10 Things I Hate About You Dvd Cover

[Yoana Terrano]

A few days back, I saw someone on Twitter talking about the fantasy writer Terry Goodkind, and how he\u2019d written a Facebook post in which he described the cover to his latest novel, Shroud of Eternity, as \u201Claughably bad.\u201D Which, as you might imagine, is a rather remarkable thing for an author to say publicly. Here\u2019s the cover, so you can judge for yourself:

Now, Terry Goodkind\u2019s particular brand of \u201Cepic\u201D fantasy isn\u2019t my thing, so I make no claims for the goodness or badness, laughable or otherwise, of the novel\u2019s contents, but I will say that this artwork seems fairly representative of the field\u2014not exceptionally compelling, but not substantially worse than anything else in the genre.

Anyway, enough people\u2014including the cover artist\u2014took umbrage at Goodkind\u2019s insulting comments that he backpedaled ever so slightly, issuing a \u201Csorry you didn\u2019t get the joke\u201D non-apology, then suggesting that he hadn\u2019t meant to slam the artist by calling his work \u201Claughably bad.\u201D No, Goodkind insisted, what he really meant to do was \u201Cto instead encourage my publisher to devote more thoughtful consideration with the artwork they wrap around my books.\u201D

Goodkind says that he didn\u2019t see the cover art until just before the book went to press, and he told the folks at Tor Books he didn\u2019t like it, and they overruled him and went with this artwork anyway. And I don\u2019t doubt that\u2019s what happened. Lord knows, when I was an acquiring editor, I sometimes had to inform my authors that the cover art they had voted for wasn\u2019t the cover art my boss decided to go with. In some cases, I had to tell authors that the cover art everybody had loved had been dismissed by the buyers at a certain book chain, and we were going with a backup choice because we wanted that chain to like the cover enough to order many, many books for its stores.

The authors I worked with never complained to their social media followings about it, though. Because they were grown-ups. Yes, they were disappointed. Hell, I was disappointed. But we commiserated privately, and then got back to talking about what we could do to get people excited about their books. That\u2019s what you do.

If I were Terry Goodkind\u2019s publisher, I\u2019d be taking a very close look at his sales figures. I know he\u2019s fairly popular in the genre, with a couple bestsellers to his credit, but I\u2019d be thinking very carefully about what direction his sales have been going in over the last few books: Is he still growing an audience? Is his audience stagnant? Is he losing readers over time?

And if the Terry Goodkind train has started to lose momentum, I\u2019d give some serious thought about whether it might be time to jump off that train once the current contract comes to an end. Because even though a publisher is willing to go through a certain amount of grief if there\u2019s enough money coming in to compensate for it, there are limits\u2014and those limits get even tighter if the money isn\u2019t coming in.

There are enough non-assholes in the book world that nobody wants to work with an asshole if they can help it. Be one of the non-assholes. And if you\u2019re fortunate enough to get a book deal, and it turns out you hate the cover your publisher designs for you, tell them about it when they show you the cover. If you\u2019re not able to change their mind, take the hit and keep moving forward. You might just find that it makes them that much more willing to hear you out the next time something comes up.

Enter the cover for your book: even if you don't know what you want the cover to be, sometimes you kind of do, and if the cover doesn't fit those vague imaginings it can lead to a momentary "no, nope, nada."

Chances are good, after you've had your Casey Kasem-esque "thanks no," moment, you'll like, even love, your cover. Certainly you'll remember that publishing is not a solo endeavor, that you've already been edited and proofread, your blurb has been worked and reworked, and you didn't always agree with every change there but you knew each was to make the book better.

I have a friend who wrote a novel whose protagonist is an Asian man. The book cover artist didn't know this (no, they don't have time to read each book they illustrate; usually they work from your blurb and ideas shared by writer and editor), and so this artist produced a book cover with a very Caucasian man.

If something like that happens to you, definitely contact your editor or publisher, and talk with them. Yet though you may feel insulted, hurt, and sad they got something so vital so very wrong do not let them know that.

By this I mean do not insult the cover to your publisher, do not belittle its creator, do not threaten to pull your book because you hate the artwork. None of these help you, but they very definitely can hurt you.

