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Sharon's Corner

Sharon's own personal corner of the Davidverse, where she can express her thoughts about family, care and feeding of an author, and life in general.

September Thoughts

It's amazing how cover art can effect how we perceive a book. A couple of David's best books have had the absolute worst covers (or did you never see the Honor Harrington does Michael Jackson cover?) and some of the books you would think were going to be amazing from the cover turn out to be a real disappointment.

Interestingly enough, most authors have relatively little to say about the covers of their books. They can scream and yell and carry on if it is something that they absolutely hate, but the decisions about covers are made, for the most part, by the marketing department and the editors. The cover of a book needs to be a design that is intriguing enough to look great stacked at the front of a bookstore, which is the Mecca of all Hardcover books. The cover of the book should be something that grabs your attention and DEMANDS that you read it. And the cover of a book needs to be unique...which can be a demanding task with more than 600,000 titles published in 2009. 

So, the next time you are eyeing that amazing cover image sitting at the entrance of your favorite bookstore, remember the old adage is true. "You can't judge a book by its cover!"