Paperback cover
This is what the paperback cover of Speaking of Love, to be published on 6 March 2008, will look like.
If you've got any thoughts about it, I'd love to know. In fact, how about this:
Tell me what story you think this cover tells in, say, a long sentence (or two) and the plotline that most appeals to me, or that makes me laugh the most, will be rewarded with a paperback copy of Speaking of Love when it's published next year. (Any obvious adaptation of the synopsis from the book's website will most definitely not qualify. And if you've read the book in hardback, you'll have to rid your head of its subject matter and come up with something solely inspired by the paperback cover.)
I look forward to reading what you write because much debate goes on in the book trade about covers, about what kinds of cover work and what kinds don't. But publishers, wholesalers and retailers don't usually ask the book-buying public what they think before a cover goes to press ... .
7 comments:
It's beautiful. My immediate projection onto the picture was that the book was about a young woman's love life and a lost relationship with a man (because she's looking wistfully out of the window).
It's lovely. She looks like she's got some kind of secret because she's facing away, but really, she's just gotten out of bed and is terribly grumpy and she looked in the mirror to see her matted hair, and the bags under her eyes peering back at her. And because she hasn't had a cup of tea yet, she thinks that she's ugly and everyone hates her. So she's pulled aside the curtain in the hope that someone will be marching up to her front door with a bunch of flowers and a letter and a card, and a wonderful cake, because it's her birthday. But no-one is. So instead, she just goes and has a shower and stays under the hot water for a million years, and when she gets out, she feels much better and the phone rings and her mother's calling to wish her a 'Happy Birthday.'
Loretta, imprisoned in her bedroom, had to wait for the sunflowers to grow tall enough to climb....
Only kidding! It's beautiful. Did you have any say?
Oh, and did my quotation get onto the back?!
Thank you Emma, Kaitlyn and Simon. I smiled, laughed and was glad (sounds as if I'm quoting someone else, but it's quite unconscious if I am) at the reactions the cover provoked from you. It's a long old wait until March, and perhaps there will be some more reactions before then, but if not, one of you will bag the paperback.
Simon: yes, I was given a say and a choice. The girl originally had blonde hair (there isn't a single blonde in the book!) and, yes, I am just compiling quotes from reviews for the back cover to send to the publisher. The back cover doesn't get printed until the end of the year ... but whether or not Loretta and her sunflowers end up bagging the paperback, I will let you know which words from your review end up on the back cover.
Hi I was interested to read your blog. Congratulations on your publication in March. Is this your first novel? I look forward to reading it. I like your cover very much, with the figure between the bed that represents security or loneliness or intimacy and the window to the world outside.... Lots to speculate about here! Please visit my blog and reciprocate with a comment on my cover design. I'd love to hear what you think. You're welcome to visit any time. Fellow readers and writers are always welcome.
Thanks, Leigh. I've left comments on your blog.
I'll choose the comment that'll bag the paperback copy of SPEAKING of LOVE on 11 March.
I was minded to comment on it [the cover] for it recalled immediately to me one of my mother’s enigmatic paraphrasings of a couple of lines from Shakespeare: 'She stood there like Patience standing on a monument, staring at pain'. This of course is not intended to be any sort of synopsis of the story, nor ‘a long sentence or two’ as to what story the cover suggests, and any perceived resemblance to the plot of Speaking of Love is purely subliminal! But I do like the cover.
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