4 years later, and I still can’t get over this one.

Having covers rejected is a normal part of working on book covers. In my experience I’m happy to say that rejections have been rare, and if they happen it’s only usually at the rough stage, when your first ideas need whittling down to the strongest ones. Out of hundreds of covers, I can count on one hand those sad little covers that were not used at all in the end and remain in the dark of my archive, never to see the light of day unless I write about them in a blog like this.

(Note, illustrators: you should always be paid for the work you’ve done to get them to that stage!)

This one, however, has burned gently away at me as a miscarriage of justice; an error of judgement, a possibly panicky reaction, and an art director bending to the opinions of an author. Traditionally, authors get very little input on their covers; this is not out of any sort of meanness or desire to cut them out, but because a team comprised of experienced editor, marketing team, designer, illustrator and art director will have a far stronger collective experience of creating ‘covers that sell’ than the author, particularly a first-time author. And an author wants their book to sell! Writers have been known to hate their finished cover at first glance, because they’ve lived with their version of scenes, characters, atmosphere and even colours and shapes during the writing process, only to fall in love with it after spending some time with it and unfurling its relationship to the story. This isn’t to say authors’ comments…