Book cover design is often grand, but sometimes publishers don’t get it quite right. Take for example the case of Nnedi Okorafor.
Nnedi Okorafor is an extraordinary science fiction writer, and she has the Nebula Award to prove it. Before she was quite so lauded, however, she had a strange and terrible interaction with her publisher regarding the cover design for The Shadow Speaker.
The Shadow Speaker is a young adult novel that was originally published in 2007 and received a James Tiptree Jr. Award. The book is set in 2070 in a time after a nuclear war that occurred in the early twenty-first century. It follows the story of Ejii who lives in a Nigerian village and is the 14 year-old daughter of her tribe’s former chief. Ejii is Muslim, and though her family has a complex ethnic background, she is undeniably African.
Which is why it was…
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Viv Drewa - The Owl Lady 
For the nature of the genre neither cover is appealing to me in the least. If I am looking for a specific author I have read in the past the cover doesn’t matter. But if I was browsing this cover would not catch my eye and I would suggest a cover that should more of a troubled and war torn world with the character placed in the scene. This cover does not suggest sci-fi at all but that is just my opinion. If this author is satisfied with the design I suppose that is all that matters but has no sci-fi market appeal.
I have experienced that a number of publishers offer let’s say 100 cover choices and you pick one you like and there is no extra charge in manufacture. I suppose this would be satisfactory for a poetry book of sorts or a nature story but what is none of them fit ? Naturally none fit(mountains, farms, river, other scenes) for my cartoon book. So there would be an extra charge for the publisher to custom design(this for self publish arrangement like createspace). I was able to design my own cover so no problem.
I am surprised it was so difficult to change cover. Don’t publishers send proofs and seek you OK before production ? Does the production/ manufacture process begin without author approval ?
Many author’s engage the services of a graphics or art student at a college(or even high school talent) and for $50 to $100 a student would create a custom cover for author to submit to publisher.This way the author has control and gets exactly what is envisioned as proper The student may even do it for free as it begins to build an experience and credential portfolio showing the work as published.
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Yes, the do send proofs, but it’s still difficult to get them to understand why you want it changed. I’ve run into that with one of my books. I don’t know if it hurts their feelings or they just don’t know what you’re talking about. @v@ ❤
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