IIRC, you need to achieve a certain rank (based on your post count) before you're able to delete or edit your own posts.
Author Habits That Annoy You
- Thread starter Captain Dax
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Especially true if you're reporting your own.
There's also a bit of an odd situation with the first two books in James Rollins' Sigma Force series. The Sigma Force organization and a character who would go on to be a supporting character in the series were introduced in Sandstorm, which I think was written as a standalone, and then the series main characters were all introduced in Map of Bones, which was the start of the ongoing series. I've seen lists referring to Sandstorm as a "prequel", Sigma Force Book 0 with Map of Bones Book 1, and others calling it Book 1. Technically prequel wouldn't really fit since it was written before the rest series, while a prequel is written later.
So @KRAD and @Greg Cox, are there any covers on your books that you're particularly pleased with? Or ones where you had more than the usual input? (Trying to keep it positive here. No need to talk about the covers you disliked and throw the artists under the bus.)Yeah, like @Greg Cox, I've been on both sides of the desk as an editor and an author, and the vast majority of the time, the author shouldn't be too heavily consulted on the cover design for the same reason why the art director shouldn't be too heavily consulted on the manuscript.
I'm reluctant to choose a favorite (although I did really like my recent cover for LOST TO ETERNITY), but I do have a couple of funny anecdotes about my Trek covers.
Due to the vagaries of publishing schedules and marketing, the covers are often done while the book is still being written, which sometimes influences the content of the books.
DRAGON'S HONOR: Because I had seen the cover art and knew that Dr. Crusher was on it, I made a point of beefing up her part in the book.
EUGENICS WARS (Volume One): Gotta a call from the editor one day . . . .
"Hey, Greg, is there a helicopter in the book?"
"Um, why?"
"There's going to be a helicopter on the cover."
"Okay, I'll make sure there's a helicopter somewhere in the story . . . ."
I dunno. I think most of us are aware of Tolkien's reaction to the cover art for the first Ballantine edition of The Hobbit. Complete with a non-canonical lion, two non-canonical emus, and a non-canonical tree that Tolkien referred to as "the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?"
http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/hobbits-and-lions-and-emus-oh-my.html
KRAD has mentioned before he actually owns the original art from Diplomatic Implausibility.
That's cool. I wonder if that just came down to the artist thinking, "Hmm, I haven't drawn (or painted) Dr. Crusher lately. I think I'll use her on this cover."
EUGENICS WARS (Volume One): Gotta a call from the editor one day . . . .
"Hey, Greg, is there a helicopter in the book?"
"Um, why?"
"There's going to be a helicopter on the cover."
"Okay, I'll make sure there's a helicopter somewhere in the story . . . ."
I've never heard that before, or seen any of those covers before. But then, I've never really been a Tokien guy. And yeah, they're pretty ugly.I think most of us are aware of Tolkien's reaction to the cover art for the first Ballantine edition of The Hobbit. Complete with a non-canonical lion, two non-canonical emus, and a non-canonical tree that Tolkien referred to as "the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?"
http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/hobbits-and-lions-and-emus-oh-my.html
When I was in junior high, I had a wall-sized poster of the LoTR cover art. Folks are asking a couple grand for it on eBay. I wonder what ever happened to mine...?I dunno. I think most of us are aware of Tolkien's reaction to the cover art for the first Ballantine edition of The Hobbit. Complete with a non-canonical lion, two non-canonical emus, and a non-canonical tree that Tolkien referred to as "the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?"
http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/hobbits-and-lions-and-emus-oh-my.html
That...that was something else...I dunno. I think most of us are aware of Tolkien's reaction to the cover art for the first Ballantine edition of The Hobbit. Complete with a non-canonical lion, two non-canonical emus, and a non-canonical tree that Tolkien referred to as "the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?"
http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/hobbits-and-lions-and-emus-oh-my.html
I dunno. I think most of us are aware of Tolkien's reaction to the cover art for the first Ballantine edition of The Hobbit. Complete with a non-canonical lion, two non-canonical emus, and a non-canonical tree that Tolkien referred to as "the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?"
http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/hobbits-and-lions-and-emus-oh-my.html
I don't know. I think they would make good album covers for a Progressive Rock band.