They may even be able to create a new cover, though that's not always likely. Why? Time and money. No publisher can redo covers again and again; they're pricey and we want to get to the bit where we announce your book. Trumpets! Excitement! Sales!

Yet understand that we all Casey Kasem things. We all have images in our head we don't even know are there. Sometimes we're going to love our cover right away, sometimes it's going to take a hot little minute, and that's okay. It's normal.

Think about it: the most beautiful, most skilled painting of a tree is not going to sell weedkiller, or pencils. But if an advertising agency commissions a beautiful painting of a tree in order to sell either of those things, then the agency will have failed. Not the artist who painted the bloody tree.

I DO write fantasy. I HAVE seen my covers change, from my own first efforts (dreadful) to the current form for one series which is now serving as the foundation for all the marketing around it. No thanks to me.

Writer of fiction, screen and radio plays.Winner of Funniest Blog at one awards thingy and Best Newcomer at another.Blogging about bestselling book trends, literary humour, people's behaviour on the internet, traditional and self-publishing, marketing tips, success stories and spectacular failures at tarasparlingwrites.com.

The Atlanta killings on March 16 left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent. For Asian American journalists in North Texas, covering this and other attacks targeting Asians means having to reexperience these stories of hate over and over again.

Our job is to tell stories, but at its core that requires us to listen closely as people relive their traumas and rehash painful memories. It's hard not to take some of that home. Their stories remind you of your own wounds, the myriad ways your country refuses to fully embrace all of who you are.

Sometimes I can ignore these fears until certain thoughts pop up, as I tell myself that nothing will happen to my mom because she's grocery shopping at H-Mart or when I promise myself that I'll eventually join a self-defense class so that the feeling of helplessness will subside. It's those few seconds as I stand by my car with my gear, steeling myself before reporting so that I won't be caught off guard if I face a racist encounter.

I did a perspectives piece, like a commentary. It aired and one minute later somebody messaged me on my personal Facebook account, somebody I didn't know and said, "you've never been discriminated against. You're such a sellout chink."

When I see a story about massive violence in Atlanta where eight people have been shot and killed and six of them are Asian women, I can't help but have not only a journalistic response, but also a personal response to that.

I was interviewing someone the other day and I was starting to cry while I was asking her a question, because it's something she shared with me about her own parents being immigrants from Vietnam. Just, you know, how they just were treated differently throughout their lives and made to feel less than. So it made me think about my mother and my family and then I just started to get emotional while asking her further questions. I'm like, I've never done this before.

I know there's a lot of fear and confusion and just a lot of unknown wondering when's the next thing that's going to happen. But strangely, at the same time, I've never felt more proud to be Asian American ... truly.

There are a crap ton of dust covers/storage solutions for almost every classic console and I would consider it to be a futile effort to try and collect them all, some of them are rare, others are expensive, and most importantly they're all pretty terrible. I would recommend against owning any of these unless your collection can actually fit into one of them, otherwise they're just hunks of plastic that you'll never use, like Pong consoles except even more useless. Just to demonstrate how much people don't want these things I got both my Game Center and Video Game Center for free, the guy just wanted them out of his basement. They're all ugly mostly useless lumps of plastic and you'd be better off getting a fabric dust cover instead.

I spent some time looking at these on eBay, and, if you go back further, garage sales. I wanted to like them. In fact, having worked at a plastics fabrication company (TAP), I appreciated them moreso then most, but still... Don't own one.

Since we're all adults here, I advocate... Build your own!!! Are you a woodcrafting hobbiest? Yay! Go for it! Get those fancy hinges too! Maybe handy with a table saw? Sweet. Did you know you can cut clear acrylic sheet with most circular blades? More teeth the better. Some raw materials, a plan and a tape measure, and you can craft your dream console's home.

I penned this as a part of this continuing Savas Beatie blogseries, to better document something that horrifies Ted and many otherbibliophiles deeply. Ted was nice enough to ask me to compose a short piece explainingmy hatred for dust jackets and perhaps shed some light on why exactly I havethrown away or burned almost 1,000 of them during the last four or so decades.

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