Cover art. Yeah.

You want something that will jump off the bookshelf into a reader’s hands, sure, but nowadays it also needs to work as a thumbnail on the Kindle page.

From left, the very first iteration of the cover art for the first Kate Shugak novel. The second is when they repackaged it to show off the Edgar win (Ahem, I said. Kate is not a musher, I said.). The third is the first edition in e, published by GereDonovan Press, still and always my favorite. She looks like Kate, smart and tough and beautiful and not willing to take any crap from anyone, even Emaa.

And this is the cover art from Head of Zeus, my current publisher, which is on both print and e editions. It’s the only Kate1 cover art with Mutt in it, so naturally I love it.

The HoZ cover art for the first twenty Kates looks great at first, second and third glance, it works in both print and thumbnail, the badges with the individual series title number are beloved by fans, and the images look at least Alaska adjacent. Sometimes you get lucky.

Writers don’t have much say in cover art. That goes even for those who publish at the top of the bestseller lists every single time, because publishers know the cover art or even the title don’t matter. All they have to do is grab the attention of hardcore fans by putting the author’s name in big enough type.

Sometimes this wilful ignorance of author input can lead to unfortunate outcomes, like the Bozo the Clown image on the Dutton (credit where its due) cover of the first Liam Campbell hardcover.

Sigh. That’s #thiswritinglife right there.

#thiswritinglife Chatter cover art Kate Shugak series liam campbell