I want to apologize for my comment regarding James Swallows books. It was uncalled for. I think i was just in a foul mood. I wish I could delete it.
Author Habits That Annoy You
- Thread starter Captain Dax
- Start date
Some authors have the final say on the cover design of their books. I don't know how often, though.
Only in the self-publishing world.
That almost never happens in mainstream publishing, unless you're Stephen King or somebody like that. "Cover consultation" is a thing, sometimes, but "cover approval" is a pipe dream for most authors.
And when it comes to licensed tie-in novels, that's never an option. The IP owner always has final say over the covers. In the case of Star Trek, CBS has final say, period.
FYI: "Cover consultation" means the publisher is obliged to show you the cover in advance and solicit your opinion, but the publisher still has final say.
Unofficially, of course, nobody wants an unhappy author or agent, so if the author has serious objections, the publisher may try to accommodate them, depending on the schedule, the art budget, and, honestly, how big a name the author is and how reasonable (or unreasonable) their objections may be.
And, yeah, how the book is labeled on a cover, series-wise, is very much a marketing decision, not an author decision. (Although I feel your pain there. I recently picked up a book at the library and realized within one chapter that this was obviously Book 2 in a series even though the packaging hadn't made that clear.)
Is it a marketing thing? Would some readers reject a book out of hand if it's part of a series, so the thinking might be to hook the reader with book 2 and then they have to buy book 1 to see what happened before? (More sales that way?)
Various possible scenarios. It may be that Book One didn't sell very well, so hyping that this new book is a sequel to a book nobody bought is not exactly a selling point -- for consumers and booksellers.
"Hey, remember that book you couldn't sell last year? Here's the sequel. You're going to order lots of copies anyway, right? Right?"
Or maybe the new book is basically a standalone adventure, just featuring the same characters or world, so you don't want to send the message that you have to read the first book before buying this one.
"Hey, remember that book you couldn't sell last year? Here's the sequel. You're going to order lots of copies anyway, right? Right?"
Or maybe the new book is basically a standalone adventure, just featuring the same characters or world, so you don't want to send the message that you have to read the first book before buying this one.
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I've seen books that were numbered, and others that just said "A (name of series) Novel/Book".
Yep. And, in general, numbering implies a serialized storyline, "Book Seven of the Dragon Moon Saga," while just "A Jill Cavanaugh Mystery" imples a new standalone novel in an ongoing series.
And is something you want to do if the previous "Jill Cavanaugh" books sold well.
Depending on how big a book it is, there may be several cooks involved in such marketing decisions: the editor, the publisher, the art director, the head of marketing, regional sales reps, maybe even some of the larger accounts:
"Amazon says they'll increase their order if we make the author's name bigger."
And is something you want to do if the previous "Jill Cavanaugh" books sold well.
Depending on how big a book it is, there may be several cooks involved in such marketing decisions: the editor, the publisher, the art director, the head of marketing, regional sales reps, maybe even some of the larger accounts:
"Amazon says they'll increase their order if we make the author's name bigger."
Over in ADF's Humanx Commonwealth world, I'm sure there are people who started the Flinx novels with Orphan Star, or even The End of the Matter, before they ever read The Tar-Aiym Krang. Damn sure, because when I started, resolving to start at the beginning, Krang was out-of-print, and out of the bookstores. I found it at a dealer table in a small, free, science fiction convention hosted by a local shopping mall.
You don't really need to read The Vulcan Academy Murders in order to understand The IDIC Epidemic. Neither do you really need to read My Enemy, My Ally in order to understand The Romulan Way, or either of those to understand Swordhunt, Honor Blade, or The Empty Chair. And yet, they do enrich each other, just as The Wounded Sky enriches, and is enriched by, the "Rihannsu" novels.
