Evolution of Snow Queen’s Cover Art

I get asked about cover art fairly often.  How is it designed, how much input does the author get, etc.  I spoke to Scott Fischer, the artist for books one, two, and four in the princess series, and he generously agreed to let me share his sketches and the finished art.

The process started late last year, after my editor Sheila read the manuscript.  During our chat about revisions, she took a few minutes to discuss possible cover ideas.

I should note that this doesn’t always happen.  I had no input into my first few covers, and not all editors want authorial input.  My contract gives me zero control over cover issues, which is the norm.  (See here for a very different, very painful publishing tale which includes cover problems.)

In early November, I e-mailed Sheila some notes about the characters and setting: not a set of instructions, but brief descriptions to help the artist.  For example:

Talia: Talia hates the cold. She’s wearing a heavy jacket, but keeps her hands bare for fighting. She’s darker skinned, with black hair she keeps pulled or tied back. At one point near the end, she carries a [REDACTED]. She’ll be in boots, and possibly a scarf as well if that doesn’t obscure her too much. Being Talia, she also carries half an armory on her person.

Scott mentioned that these have been helpful.  In his words, they’re “detail specific, but not too controlling.”

On Monday, January 4, Sheila sent me the first sketch.  Have you noticed a pattern here?  There’s no direct author-artist communication; everything goes through the editor, and I suspect that’s for the best.  I might be the brilliantest writer on the planet, but that doesn’t mean I know squat about art or about what makes a successful cover.

Here’s sketch number one.  Click for a larger view.

Sheila didn’t like the stars, and wasn’t happy with the poses for Danielle and Talia. I pretty much agreed with her, though I liked the overall layout, and thought this had the potential to be the best cover in the series.  I also suggested that the castle wasn’t quite right for the book, but this was a minor nitpick.

Snow’s sword isn’t precisely accurate to the book either, but you know what?  I like it.  I think it’s more important to have a good, attractive cover than it is for that cover to be 100% accurate.  (I’d fight over major errors, or the whitewashing of a cover, but not something like this.)

Sheila e-mailed Scott, and a day later we received the second sketch.  (Scott is fast!)  The stars were gone, and I liked Talia’s pose a lot better in this one.  I’m also really liking that the  characters don’t feel posed the way they have in previous covers.  This is an image that tells a story, and I love that!

That palace was still nagging at me. Sheila said she thought it had too much of an SF feel.  But we were close!  I’m a little curious where the cover text will fit, but I figure that’s DAW’s problem to figure out.  At this point, I really couldn’t wait to see the finished version.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long.  Scott turned in the finished art on Monday the 10th.  I’m still talking to my editor, and there may be some minor tweaks, but this is pretty much final:

What do you think?  I’d love it if other authors could weigh in on the cover art process.

—

My thanks to Scott, both for producing yet another awesome cover, and for permission to share his work.  Check out his web site or his Facebook page.  He’s also got a children’s book out called Jump [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], which — in addition to being available at the usual outlets, was packaged with boxes of Cheerio’s.  And he’s a musician.  This is a man who’s clearly exceeded his quota of coolness.

Reviewpalooza

Review the First: Libyrinth [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], by Pearl North.  This is a postapocalyptic YA novel which opens in the Libyrinth, a library so massive it’s almost a city.  Opposing the Libyrarians are the Eradicants, who seek to destroy the written word.  What starts out with a Fahrenheit 451 feel gets more complex when Haly, who has the ability to hear books, is captured by Eradicants.

There’s a lot I liked about this one.  The written word vs. oral tradition conflict taken to such extremes was both fascinating and highly disturbing.  The random excerpts Haly hears from various books throughout the story added a layer of surreality.  And of course I enjoyed her little goblinlike companion Nod.

My one problem with the book comes from Clauda’s story, which felt too neat.  Without spoiling the ending, the wing felt too much like a deus ex machina on two levels.  Overall though, a good, thoughtful read.

#

Next up is Spellcrash [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], by Kelly McCullough.  If you liked the other books, you’ll like this last one.  If not, don’t read it.  You definitely need to read the first four to understand this one, which takes all of the open plot threads and brings them together in one raven-shaped snarl.

These are fun, fast reads, and I’ve enjoyed them all.  I liked how McCullough wrapped things up, though occasionally it almost felt too neat.  Overall, a very satisfying ending.

