Go to any reader’s forum and you’ll find a variety of complaints about books. Perhaps the cover is ugly, perhaps the reader can’t find the book in stores, or perhaps the price is too high. Valid complaints, but usually not the author’s fault. Before I signed the contract for my debut book, Wild Heart, even I hadn’t realized how little control authors have over their books. So what do we have little or no control over?
Title and Cover:
You’d think an author would be able to title her own book. Think again. Most of the time, a book’s title is changed by the editor. The title for my debut book started out as To Tame His Heart. It’s now Wild Heart. And for the book cover, it’s even worse.
For an author, getting a book cover is one of the most important moments in our career. The cover is the face of our book, what the world will see for years to come. For an author who gets a bad cover, it’s like a punch to the gut and there is pretty much nothing we can do about it. When I got the book cover for my debut book, I was horrified to realize the hair and eye coloring was wrong for my characters. What could I do about it? The only thing I could do was go back through the book and change their coloring. And authors have nothing to do with those half-naked men and women readers often complain about. At the same time, publishers know what sells, and as much as we like to roll our eyes at those scantily clad characters, they sell.
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