Sunday, October 02, 2005

Cover Art

Yup.  Here we go again.  I think tomorrow my editor will be sending me: specifically two proposed covers--both variations on a theme (apparently two different silhouettes of Faye). 

I can hardly wait.  After last year’s fiasco I can’t imagine what this will be like.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of them was good?  Last time it was the length of the skirt I had to yell about for months. I wonder if the art director remembers that the skirts were short in 1943?

I can’t believe there won’t be some egregious mistake.  You see, they don’t draw anymore in art departments.  They have stock drawings and they put them together.  There’s nothing original.

The final jacket art of This Dame for Hire was great.  But nobody drew anything.  I guess that shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does.  It’s another example of how everything has changed in publishing.

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On another topic that turned up on a listserv I belong to called DetecToday, people were writing about the fact that series writers have begun to leave out the mystery in their mystery. It seems to be happening in their 8th book or so.  I haven’t come across this in my reading but I stay away from long series because I think they become anemic.  And if writers are leaving out the mystery (also called plot) I think I’m right to avoid them.  The longest series I wrote was five books.  I believe the fifth book was the weakest even though I had a mystery. And if for some insane reason I was writing a 10th I’d sure make an effort at including a plot.  Anyone else notice a mystery series that doesn’t have a mystery?

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