One aspect bugs me.  I appreciated McCullough’s take on the Persephone myth in book two, which is treated as rape with no excuses or minimizing.  Persephone is back in this book … and her treatment made me uncomfortable.  Our hero Raven is a trickster.  It’s his nature, and McCullough stresses how these mythological figures are incapable of denying that divine nature.  Yet Raven is ever serious with Persephone.  She is his maiden in a tower, very much on the pedestal.  While I appreciate McCullough’s awareness of the trauma and pain the character has been through, it felt like she’s defined by her victimhood.

It’s still a better treatment of rape than in many books I’ve read, and I did enjoy this book a lot, but I’m continuing to try to sort out my reaction to that particular aspect.

#

I received The Guild [Amazon | B&N], Seasons 1 + 2 for Christmas.  The Guild is a web-based show about a group of online gamers, and it’s very much geek humor.  I wanted to like it, but I’m afraid it didn’t really work for me.  My biggest problem is that I just don’t like the characters.  They have their moments, and Felicia Day’s character comes closest to being sympathetic, but I wasn’t invested in them.

The second season was better than the first, so I may check it out online to see if it continues to improve.

#

Finally, there’s Chicks Dig Time Lords [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].  (My copy is extra awesome, since it’s autographed by editor Lynne Thomas.)  From the back cover:

“A host of award-winning female novelists, academics and actresses come together to celebrate the phenomenon that is Doctor Who.”

As a new fan, this was an interesting read.  I think the more of a fan you are, the more you’ll appreciate the book.  For me, there were some essays that I had to smile and nod, as they referred to doctors I hadn’t met yet, or storylines I didn’t know.  But there’s something neat about making that sense-of-wonder connection, which is what you get in a lot of these essays.  A fun read for fans, but don’t hand it to someone unfamiliar with Doctor Who.

#

Your turn.  If you’ve read/watched any of these, what did you think?  Or if you want to talk about another recent read, feel free.  I can always use more books for my wish list!

First Book Friday: Jaleigh Johnson

First Book Friday is back!  Overall, the feedback I’ve seen for this series has been positive, so I intend to keep going until everyone gets sick of it or I run out of authors.

I met Jaleigh Johnson (jaleigh-johnson on LJ) at GenCon a few years back, where I picked up a copy of her book Mistshore (review here).  She’s published three novels, eleven short stories, and freelances as a proofreader for Santa’s naughty list.

Read on to learn how this would-be romance author was seduced to the fantasy side of the force…

#

I started writing seriously about the time I graduated high school.  Years passed.  I had had a few short stories published in small presses and nearly completed my first trunk novel when I heard that publisher Wizards of the Coast was holding what they termed the Maiden of Pain open call.  This was sometime in 2003.  It was a chance for writers to submit a proposal for a tie-in novel in The Priests series, titled Maiden of Pain.  The setting would be the Forgotten Realms world, and there were rules about where the story could take place, what character classes would be involved, and general guidelines.  The winner of the open call would receive a contract to write the book based on his or her proposal.  The audition was open to anyone, published or unpublished.

I should mention that when I found out about the open call, I did not intend to submit a proposal.  At the time, I was fully committed to writing romance—a few short stories and a half-finished novel were one thing, but the Forgotten Realms seemed pretty well out of my league at that stage in my writing career.

Then an idea popped into my head.

I envisioned a fantasy novel that was decidedly un-romantic and that I thought would be perfect for The Priests series.  Trouble was, I was out of time—the open call was almost over.  I typed up a proposal anyway and overnighted it to the publisher.  I figured that if my proposal didn’t make it on time, I could take that as a sign from the universe that I wasn’t ready for the Realms yet.

Turns out, I was mostly right.

My proposal made it, but I lost the open call to another writer.  But, in the very polite rejection letter I received from then-managing editor Philip Athans, I got some good news.  Though I hadn’t won the novel contract, Wizards was using the open call to find more than one writer to write for the Realms.  My name was now on a short list of other potential candidates.  I was floored by this news, and it softened the rejection quite a bit.

A few months later, Wizards sent out another call for proposals for two more series, The Fighters and The Wizards.  This audition wasn’t open to the public, and with a smaller group of writers, I felt my odds improve.  I started to think it might be possible to get that novel contract, which only a few months ago had been beyond my wildest dreams.  I submitted my proposal, and this time I got my hopes up.  Way up.  The universe would come through for me this time.

Not so much.

