Because it bears repeating

[james_davis_nicoll]

Authors generally have very little control over the covers of their books.

Also, and I have to admit I've never actually heard anyone say this but the evidence appears to support this hypothesis, most publishers' art directors not only don't know any people who are visible minorities, they don't know about people who are visible minorities. This is probably because most major publishers are based in New York and if there's one thing Friends and Seinfeld taught me, New York is surprisingly monotone.

Comments

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Nice! :-)

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

This is probably because most major publishers are based in New York and if there's one thing Friends and Seinfeld taught me, New York is surprisingly monotone.

It's true. We bleach ourselves once a week.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

This is why I like living in an ethnically diverse city like Kitchener. We even get ethnic diversity tourists looking to enjoy our diversity (at least, I assume that's why the roaming Mormon missionaries ask where the Hispanic part of town is [1]).

1: It's not impossible: I have heard of tourists going into Amish churches in Lancaster to snap shots of the exotic Anabaptists (who turn out to be surprisingly hostile to this for some reason).

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Related to this, some people seem to unable to comprehend that you can have a significant minority population without having ethnic enclaves.

Mind you, having a [insert ethnic]town might at least mean you could get decent [insert ethnic] food. Toronto's far better than K-W for access[1] to any decent ethnic food[2].

1: Toronto does have the advantage of being almost 50% minorities, vs. the 15-20% of K-W.

2: Except perhaps german.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

First time I've even *seen* my covers is on the finished book. The ARCs come out with gray covers.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

And now I'm trying to remember which publisher has the ARCs with the gray covers. Roc?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Ace, for me.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

No cover flats? Used to be fairly common one got to see cover flats considerably before the book came out. (That's already too late to change anything, of course.)

[seawasp]

Baen actually has permitted me to speak with the artists for the covers and even offer input. This doesn't mean that I control what's on them, but I at least know that the artist does know what I was thinking about various aspects of the book. I'm pleased with the cover for Grand Central Arena even though it isn't, precisely, what that scene is like in the book, and the cover for Threshold is lovely, too.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

"New York is surprisingly monotone."

What??????

I live in NYC and have for many years. My friends are anything but monotone, and most are multi-lingual, and most are also mixed race. Puleeze.

That publishing, television and Hollywood is predominately still white, is another story. I worked in publishing for a long time as well. Despite even having a Puerto Ricaña as head of one of their juvenile imprints, the editors and publishers insisted that latinos don't read.

Blame the industry, but don't characterize the city that way.

Love, C.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think you missed the glyph of sarcasm there.

Maine now, Maine is monotone.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In your distant land, do they ever speak of that which we modest Canadians call "sarcasm"?

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

I knew when I saw this post that there would be at least one person unable to read for irony.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

I think it helps to view book art as a label, more or less equivalent to the art on a box of cereal. Although the logical extension of this is equating the author to the machine that dumps the sugar-coated cardboard pellets into the boxes at the factory. The contents likely bear little resemblance to what's presented on the cover, even disregarding the presence of an anthropomorphic cartoon tiger. I passed the "paranormal" section of a B&N a few days ago and every single one of the covers was redone to look like a romance book (not that your typical paranormal/UF fare wasn't presented as a bit titillating to begin with.)

Is there an easily available reference for professionally published authors (self-publishing doesn't count, nor comics) who either do have control over their cover art or provide that art themselves?

I've never been to New York but it's just drunk Irish cops with muttonchops dodging hatchets thrown by mafiosos, isn't it?

[kate_nepveu]

It helps _what_ to view book art as a label?

[gohover.livejournal.com]

That was very funny! But of course, the cereal-dumping machines are like printing presses. Human beings design the cardboard-tasting food that is mass-produced and dumped into boxes. I know one of them - he works for a major food company you have heard of, he has a PhD in chemistry, and I know he is proud of his edible creations - if not for their taste, then for their new-fangled lack of saturated fats, for their inability to ever spoil, etc. I'll ask him if he cares what the art on the box looks like.

Also: he explained to me that the final taste of his foods is determined by market research. He said his team often creates foods that meet all the mass-production criteria, yet actually taste quite interesting -- and of course, these foods don't test as well as blander fare. I know there is an analogous dumbing-down process for movies, but I'd like to imagine that never happens with SF novels. :-)

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

"I passed the "paranormal" section of a B&N a few days ago and every single one of the covers was redone to look like a romance book (not that your typical paranormal/UF fare wasn't presented as a bit titillating to begin with.)"

Does that mean they're over the "hot girl with tattoos viewed from the back" cover?

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

I haven't been in a B&N recently, but if they're calling the section "Paranormal", it probably won't include any Urban Fantasy.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

most publishers' art directors editors not only don't know any people who are visible minorities, they don't know about people who are visible minorities

There. Fixed that for you. After all, if the editor doesn't give the art director info about characters who might be on the cover being PoCs the art director isn't going to decide on his/her own to give someone dark skin. What these controversies mostly make me wonder is what the editors are thinking to be so unclear about the characters the book is about. The art directors sure as hell are NOT creating covers based on having read the MSS; someone is giving them bad info, and those someones need a kick in the pants.

The Friends and Seinfeld monochromatic NYC is also seen in stuff like The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex in the City, etc. Apparently, when the Huxtables moved out of NYC they were the last/only black family who had lived there...

[(Anonymous)]

I can't believe I'm actually commenting on this, but I'd like to stick up for King Of Queens as not being monochromatic. Deacon, who works with Doug is African American. He is in practically every episode, and his wife has also appeared a lot.
PLUS, Lou Ferrigno has been a frequent guest star, and as we all know, Lou has a history of being noticeably green.

And since I've opened my yap, Everybody Loves Raymond is, IIRC, set on Long Island which in real life has several areas that are indeed so monochromatic that it has occasionally been a problem.

-- RDaggle

[dharawal.livejournal.com]

Way back in the FidoNet days, I was in a echo called SF, in it there was amongst other authors such as Pat Wrede, Pat Cadigan, and a few others, the author John DeChancie, he wrote the damn good Castle Perilous series.

It was a running joke that the cover of one of his books featured a FBT (Frigging Blue Turtleoid) when there was NO turtleloid creature at all in the story, or in ANY of the Castle Perilous books.

The FBT became the symbol of all those WTF moments you get when you look at a book cover and go 'wha?'

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Steven Brust, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Joel Rosenberg, John M. Ford, Pamela Dean Dyer-Benent, Guy Kay, and still more. Yes. Good times.

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Lately I've become convinced that genre books are using the same stock photos of male and female models, heavily Photoshopped, for all their covers. They all look more or less alike. Or perhaps they're just using the same stock figures from a software program. :/

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Ah; you don't know about Poser, apparently.

No need for actual models.

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Can't speak to all publishers, but one author did have some input to the cover of her book; One of my photos. Right off Flickr. Without even asking for permission, never mind pay me in advance.

Kathleen Popa added one of my photos to a gallery on Flickr entitled "Photographs that inspired my novels", a still life of pomegranates and pine cones; I was touched and flattered, until I did some research and found that it was on her novel, as well.

I contacted her, and she said that she had shown the picture to her publisher, and they used it. She forwarded my letter to the art director, and the next day I received an email, with an offer to pay, and an apology.

after a bit of wrangling over the amount of money and the wording of the contract, I soon had a check in hand that enabled me to buy a refurbished Canon Rebel T1i.

Kathleen sent me a copy of the book, and we follow each other's flickr streams. It's all good!

Moral of this story? Writers, make sure your cover art is properly licensed.