2. On average, how many revisions does a cover go through? And can you give us any examples of revisions a popular novel has undergone?
On average, I’d say a cover goes through at least three rounds of revisions. If I’m really lucky, I’ll nail it on the first try (this never happens). But some projects can be seemingly endless. It’s usually because we can’t get everyone in agreement on what the best angle is to represent the story. We have to not only please the author and editor, but our Sales and Marketing teams who are close to our buyers (B&N, Target, etc) also have opinions on what will best sell a book. So, it’s really a team effort before the winning cover is chosen.
The new paperback designs for the Stephanie Perkins series is a great example of a book going through a lot of revisions before getting to the final solution. This was actually my first project working at Penguin and my first cover designs for young readers ever! I had recently come from working on adult book covers at Little, Brown. Before I got here, this project had already gone through several rounds with several designers. They had even done a pretty extensive photoshoot of cute couples for it. But, nothing seemed to be fresh enough and they were all coming across a little too cutesy.
So, I suddenly had an enormous task on my plate to solve the unsolvable problem. I tried to make some of the photos from the photoshoot work and found a few other cute stock photos of teen couples in front of the Eiffel Tower and the like, but it still looked too young. I wanted something that was cute and pretty, but that people of any age wouldn’t be embarrassed to carry around. I had just taken a type design class, which greatly influenced the layout of the type. Eventually, the backgrounds and icons fell into place too and we discovered that we didn’t need to show a couple to sell romance!
3. What are some of the current trends in design you’re seeing that you like?
A lot of covers, particularly contemporary teen rom-com books, seem to emulate a fun poster or quote you’d find on Pinterest. Something that has a hand-drawn quality, with beautiful type, and fun, bright colors.
I think iconic covers are still sticking around as well. Hunger Games really started us on the recent trend of a having one iconic image for a book. Divergent and other similar books followed suit. Those almost had more of a logo-quality to them, though. With more recent books like Red Queen and Dorothy Must Die, designers have taken the iconic cover to a new level.
4. Just for fun: One of my favorite cover designs of yours is, of course, Anna and the French Kiss and Richelle Mead’s The Glittering Court, but as a designer, which cover(s) has been among your favorite to work on/design, and why? Inquiring minds would like to know!
The Glittering Court was actually one of my favorite covers to work on so far. It’s tied with Richelle Mead’s other recent release, Soundless. Both were really awesome and fun experiences working with two very talented photographers. And the models and the rest of the team we worked with made the experience even better.
I got to work with the amazing Amber Gray for The Glittering Court shoot. We had a tableful of beautiful, sparkly necklaces to choose from, tons of stunning live flowers and a great make-up artist who gave us some good eyebrow tips off set.
I’ll even embarrass myself by showing the fun we had in between takes.
For Soundless, we were lucky to have Zhang Jingna take on the project. The behind-the-scenes of this shoot were very involved in that we had to constantly have our model swing her arms at the same time as several assistants tossed fabric around her and someone else held a fan on her. I wish I had caught some of the bloopers on camera!
The upcoming novel, The Season by Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer was another favorite for personal reasons. The story is super fun in that it’s a Pride & Prejudice retelling with Texas debutantes. Think the new Princess Diaries or She’s the Man. We basically got to go shopping (online and in our own closets) for big poofy dresses and jewelry. And my coworker and I even got to make our modeling debut (we’re the two on the left!). Let me tell you, standing in impossibly high heels and not moving for hours under hot lights is no joke! Models have a tough job!
Thanks so much for joining us today, Lindsey and giving us a behind the scenes look at the book cover design process. It’s a fascinating process.
See more of Lindsey’s work on her website. Anna and the French Kiss (with its new cover) is now available and you can preorder The Season now on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
Which of these book cover designs do you like best? (Who else is excited to read The Season? Sounds amazing!) What trends in cover design do you like best? Comment below with your thoughts!
Join us next time when we’ll be chatting with the book cover designer of the Red Queen (HarperTeen) series!
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