But as covers for Tolkien books? Books that have neither lions, nor emus, nor trees that bear pink bulbs?
It does have dragons, eagles, a spider, a volcano and horse wraiths though.
Another cover-art anecdote:
As an editor, I screwed up once by neglecting to mention to the art department that the third of book of an SF trilogy (not STAR TREK) was set 20 years after the first two. I just told them to match the style of the first two books and suggested a couple of appropriate images: "Maybe a giant space station in the background?"
So when the art depicted the hero looking the same age as he was in the first two books, not twenty years older, I had nobody to blame but myself. And I couldn't justify spending any extra time or money on "fixing" it since it wasn't going to affect sales one bit.
My bad.
As an editor, I screwed up once by neglecting to mention to the art department that the third of book of an SF trilogy (not STAR TREK) was set 20 years after the first two. I just told them to match the style of the first two books and suggested a couple of appropriate images: "Maybe a giant space station in the background?"
So when the art depicted the hero looking the same age as he was in the first two books, not twenty years older, I had nobody to blame but myself. And I couldn't justify spending any extra time or money on "fixing" it since it wasn't going to affect sales one bit.
My bad.
I think we can all agree, it just needs to be a good faith conversation between author and publisher where both parties understand what is and isn't a reasonable ask. When it doesn't happen, you get covers that mis-represent (even mis-sell) the work, and ultimately that's bad for readers, writers and publishers.
It's perhaps also worth noting that even a book's editor doesn't necessarily have cover approval. I can and have sometimes been overruled by higher-ups, marketing departments, sales reps, etc.
I remember one instance where I submitted a cover concept memo, signed off on sketches and designs, only to be surprised with a finished product that was significantly differently from what I had requested and approved. Investigating, I discovered that the cover had been changed in response to comments at a sales meeting I hadn't been present at -- and where nobody present had actually read the manuscript. As a result, the cover now featured something that appeared nowhere in the book. (Imagine adding a dragon to the cover of a fantasy novel in which there were no dragons and you get the general idea.)
Grumble, grumble.
I raised a fuss and got the "dragon" removed from the cover.
Then again, the book ended up not selling very well, so what do I know?
I remember one instance where I submitted a cover concept memo, signed off on sketches and designs, only to be surprised with a finished product that was significantly differently from what I had requested and approved. Investigating, I discovered that the cover had been changed in response to comments at a sales meeting I hadn't been present at -- and where nobody present had actually read the manuscript. As a result, the cover now featured something that appeared nowhere in the book. (Imagine adding a dragon to the cover of a fantasy novel in which there were no dragons and you get the general idea.)
Grumble, grumble.
I raised a fuss and got the "dragon" removed from the cover.
Then again, the book ended up not selling very well, so what do I know?
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Should have kept the dragon...It's perhaps also worth noting that even a book's editor doesn't necessarily have cover approval. I can and have sometimes been overruled by higher-ups, marketing departments, sales reps, etc.
I remember one instance where I submitted a cover concept memo, signed off on sketches and designs, only to be surprised with a finished product that was significantly differently from what I had requested and approved. Investigating, I discovered that the cover had been changed in response to comments at a sales meeting I hadn't been present at -- and where nobody present had actually read the manuscript. As a result, the cover now featured something that appeared nowhere in the book. (Imagine adding a dragon to the cover of a fantasy novel in which there were no dragons and you get the general idea.)
Grumble, grumble.
I raised a fuss and got the "dragon" removed from the cover.
Then again, the book ended up not selling very well, so what do I know?
Is this part of the reason why the Star Trek books stopped being numbered? I remember when I was buying in the 90s, the vast majority of them were numbered in each series, other than the giant or hardbacks, then they all stopped being numbered.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.
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