet been printed. Whew! I feel a LOT better now!
I'm glad they were able to correct the spelling of your name.
ReplyDeleteI'm a cover person. Covers will sway me in buying a book of a new-to-me author.
As I'm learning more and more about the publishing business, I'm utterly amazed at how often covers seem to have nothing to do with the content of the book. I thought cover designers would at least be required to read the book they design a cover for?
ReplyDeleteI'm also not sure I understand the rationale behind having different covers for the Mass Market Paperback and the large print edition, or for that matter, a Hardcover vs. Softcover vs. Mass Market Paperback. I'm sure there are a hundred marketing rules, but if anyone can shed some light on this, I'd love to learn!
The thing is...the large-print publisher is a different company. They buy the rights to the story--not the cover. So they have to provide their own. It's sad, but they don't have the same quality graphic designers the big companies have.
ReplyDeleteOh, that makes sense. So this varies from publisher to publisher? I know I've seen large print books with the same cover as the "regular" book (and ended up buying them by accident).
ReplyDeleteWho decides when a cover changes from Hardcover to Softcover or Mass Market Paperback edition? The publisher and their marketing people?
It all depends on the publishing company. The large-print publisher bought the rights to reprint the book--but not the rights to the cover. For my first book, the hardcover cover was TERRIBLE. (My agent said: "This won't sell copies." Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy!) The second in the series (same company, new graphic designer) had a marvelous cover. When the first book came out in paperback, it got a new cover--with a cold fireplace, a comfy leather chair, and an open book on the chair. Had nothing to DO with the book, however. And when the audiobook for that book was published, it swiped ideas from both covers: Fireplace (with flames), comfy chair, book, and the silhouette of a man with a star in the middle of his head. Weird!
ReplyDeleteI'm extremely pleased with the covers Berkley Prime Crime has done for me. And I'm pleased to say the same cover artist will do the covers for the Victoria Square Mysteries when the come out next year.