Lara Zielin

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I think a lot of authors have anxiety about their book covers, and perhaps rightfully so. While most publishers will allow the author to have input on the cover, the decision is, ultimately, in the publisher’s hands.

Now, let me preface all this by saying I *love* the cover of my book. No, wait, I luurve it. It’s perfect. It’s fabulous.

But not every author feels this way about his or her cover.

For example, a number of years ago I went to a book talk by author Lorna Landvik who said that she didn’t like covers of her first couple books because they looked so very similar. I’m sure this problem was rectified in subsequent printings of the books, but for a while there Lorna was stuck.

In my case, for my first book, Make Things Happen, I liked the cover just fine, but it’s when the publisher decided to change the title that I threw a fit. It was originally called You Never Know Who You Know. For a networking book, I thought that was pretty snappy. When they changed it, I was heartbroken. I gnashed my teeth, I fought, I wailed — ultimately to no avail. Because when you sign that contract, baby, a publisher has the right to do whatever they want.

Any other thoughts out there about this?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 2:04 pm and is filed under covers, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.