About Those Covers

Wow, where has this week gone? After posting those covers I decided to write an educational post about how covers come about. At the New York National Conference of Romance Writers of America in 2003, I attended a session put on by the Harlequin production department on what happens to our manuscripts between when we wave them goodbye after the final page-proof readthrough and when we see the printed books. I found it awesomely interesting but this was almost 3 years ago so I couldn't trust my memory. I needed to find my notes. While searching I decided my office really needed tidying (and I mean REALLY needed tidying.) Some five days later I still have piles of books and notes from one end of the house to the other. Does anyone else find that tidying mushrooms into reorganization and spreads from one room to another? But I digress.

The good news is: I found those conference notes. And I can now share with you all I know about cover art production at Harlequin--or, at least, how it was in 2003. Firstly, the author does submit ideas but with no promise or guarantee the scene suggestions will be used. The senior editor wants some variety within the line's "look" each month and so, for example, if every author asked for hero-only covers or couple-about-to-kiss covers or sunset-over-deserted-beach covers then someone (several someones, actually) would miss out. The same goes with titles, by the way, and storylines. One of the senior editor's jobs when scheduling a month's books is to look for that variety. Marketing also has a say in what will sell. And the art department knows what they can produce and what they believe looks good.

So, about nine months before publication, the author fills in Art Fact Sheets. We can now do these electronically although some authors prefer the printed sheets. These provide the art team with direction re character description, the tone and sensuality of the book, the setting and season, and some suggestions for scenes that might work for the cover. With Desire we've been asked to choose scenes which promote the line's tagline: powerful, passionate, provocative. These will start coming through in the summer, I think, so it will be interesting to see if there's a notable change.

The Art Fact Sheets also contain key information used to produce the back cover copy and a short synopsis which is used to sell the stories to foreign markets. In other words, the acquiring editor in, say, France will choose the storylines she feels will appeal to the French readership. Same in Germany and Australia and Japan and...you get the picture. One last thing about AFSs: sometimes we are filling these in before the book is finished which makes that scene suggestion part slightly more tricky!

So, we send in our AFSs and the Vision Team--which comprises someone from the editorial, marketing, and art departments--decides on a scene, which may or may not be one of the author's suggestions. In 2003 Harlequin's Art Department (in the Toronto office) was producing 100 new covers every month and had 100-120 freelance illustrators they called on to produce that artwork. The artist chosen sets up a photo shoot with models. Each shoot takes about an hour with a variety of poses. The artist then chooses the best pose, sketches it and sends it to the Creative Art Editor for approval. Once approved, the artist paints the scene in oil and the image is put onto a transparency for production/printing. I don't have this in my notes, but I gather there are further transparencies with the line's standard design and logo etc and the title/author and so on.

There you have it: all I know about cover production. And when I receive my next cover in a few months time, I might even be brave enough to follow up with what they used and didn't use from my AFS suggestions.