The second rejection hit me a lot harder.  I wondered how many more chances I was going to get before Wizards decided they’d made a terrible mistake putting me on their list of potential authors.  When an email came in for yet another open call, I figured it was now or never.  I poured everything I had into a proposal for a book in The Dungeons series.  I had a classic D&D setting, a dark story, and a title that I still think is pretty cool—The Howling Delve [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

I got an email from Susan Morris not long after that.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the first email from my editor—she loved the proposal and wanted to offer me a novel contract.  I remember I got a little dizzy, but I ran out of the room and blurted the news to my brother.  Then I completely lost it and burst into tears.  Not only was I going to have a novel published, but I would also be writing for the Forgotten Realms, a setting I’d cherished since I was a teenager.

It was still a long road after that.  The Howling Delve was released in July 2007, a full four years after I sent off my submission to the Maiden of Pain open call.  We authors off that original short list affectionately came to be called the Young Dragons, and many published their own first novels through the Realms.  Many of them also became my closest writer friends.  And I eventually left the romance genre behind—well, mostly.  I did get married the same week my first novel came out, and I still consider myself a romantic.

NewSouth’s “Cleaner” Edition of Twain

Quick announcement: Hey, guess who’s going to be Guest of Honor at Constellation in Nebraska this April!

#

Publishers Weekly recently reported on NewSouth, a small publisher which will be releasing a new edition of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in which all uses of the word “nigger” and “injun” have been changed.  It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened.  John Wallace released a similarly “cleansed” edition of Huck Finn two decades ago.

There’s a lot to unpack here.  Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben, who edited the NewSouth edition, lays out his rationale in the introduction (available online):

Far more controversial than this reuniting of Twain’s boy books will be the editor’s decision to eliminate two racial slurs that have increasingly formed a barrier to these works for teachers, students, and general readers. The editor thus hopes to introduce both books to a wider readership than they can currently enjoy.

In other words, he was worried because the books were already being banned from schools and elsewhere.  His primary goal isn’t necessarily to censor the book, but to circumvent banning by removing the primary point of contention.  He goes on to talk about his personal experiences reading the book, and the pain caused by the repeated and casual use of the word “nigger.”  (Side note: I’ve seen zero discussion of the word “injun” in this context, which bothers me.)

I sympathize with Gribben’s intentions.  And I think the discussion as to whether or not these stories are appropriate for the classroom is a good debate to have.  We can argue that the book provides an opportunity to have a painfully honest discussion about history and race and racism, but how many teachers are truly qualified to moderate such a discussion and make it a positive experience for all students?  I would trust very few of my high school English teachers to do a decent job.

That said, I don’t believe a “cleansed” edition of the book is the answer.  As an author, I don’t want someone else rewriting my books to make them more acceptable.  And Mark Twain isn’t just literature; he’s history.  I have strong misgivings about the way we revise history.  To learn from the past, we have to be willing to look at our flaws and failures, not erase them.

Gribben is passionate about Twain’s work.  My question for him is whether he believes the challenges to this book are appropriate.  If not, then why is he giving in to them?  If so — if schools are teaching these books to students who aren’t ready for them, or are presenting them in ways which are hurtful to students — then is the solution to present a bastardized edition of the text?

We don’t teach Ulysses to fifth graders because they’re not ready for it.  I don’t know exactly when students are ready to tackle the raw and painful racial issues in Twain, but I don’t believe glossing those issues over or pretending they don’t exist is the way to go.  There are so many wonderful, beautiful, powerful books out there … why is it so important that this one be pushed upon students before they’re ready?  Maybe this is a book better taught at the college level instead of high school or junior high.

As a writer, a parent, and a former teacher, I obviously have some strong feelings about all of this.  But like Gribben, I’m a white man up on my soap box about the use of “nigger” and “injun,” which is problematic for a number of reasons.  It’s easy for me to say we should keep those words in the book — neither I nor my family are the ones who’ve been hurt by them.  So if you’ve read this rather long post, then thank you … but please make sure my voice isn’t the only one you’re listening to.

Here are a few of the articles I read as I was trying to sort out my own thoughts and reaction:

2010 Writing Income

There are an awful lot of myths and misconceptions about writing, and one of the biggest is that writers are all rich, hanging out in their mansions and sipping champagne and role-playing with dice made from etched diamond.  So for the past few years, I’ve been posting my writing income and expenses to provide what I hope is a more useful data point.

Posts from previous years are here: 2007, 2008, 2009.

