Cover thoughts

Tip of the day: In the summer, keep an extra bottle of sunscreen in your car at all times. That way, you are ready for whatever fun you come across!

Pre-published writers often wonder how much say we get in our covers. They want to know if we're able to provide any input, or if we get it and we don't like it, will the publisher change it?

As with everything else in publishing, this varies from house to house, perhaps even author to author and book to book.

I haven't had any say in my covers. But my editor did ask me early on in the process of I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME if I had any ideas for the cover. And at that point, I made it pretty clear that I don't really have an artistic mind. I don't think in terms of images. And I certainly have no idea what kind of covers sell books and what kinds don't.

So, I've left that part of making a book up to them. The difficult part for me is that I often see covers I LOVE and then everything else sorta pales in comparison. Covers that are fortunate enough to have photo shoots have that something special. One of my authorly dreams is to someday have a book that gets that special little bonus of a photo shoot. I don't know if it will ever happen, and maybe in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.

I have two books coming out next year. CHASING BROOKLYN is a chilling, romantic companion young adult novel to I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME and will be released January, 2010. IT'S RAINING CUPCAKES is a mid-grade book about a girl who dreams of traveling but is stuck in Oregon helping her mother get a cupcake shop off the ground and will be released March, 2010.

Here are the covers - would love to hear what you think!

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career