You don't really need to read The Vulcan Academy Murders in order to understand The IDIC Epidemic. Neither do you really need to read My Enemy, My Ally in order to understand The Romulan Way, or either of those to understand Swordhunt, Honor Blade, or The Empty Chair. And yet, they do enrich each other, just as The Wounded Sky enriches, and is enriched by, the "Rihannsu" novels.
From an editorial standpoint, I will say that there's a reason why publishers don't freely grant "cover approval" to authors. Twice in my career, I've found myself editing a book where somebody had insanely granted the author cover approval and it was hell both times.
In both cases, the book's entire publishing schedule was held hostage by a perfectionist author who kept asking for one more change, and another, and another, while I struggled to get them to "yes."
"Okay, I think we're almost there, Greg, but I'm still not entirely happy with . . . ."
Now, as an author, I get that this book is their baby, which they have poured blood, sweat, and tears into, and that it is the only book on the publisher's list that matters to them, but, in real life, there's only so much time and money you can spend redoing the same cover over and over, and only so many times you can go back to the drawing board to give the author yet another new approach.
So, yes, no harm in giving an author "cover consultation" and soliciting their input, but "cover approval" is a nightmare waiting to happen.
In both cases, the book's entire publishing schedule was held hostage by a perfectionist author who kept asking for one more change, and another, and another, while I struggled to get them to "yes."
"Okay, I think we're almost there, Greg, but I'm still not entirely happy with . . . ."
Now, as an author, I get that this book is their baby, which they have poured blood, sweat, and tears into, and that it is the only book on the publisher's list that matters to them, but, in real life, there's only so much time and money you can spend redoing the same cover over and over, and only so many times you can go back to the drawing board to give the author yet another new approach.
So, yes, no harm in giving an author "cover consultation" and soliciting their input, but "cover approval" is a nightmare waiting to happen.
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^ All of what Greg said, plus this: With regard to the Star Trek novels’ covers, the editors very kindly took into consideration my cover-art suggestion, which was mostly just telling them which characters got the most focus in the story and therefore made the most sense to have on the cover.
I've also had very positive experiences regarding my STAR TREK covers.
With Captain to Captain, where the cover art depicted a literal scene from the book, I politely pointed out that Spock was not part of that landing party but McCoy was, and they fixed it accordingly.
One case I know is Dan Moren's "Galactic Cold War" series, where the first book was put out by a different publisher than the rest of the series, so the first book seems to be a standalone from the cover (even though it's pretty clearly a "Getting the band together" story), but when the covers begin displaying which volume they are, they start counting from the second book, because that was the first from the new publisher. It's more confusing to explain than it was to live through.
Why can't you?
I don't see how to delete a comment... If you could inform me i will.Why can't you?
This scenario has also happened with Timothy Zahn's Icarus books. The Icarus Hunt was published a couple decades ago. In recent years, he picked up the series again with a new publisher. I can't speak to what is on the copyright page, but Amazon shows the six new books as one series starting with The Icarus Plot and leaving out the original.
There may be a time limit involved.
Meaning, I think you have to be a member for X amount of time before you can edit or delete one of your posts.
On my own posts, I see "Report," "Edit," and "Delete" links below the text.
If you don't see all three links, it could be that you haven't been here long enough, and deleting your own posts is a privilege that will come with time and experience. In that case, perhaps you could ask a Moderator to get rid of it for you.
It takes maturity to recognize when one has had a bout of "hoof-in-mouth disease," and even more to apologize, and take the initiative to mitigate the damage.
At the bottom left of your posts, there's a button that says "Report." Once you've been around the forum for a while, there'll also be ones for "Edit" and "Delete," but those aren't unlocked immediately, to fight spammers and trolls who open new accounts to cause trouble. I assume "Report" is always unlocked, but maybe that one has a cooldown, too.
You can hit "Report" on your own post and request that a moderator delete it for you. The "Report" button is just a fancy kind of direct message, there's no penalty to reporting or having a post of yours reported in and of itself.
Thank you, The edit and delete are blocked for me still. I will report it and ask a mod to delete it. Thanks for your help!
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