I’ve known Cathryn for a few years now.   And I have to say she’s one of my favoritest peoples evah.  She’s warm, funny, charming, and talented as all get out.  I’m very happy to have her guest blog with us today.

Covers by Cathryn Fox.

I have a wonderful editor at NAL who likes to involve me in every step of the packaging of my book.  While I love and appreciate having a say, it also really stresses me out. I’m not a designer, what if my amateur ideas make a total mess out of the cover?

My editor comes to me before her cover conferences and asks me my input, what exactly I’d like to see on my cover.  After all, I wrote the book, I’m closest to the characters so I should at least have a clue how I’d like to see it packaged right?  Wrong!  Honestly, when it comes to graphics and design I’m at a loss.  If you don’t believe me, just ask my webmistress!

I really want to just say, oh, let the artists handle that, figuring they can do the cover more justice than I can, but I also know if I get a cover I don’t like, then the fault lies with me for not at least trying to come up with something that fits. 

When my editor at Samhain asked me to fill in a cover sheet, at first I froze.  I really had no idea how the cover should look. In the past I’d even gone so far as to hold contest to get ideas from readers.  This time I sat down and thought about it, really thought about it.  And eventually an image/idea came to my mind.  Excited, I shared my thoughts with my editor and she passed them along to the designer.  When I received my cover for Blood Ties, I almost cried.  It was better than I could have imagined.  The artist took my ideas and ran with them, creating a beautiful cover that conveyed the story inside the pages.  I was thrilled and thought, okay, maybe I can do this!

So when my editor at NAL recently asked me for input on INSTINCTIVE, the first book in my new series, I took a whole day to think, write notes, reread sections of the book and look at other covers in the paranormal line.  It’s up to me to clearly convey my ideas to my editor so she can then carefully convey them to the artist. 

The task doesn’t seem so scary anymore and I’m beginning to believe that with careful consideration maybe I can do this.  My editor loved my ideas for the cover, and my thoughts on branding the series.  She takes my suggestions to conference next week and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.  As soon as I get the cover I’ll share it with all of you.  Stay tuned for more, I think this one is going to rock!

So what are some of your favourite covers?