More fun with book covers: The Little Sleep
by paultremblay on Nov.11, 2009, under David Anthony Durham, Jeff VanderMeer, Paul G. Tremblay
Jeff is 100 percent correct in saying that his level of input on the design of covers is not the norm. Though like Jeff, I was fortunate that Henry Holt came to me for some pre-input on what feel/look I wanted for the cover of The Little Sleep.
My novel features a private detective who blacks out and has incredibly vivid hallucinations that muddy the waters of his reality, so I knew we had to get the mix of odd with noir across with the cover. My pre-cover input focused on an image from a movie poster a friend had sent me: Anatomy of a Murder.
movie poster!
I liked the use of primary colors, the title being prominent, and the sense of general oddness of the silhouetted body.
Fortunately, my vague ramblings and movie poster landed in the hands of the incredibly talented Lisa Fyfe, book designer at Holt. The finished cover of The Little Sleep was featured at faceoutbooks (a blog devoted to cover design), where Lisa described her creative process in more detail.
The Little Sleep
Related posts:
- The Trouble with Covers: Getting to Final with Finch One of the great privileges of my life as a writer has been getting a say in cover design. As someone with a strong visual sense who originally published in indie press and also ran an indie press, I’ve always dealt with artists and graphic designers. So when it...
- More judging a book by its cover(s): Phantom vs. Phantom Phantom is a forthcoming (should be available later this month, and hopefully I’ll have copies on hand at the Boylston reading) literary horror anthology that I co-edited with Sean Wallace of Prime Books. When we originally put the anthology together, we imagined it as a relatively small selling, pocket-sized, boutique...
- Hi Folks! I’m pleased to be here, hanging out a Babel Clash for at couple of weeks. Should be fun. There’s actually a lot of different angles to look at covers from. I’ll start small… Very cool that Jeff has always had input and creative influence on his covers. (Sounds like Paul...
- Judging a book by its cover The saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” When browsing through a store, no particular recommendation in hand, you really don’t have much else to go on. Stick a plain, boring or unattractive cover on even an outstanding book, and it is DOA. You’re not picking that...
- Medium Hopping We’re talking about genre hopping, but we also have medium or format hopping. We have authors such as Mike Carey and Dan Abnett writing comics. Jim Butcher wrote a Dresden Files comic. Neil Gaiman is writing screenplays. George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Charlaine Harris’ True Blood are...
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Guest blogging at Babel Clash with Vandermeer and Durham « The Little Sleep’s Blog
November 11th, 2009 on 11:07 am[...] Guest blogging at Babel Clash with Vandermeer and Durham Jump to Comments As a lead up to our reading next week (Nov. 20th, Borders on Boylston Street in Boston, 7pm), Jeff Vandermeer, David Anthony Durham, and little old me are guest blogging for Borders SF blog, Babel Clash. The idea is that we’ll be blogging about certain topics presented to us. First up is cover design, and my first post is here. [...]
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The first novel in the brilliant new Newsflesh trilogy--about an America shattered by a terrible pandemic, and a race for the White House that no one may survive.
November 11th, 2009 on 12:16 pm
Paul–that’s a great example of excellent writer input. Showing an example of a style or general approach to a publisher is the best way, I think, to influence your book cover without being intrusive.
November 11th, 2009 on 1:30 pm
Thanks, Jeff! I was very pleased with Lisa’s cover, and more pleased that they allowed this first time novelist such early say in the direction of the cover.
February 1st, 2010 on 4:23 pm
I just wanted to leave you a quick comment to thank for your website!
I really liked your webpage!!! Would you care whether I placed up an backlink from my site to your website?
Keep up the awesome work! Much Thanks!
Amy
February 2nd, 2010 on 9:25 am
Hi Amy,
I’m glad that you like the site! You’re welcome to add the backlink.
Morgan
May 9th, 2010 on 4:05 am
Appears like a lot of xbox fans here, I am a fan also and love to play video games… my gf says I play way too much, but man it’s so fun. I’ve been playing cod: modern warfare 2 and halo for weeks and can’t stop! What would you guys recommend? Anyhow, seems like a sweet blog, is this wordpress? I’ve made a few pages myself and ain’t easy. Cheers for taking time to writing this up.
June 17th, 2010 on 7:14 pm
good read enjoyed thanx.