Book Cover Love

Tips from Kelley Edits

Hello, fellow writers!

People have started to ask me if I’ve yet spotted any reviews of my book, published this past November. In fact, I’ve been assiduously avoiding any site where I think they may lurk.

It’s strange. I’m the sort of person who craves feedback while I’m writing, to the point of feeling a little miffed by a reviewer who simply tells me my work is fine. But for now at least, I’m not ready for feedback on a project that I can no longer change.

I make one exception: feedback on the book’s appearance has been wonderful.

Participating in its design process was a new adventure, and I’m pleased that people think it went well. Many people have complimented me on the book’s striking cover especially.

But as Jackie Wilson, the marketing manager at Wesleyan University Press, told me, “Collaborations make for great covers.”

I was fortunate to work with a great team, including Jackie and, behind the scenes, book designer Mindy Hill. Recently, I spoke with them both about what made our efforts work out so nicely.

Brainstorming

As it often does, the process of creating the cover for Love and Rage began with a marketing questionnaire. Mindy urges authors to fill them out, even when they don’t have clear suggestions.

I had strong feelings about what I didn’t want, but that was a decent start.

It might have helped to have had access to more of Mindy’s language to express my wishes from the beginning.

When I asked her what she liked about the cover image I’d ultimately chosen for the book, she said, “I liked the image for this book because it speaks to the music, to the tone, more than trying to be a literal interpretation of it.”

Without being able to put my finger on it, literalness was exactly what I had been hoping to avoid. I didn’t want to draw too obviously on punk as a visual signifier. Sure, the book was about punk, but it was also about intense affective experiences and intricate political ideas.

I wanted to gesture towards those larger themes. Good thing I had expert help.

Finding a cover image

Lacking ideas for how to accomplish my rudimentary vision, I initially focused on the book’s setting as inspiration for the cover design, suggesting that we feature an abstract landscape painting of Mexico City at night.

Now I think it’s fortunate that Jackie couldn’t track down the rights for the artist’s images.

The need to find new cover art triggered a fruitful back-and-forth as Jackie sent me several new options and my feedback on those helped to hone our thinking, leading to at least another round or two of the same.  

In hindsight, I was afraid that I’d been too picky, a nuisance, but Jackie reassured me that such exchanges with authors are common and that they’re “a time when I get to be creative and put my own expertise to use while also learning something new.”

When presented with her suggestions, I found that I was drawn to a collage aesthetic, without being consciously aware at first that it could allude to punk without embodying it.

With time, I also decided that I wanted the colors red and black to feature prominently in the cover art, suggesting the intensity of affects like love and rage while also being two colors historically used to signify anarchism.

Eventually, Jackie sent me to the website of artist Lorette C. Luzajic. Scrolling through images of her paintings, a bold red-and-black one leapt out at me.

Jackie shared it with other collaborators at the press, and we all concurred: that was the one.

Design decisions

With the “heavy lifting”—as Mindy called it—of finding cover art done, she could get to work incorporating the image into some book design choices.

Describing the importance of the cover, she explained, “It’s important to view your cover as a billboard. It can’t do everything, but it needs to get people’s attention.”

When presented with two of her designs, I was struck with one in particular.

In it, I loved that she had unified the cover design through color. One detail that I especially adored was the hot-pink ampersand in the book’s title, juxtaposed with “love” set in yellow text and “rage” in red.

A quick poll among friends affirmed my choice between the two cover designs, and Mindy carried on designing as more elements, like the promotional blurbs for the back cover, became available.  

Ensuring that the spine was as compelling as the cover, she “wrapped the artwork” around it. Even when placed among other colorful books on a shelf, Love and Rage stands out.

On the back cover, the blurbs are arranged vertically and pop against their black background in the painting’s pink, orange, and yellow hues.

Those details delighted me when I first held the book in my hands.

I may be a bit uneasy with the finality of the book’s contents, but I’m unequivocally proud of its final visual form.

This is not my book’s cover, but one of Mindy’s designs that I might have chosen instead.

Negotiating your input

During our conversations, it became apparent that not all presses allow authors as much input as I had into my book design and choice of cover art.

Because I felt so strongly about what I didn’t want, I’m glad that I happened to be publishing with a press that encouraged my participation.

I asked Jackie what authors might do if they’d like to have more control over their book designs.

“I think if you ask for final decision-making approval, that gives you more control,” she advised, adding, “that’s something authors should consider more often when negotiating contracts.”

So, fellow writers, I got lucky, but perhaps you can be more purposeful.

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Thanks to Mindy and Jackie for chatting about book design as well as for making my book cover beautiful!

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Your feedback. This is my 10th post, so it seemed like a good time to try something new. I’ve opened the comments thread for the first time, so feel free to share your thoughts on this post or on the series!