Q - Isabel Glass 'Daughter of Exile'
Fire3Sky
cover of the book looks exactly like a Patricia McKillip book (it is also a
small-sized hardback like a McKillip book)
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0765307456.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
The book also has a positive blurb from McKillip on the cover. I just thought
this was odd - I can understand why a publishing company would want to mimic
the cover of McKillip's books, but why would McKillip be O.K. with it? If I was
an author whose books had a distinctive cover style, I wouldn't want another
author to use exactly the same thing.
Fire3Sky
Brenda W. Clough
> I can understand why a publishing company would want to mimic
>the cover of McKillip's books, but why would McKillip be O.K. with it? If I was
>an author whose books had a distinctive cover style, I wouldn't want another
>author to use exactly the same thing.
>
>
You move me, you really do. Such a touching belief in the power of an
author is not often seen these days. Even as great a writer as McKillip
may not have cover control over her -own- books. She certainly does not
have input on the covers of any other books that her publisher puts out.
What the publisher is trying to do, with the very similar cover design,
is to signal to McKillip's many readers. "Hey, guys!" it is saying.
"Here's a book just like hers! If you liked hers, you'll like this!"
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Recent short fiction: PARADOX, Autumn 2003
http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag//index.html
Upcoming short fiction in FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html
Andrew Plotkin
> Fire3Sky wrote:
>
> > I can understand why a publishing company would want to mimic
> >the cover of McKillip's books, but why would McKillip be O.K. with it? If I was
> >an author whose books had a distinctive cover style, I wouldn't want another
> >author to use exactly the same thing.
>
> You move me, you really do. Such a touching belief in the power of an
> author is not often seen these days. Even as great a writer as McKillip
> may not have cover control over her -own- books. She certainly does not
> have input on the covers of any other books that her publisher puts out.
Nor any control over the artist -- Kinuko Craft -- who has every
incentive to sell her work as often as she can. Since she's really
good, I wouldn't want to stop her.
(Er, I'm assuming it's Kinuko Craft. If it's not, someone has a
spectacularly deft hand for her style.)
> What the publisher is trying to do, with the very similar cover design,
> is to signal to McKillip's many readers. "Hey, guys!" it is saying.
> "Here's a book just like hers! If you liked hers, you'll like this!"
And note that the publisher is almost certainly *sincere* in this. Not
that it's *just* like McKillip, but that it will interest the same
readers. Believe it or not, publishers know that mislabelling or
mismarketing a book is bad for both them and us.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Fire3Sky wrote:
>
> > I can understand why a publishing company would want to mimic
> >the cover of McKillip's books, but why would McKillip be O.K. with it? If I was
> >an author whose books had a distinctive cover style, I wouldn't want another
> >author to use exactly the same thing.
> >
> >
>
> You move me, you really do. Such a touching belief in the power of an
> author is not often seen these days. Even as great a writer as McKillip
> may not have cover control over her -own- books. She certainly does not
> have input on the covers of any other books that her publisher puts out.
>
> What the publisher is trying to do, with the very similar cover design,
> is to signal to McKillip's many readers. "Hey, guys!" it is saying.
> "Here's a book just like hers! If you liked hers, you'll like this!"
Add to that the fact that McKillip is published by Ace these days and
_Daughter of Exile_ is published by Tor...
And that I think "very similar cover design," in this case, really boils
down to "a cover painting by Kinuko Y. Craft." Craft is a very
distinctive artist, yes, and she doesn't do a whole lot of fantasy
covers, true, but I think she's edging into the same visual niche that
Tom Canty used to fill.
--
Andrew Wheeler
"Mens' souls are crooked and unsound things, not good materials out of
which to build friendships. families, households, cities, civilizations.
But good or no, these things must be built, and we must craft them with
the materials at hand, and make as strong and stubborn redoubt as we can
make, lest the horrors of the Night should triumph over us, not in some
distant age to come, but now."
- John C. Wright, "Awake in the Night"
Fire3Sky
>down to "a cover painting by Kinuko Y. Craft." Craft is a very
>distinctive artist, yes, and she doesn't do a whole lot of fantasy
>covers, true, but I think she's edging into the same visual niche that
>Tom Canty used to fill.
>
Is Tom Canty the guy who did the covers for a lot of Terri Windling's fairy
tale books?
Do they actually commission people like Canty and Craft to do bookcovers, or do
they just buy the rights to existing paintings?
Fire3Sky
Andrew Plotkin
> >And that I think "very similar cover design," in this case, really boils
> >down to "a cover painting by Kinuko Y. Craft." Craft is a very
> >distinctive artist, yes, and she doesn't do a whole lot of fantasy
> >covers, true, but I think she's edging into the same visual niche that
> >Tom Canty used to fill.
>
> Is Tom Canty the guy who did the covers for a lot of Terri Windling's fairy
> tale books?
Yes.
> Do they actually commission people like Canty and Craft to do
> bookcovers, or do they just buy the rights to existing paintings?
Usually commissions. Although I have heard of at least one case where
it happened the other way.
Brenda W. Clough
>
>Do they actually commission people like Canty and Craft to do bookcovers, or do
>they just buy the rights to existing paintings?
>
>Fire3Sky
>
>
It depends. The usual practice is to commission a painting for a book.
The art director will select a scene, or even just describe what she
wants to the artist. This is faster than having the artist read the mss
but does lead to those irritating cover errors we all complain of.
A well-established artist, however, can re-sell the cover rights to a
painting, often in some other country. So you can go to Germany and see
books with covers that are distinctly familiar to your American eye.
Often they're not on the same books they were in the US.