I agree. I like the all black one too and so do two other friends. I kept hammering the idea of "fragmentation" into the designer's head and I think I over did it.

Thanks.

Yeah, that second cover came from the first set of comps for that book and I just said, "stop right there. That is it, dude." I love having total control over the cover image process cause that is what people use to decide whether or not to buy a book and I loathe most genre book covers. I'm gonna hire a designer for FM down the road and replace that cover and republish it.

Have the website ready to go, covers made and just waiting for the copy editor to do his thing. Copy editors have a grinding, thankless job so I cut him slack. His day job is at Time magazine and they are all caught up in the Nelson Mandela saga, prepping, I believe, a special issue, but I'm just guessing. He just mentioned it's doubled his work load at the mag.

I have a couple of shorter books in the works but I am feeling like it's time to get back out and find an agent again and make another run at trad pub. (These longer ones I'm self-publishing would never get trad published due to length...850 pages each). Would love to fine an agent who would actually try and sell my work instead of sitting on it like the last one did.

I've been researching current publishing like crazy, trying to catch up after a long hiatus. A certain M. Sakey seems to be everywhere at once. Steerpike, are you sure he isn't identical twins?

geggis said
I don't mind the red and black one, in fact, Hailey prefers it!

A vote for red and black!

Maybe it's that particular shade of red that is off-putting.The original version of this comp had that all red font which I thought was too weak. (All the other comps for this cover looked like odd attempts at romance novels.) So I asked him to switch to all black. Then he added the red and black as a last minute inspiration. The theme of the book is a woman with 12 personalities and all the characters have had their lives fragmented in some way.

Thanks for the input.

By the way, the designer is Ervin Serrano, over at St. Martin's Press. He does thriller covers mostly. Some of Chelsea Cain's stuff. Stuff like that.

i hear they almost got Jessica Chastain to do the Kate Hudson role but she couldn't do it because of scheduling which of course means whatever they want it to mean.

I 'm tempted to just go with the black because I think the red shade is weak too. I might ask him. It's probably no more than five minutes for him to change the color. There is a certain allure to the extra fragmentation.

Thanks for all your input guys. I'll post when they go up. I'll have a website too but I'm beginning to realize I'd rather eat ground glass than venture into a platform building phase...

Movies are more like franchise restaurants. People go to them because they don't want too many surprises. Novels are like one-off diners or a chef's labor of love. You put yourself in the cook's hands.

I was reading Joe Konrath's blog the other day where Marcus was guest posting for an Alzheimer campaign and he was writing about getting his first two books back from St. Martins and what fun he was having crowdsourcing the cover designs on his Facebook page, getting feedback from his readers. I definitely think it's important to take the cover away for a while and throw it into the real world. I've passed around both my last two covers for comment from readers and friends. Except for Finding Miranda. I'm going to have another designer redo it. She just did Jeffery Eugenides last book cover. I love this part of the process, finding your own people. Though I would love to have a publisher too. I think the hybrid writer who has a publisher AND self publishes on the side is the dream goal. You get the whole picture that way. Some self-pubs are becoming fucking cult-like and creepy. Some writers refuse to self pub, thinks it the end of civilization. As usual, they are both wrong.

I'm seeing the same thing in the Double Fine Kickstarter where they are making studio backed games and at the same time "self pubbing" a  game, now offciially called Broken World. I wish I could post the documentary updates. They alone are worth the lousy 20 bucks I sent them a year ago because Tim Schafer. I suspect the final documentary of the making of this game will become required watching for any budding game developer. I hardly have a connection to games anymore but it just shows you what the process of making a game in a middling sized studio is like, warts and all.

Oh and Brilliance sounds kick ass. I read  a synopsis of it. What a great idea!