Friday, January 14, 2005

End Of A Dodgy Week

The bound galleys of This Dame For Hire arrived on Wednesday. They look great except for one thing.  That damn hemline.  They still hadn't changed it and these galleys went out to booksellers and all the important people that make or break a book.

I know that the wrong hemline won't make or break anything.  In fact, probably no one will notice.  But I know.  What was so hard about shortening the hemline?  I've come to believe the artist doesn't know how to draw legs.

There are great quotes all over the book and my editor has written, in glowing prose, a letter at the front of the novel about me and the book.

The whole package signals the book world that this is a special crime novel.  I'm not saying important because it's not that.  But it says this is a book to consider.

The alternative to the cover art the way it is on the galley would've been no art, only a blue or red or whatever color they decided for a nondescript cover.  So having the galley presented the way it is is wonderful.

I heard about the cover art on the galley before I got mine.  I was angry.  I asked my agent to call my editor.  She did and told me that it was not going to be that way on the finished book.

And when I talked to him my editor assured me that the final cover art would show the woman with a short hemline.  This must seem frivolous.  But it's all I have right now.  Later, there will be more things for me to be upset about re this book.  If they aren't obvious I'll search and find them.  Just watch my dust!

 

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