No, this is not the cover.
We are still planning on a "cover reveal" for Stick on a number of YA, book, and writers' blogs.
When we have an actual, this-is-it cover to reveal.
It's no big deal, I suppose. It seemed like it took forever for the final cover of In the Path of Falling Objects, too.
The Marbury Lens cover just surprised me by popping into my inbox one day over a year ago.
And, to be honest, I have seen a cover for Stick, too, and I totally love it, but it can't be shown yet because it's not the final version.
Or something.
But I did find out yesterday that the release date for Stick is October 11, 2011. How did I find out? It's already posted on a few bookstore and review sites (with no cover image, thankfully).
When the cover can be shown, believe me, I will direct you to the few friends' sites that will be participating in the big reveal.
But, like so many things that could serve me well as a motto:
It won't happen here.
Until then... well... what can I say?
I bet there will be people who find out about it way before I do, and then tell me about it. I even have a friend who managed to obtain a cover image for Stick and then gushed about it to me... and I was, like, really??? really???
So I asked my friend to show me the image.
And it was the wrong one. So I had to beg that person to please, please, please do not ever show that to anyone.
Ah... the wonders of the internet.
I bet if I looked hard enough I could probably find sites where I could download a pirated e-book copy of Stick, too.
Who needs patience when you've got p2p file sharing?
9 comments:
I'm not that huge on covers. I mean, I suppose if I ever get published it will be immensely exciting, but as a reader I don't really care. I mean if a book has a mediocre cover, but the story is phenomenal, I'm fine with it. If it has an amazing cover and the story sucks ... that pisses me off because it just feels like hype.
I suppose it is really cool when a great story and a great cover come together. TML is a good example, but you also could have wrapped that novel in a paper sack and it still would have rocked.
Man I sound negative today.
Waiting for the cover is an agonizing process. I feel like I'm in limbo without it. I guess it's a physical symbol of the finished book. And for what it's worth the research on what spurs readers to buy shows that cover is important for enough folks out there. Also it's important to store buyers who definitely influence the look of covers these days by buying one type over another for YA readers (I'm thinking places like B&N). I'm finishing up my website and it just looks naked without the cover for my book on it. And I've seen a working cover also (which I'm happy with but it needs to be changed ... a little ... to be finished - long story) but I'm sworn to secrecy about it also. The ARC will even have a working cover and not the final one as the publisher is still tinkering with it. She takes covers very seriously. But I still do'nt have the ARCs yet either. Some parts of the process just seem veiled in mystery.
Matthew,
Covers matter a lot to teens. In fact, covers are the top attractor for boy readers. If you look at the majority of 2011-released YA, so far, boys are not going to TOUCH most of them.
This is really dumb marketing, too, considering the data from schools and educational studies that show boys really DO want to read (and write... about 90% of my writers' group are boys).
The impact of e-books won't lessen the importance of cover art, either, since the images are associated with the files (Audible did a beautiful job of packaging the iPod-version of The Marbury Lens... and THAT'S what kids are going to buy -- they will NEVER buy audio CDs of a book).
Anyway, covers matter a lot.
Of course, if the story sucks... there's not much a brilliant design on a dust cover can do for you.
Joe,
I can't unveil the mystery, because every house has its unique processes.
I believe that revealing covers too early can be tiresome to the book-loving public. So, hang in there with your big show.
That said, the way that catalogs come out as PDFs so early (and I'm thinking the fall catalog for my publisher will be out in a month or so...) makes holding back on cover images sometimes impossible.
I wouldn't mind if the cover for Stick could be kept absolutely hidden until a month or two before the release, but (especially given the story I told on today's post) in this hyper-connected world, that seems to be impossible.
It is a rocking cover, though, and I can't wait to be able to point to it and say, "that's my boy."
My former students wouldn't read a book if they didn't like the cover. It was the first thing that attracted them, especially ones that looked dangerous, had a dangerous title and/or a story based around danger. Granted they live in Kensington (terrible section of Philly) and know nothing different. They need to connect to the book some way.
I admit, I tend to give a book a quick glance if I like the cover and title. If not, I just pass by it, possibly missing out on a great reading experience.
Hi Laura,
I published data from a recent study on covers and kids a while back. I may need to put something up about it again.
But, regardless of the toughness of the environment, I think you're absolutely correct about the "connection" a kid needs to feel toward a book, and even your own attraction on the basis of cover and title.
I know you're right Andrew, and I didn't mean to imply that covers shouldn't be taken seriously, because obviously they can help sales, especially when it comes to grabbing the attention of young person walking the aisle at B&N who has never even heard of your book before. The cover is the first thing they see, and it often is the one thing that makes their mind up about whether to give that book a try.
I think I've just been a little frustrated lately by a couple books where a beautiful cover tried to blur the mediocrity of the story within.
None of that has anything to do with you though.
I don't think I can upload an image into a comment, so instead I'll have to offer this link. These are the covers of the highlighted YA books from the Goodreads "March New Releases" email. A thought in response to Andrew's: "Covers matter a lot to teens. In fact, covers are the top attractor for boy readers. If you look at the majority of 2011-released YA, so far, boys are not going to TOUCH most of them."
That's worth a thousand words, at least.
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