I ended 2010 with a last-minute check from my agent for the French on-signing advance for Red Hood’s Revenge.  With that added to the total, I made $25,718 in writing income in 2010, down about $3000 from the previous year.

Here’s the graph going back as far as I have data for:

2008 was a fluke.  A nice fluke, but a fluke nonetheless, with a big spike due to the success of the goblin books in Germany.  The princess books haven’t been as popular, and I think the ongoing decline of that particular income stream is part of the reason for the drop from 2009 to 2010.  But let’s break down the 2010 numbers a little further:

Novels (U.S. Sales): $9297
Novels (Foreign Sales): $15876
Short Fiction: $200
Nonfiction: $120
Speaking Fees: $225

I still make the majority of my income through foreign sales (Thank you, Joshua!), but the balance shifted a bit this year.  Foreign sales were a smaller percentage of the overall income, with the money from DAW here in the U.S. climbing a bit higher.  I have no idea what this means for the long term, but it’s interesting.

That foreign income includes novel sales to France, Germany, and the Czech Republic, along with royalties from Germany and Poland.  In general, individual foreign sales tends to be less than their equivalent U.S. deals … but those foreign sales add up.

Expenses were about $2000, with more than half of that going into conventions.

Of course, this is all before taxes.  I have a higher deduction at the day job, which balances out a lot of the self-employment taxes I owe for the writing, but even so the numbers here don’t exactly represent the amount I put in my pocket at the end of the day.

So that’s 2010.  A pretty good year, and I’m expecting 2011 to be even better, at least with the U.S. income stream.  No clue what to expect with the overseas sales.  And to answer a commonly asked question, no I am not planning to quit the day job any time soon.

Questions and comments are very much welcome, as always.

Jig vs. Jig: Hugo Eligibility

Oh, joy.  It’s that time of year again. The time when SF/F author blogs everywhere are bubbling over with publication lists in the hopes of garnering Hugo nominations.
Now, now.  There’s nothing wrong with reminding your readers and fans what you’ve published in the past year.  You have a right to be proud of your work.
Did you know the Hugo Award was named after Hugo Puffzipper III, the first blogger to shamelessly self-promote his way onto the Hugo ballot?
That … that doesn’t even make sense!  You’re just cranky that “Creature in Your Neighborhood” didn’t make the ballot last year.
It had muppet werewolves!  Muppet carnage, muppet death, muppets eating each other … if that’s not award-worthy, I don’t know what is!  I was robbed by the self-promoters, I tell you!
At least nobody sent you an unsolicited e-mail with their 5 MB novel this year.  Besides, how many of the fans and readers would remember to nominate?  Like so many other elections, it’s less about convincing people to vote for you and more about convincing your fans to actually vote.
All right, if we’re going to do this like an election, let’s go all the way!  My fellow goblins and humans, I’m officially announcing my candidacy for shiny rocketship trophies in the categories of Novel (Red Hood’s Revenge) and short story (Heart of Ash in Girl’s Guide to Guns and Monsters).
There you go.  Brief, honest, and not too tacky.  Was that so bad?
One of my opponents is author John Scalzi.  He wants to eat your babies and is hated by kittens everywhere!  This message brought to you by Flying Kittens for Truth!
Oh dear.
Seanan McGuire has been secretly eliminating her competition through random “DEATH FROM ABOVE” attacks for months!  Vote NO to these tactics of intimidation, or I’ll eat your spleen!
I think the Hugo rules prohibit spleen-eating…
Cat Valente wants to provide universal health care to dragons!  Elizabeth Bear sent sexually suggestive text messages to Jar Jar Binks!  Mary Robinette Kowal is totally in the pocket of Big Puppet. John J. Adams outsources his editing to underage Daleks!
Adams is an editor.  You’re not even competing with him!
Jay Lake is neither a Jay, nor a Lake!  Sarah Monette broke her ankle kicking puppies!  Lynne Thomas picks her nose with a sonic screwdriver!  Cherie Priest killed Dumbledore.  Sean Wallace isn’t–
Oh, come on!  Wallace isn’t campaigning for himself.  He’s campaigning for Sheila Williams.  For best editor.  You know, that category you’re not even eligible for!
Just vote for me or I’ll eat your face!  Hey, this blog has to be eligible for something too, right?  Vote for me for best blog!  And best use of sewer goblins in a work of fiction! Best Facebook page!  Best pumpkin!  Best hat!  Now how do I go about getting some of those sweet campaign donations?

#

For those who are wondering, I do intend to make Jig vs. Jig an irregular but recurring part of the blog.

And I hope it’s obvious that the views of Good-Jig and Evil-Jig do not necessarily represent my own.  I have nothing but respect for the authors mentioned above.  Except for that kitten-eater John Scalzi, of course.

What I Did on my Winter Break

What I did:

  • Built LEGO Star Wars kits with my son.  (He did about 90% of the work, which was great!)
  • Introduced my daughter to Scorched Earth, then spent some quality time blowing each other up.
  • Watched Doctor Who with my wife on New Year’s Eve, and went to bed ten minutes before midnight.
  • Saw my parents, my in-laws, my brother and his wife … pretty much every family member in the state.
  • Read two Peanuts collections.
  • Trounced three young children at Mario Kart.
  • Unpacked and assembled my son’s trampoline, then ran around using the foam packing material for swordfighting with the children.
  • Assembled my daughter’s art easel, which turned out to be missing One. Single. Screw.
  • Ate way too much.

What I didn’t do:

  • Work on the short story that’s due March 1, or the book that’s due at the end of the year.
  • Write or plan any new blog posts.
  • Catch up on all of my backlogged e-mail.  (I did get through about 50% of it, though.)
  • Get into an argument with a certain individual about e-books.  (I’ve now been informed that the reason I’m not doing better with my DAW e-books is that $6.99 is too expensive, and the reason I’m not doing well with Goldfish Dreams is because $2.99 is too cheap, and I should be charging $9.99.  I give up.)
  • Write up reviews for any of the books I’ve read recently.

I feel a little weird about this.  I’m not terribly good with the whole vacation concept.  My annual leave time at work is pretty much maxed out, because I so rarely use it.  But we had two days off the day job each week for the past two weeks, and for once, I didn’t want to spend the whole time working.  I had to deliberately and consciously say “You know what?  Screw it.  I’m going to spend this time playing with my kids and relaxing with my wife and sleeping in and having fun.”

It’s not something I can do long-term.  Those deadlines aren’t going away, and there’s always going to be too much work to do.  But it’s been a very good two weeks.

SFWA Guest Post on E-books

Earlier this month, I was invited to do a guest post for SFWA about my e-book experiment.  The post went up yesterday at http://www.sfwa.org/2010/12/guest-post-experiments-with-e-books/ If you’ve been following the blog, you’ve already read some of what I have to say.  But I expanded the article to incorporate experiences from other authors, and to try to come up with broader conclusions.  I’m hoping the comments will offer some interesting info as well.

JABberwocky (my agent) has also been dipping into the e-book pool.  They’ve prepared and published an e-book of Simon Green’s Beyond the Blue Moon.  Joshua blogs about the process and the thinking behind it here, and is pretty up-front about it all:

There are conflict issues. We don’t intend to be the originating publishers for things, at least as we’re thinking of it right now, but we are still now the publisher for this book as well as the literary agent for it … I think the business of actually being an agent selling all kinds of rights throughout the world is still too critical and important to want to have an entire huge side business.

A lot of the things he talks about matches the things I ran into as well, both in terms of the work it takes to prepare a file and the next step of “How the heck do we promote this thing?”

Author’s Note: Snow Queen

I’m working on the Author’s Note and Acknowledgments for The Snow Queen’s Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

Sometimes this part feels repetitive, since I tend to thank mostly the same people with every book.  But then, these are the same people who help me improve the story, who take it from manuscript to finished book.  I think it’s important to thank them, and to remember that this isn’t something I could do alone.

I’m thinking about trying to include a bit more information this time around.  So I was wondering — if there were one question you could ask me about writing or about the princess series, what would it be?  I don’t mean spoilers, but what sort of behind-the-scenes info would be most interesting to you as a reader?

Or just in general, if you do read author notes and such, what sort of thing makes them enjoyable and worth reading?

To the authors out there, what are your thoughts on acknowledgments and author notes?

I suspect I might be overthinking this whole thing, but hey, it’s what I do!

iPhone Review (and a Christmas Song)

I’ve had the iPhone 4, hereafter known as Shinynewphone, for a few months now.  I figured it was time to describe the pros and cons of the new toy.  Overall, I’m quite happy.  Details beneath the cut, along with a sample photo and a video of my son singing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.

More

«< 175 176 177 178 179 >»