Guest author Maria Zannini discusses cover art

Today's special guest is Maria Zannini, author of True Believers, a science fiction romance. Maria, thank you so much for visiting and sharing your book cover experiences.

Cover Art Confidential

If you want to stab an art director through the heart, take away her privilege of calling the shots. I was an artist and art director for more than thirty years. It's hard to let go and allow someone else to design your work.

If you've never had a cover designed for you before, let me put your mind at rest. They'll pretty much ignore your ideas.  It's not personal—just business.

Let's take True Believers for example.

• I asked for a warm color palette for the cover. They went with fire engine hot.

• I asked for an elaborate font. Since the main character, Rachel is an archeologist, I thought something like carved stone would work well. After a little negotiating (read: begging) I got the font "Traditional Arabic". It was definitely better than the first choice.

• I asked for the heroine to be young with exotic Middle Eastern features. After all, her father is none other than Gilgamesh, formerly of Sumer.  

…well, she's dark-haired anyway. :grin:

After the kerfuffle Bloomsbury caused using a white model for LIAR, a novel that demanded a young black woman, I think publishers are becoming more mindful about casting a little closer to the true race of a character.

But in this business, it's all a matter of degrees. Go too far in the wrong direction and you can create an incident of viral proportions.

After the incident with Bloomsbury ended up with egg on its face. Yet all the publicity was a boon to the author by virtue of grassroots movement. So even bad covers can work in your favor if you've got an angle.

I can't complain. Carina did all right by True Believers. It's not the cover I would have designed, but judging by the response, it's a cover that drives attention. And in the publishing business that's all that matters.

Authors: Have you liked all your covers? Are there any you would have designed differently?

Readers: Do you expect a cover to tell you what's inside or are you content simply with the tone the art represents?

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Maria Zannini's latest release is a science fiction romance called TRUE BELIEVERS.

Mix one cynical immortal and one true believer and throw them into the biggest alien-hunt the world has never known. Rachel Cruz is a Nephilim masquerading as an archeologist and she's stuck with an alien who believes she can lead him to his ancestral gods. Black Ops wants to find these gods too. They want them dead. 

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Interview with John Rosenman, author of Alien Dreams

Today, I'm interviewing another Drollerie Press author--John Rosenman. John has published eight books: Alien Dreams; Beyond Those Distant Stars; Dax Rigby, War Correspondent; and Speaker of the Shakk. His short fiction has appeared in Weird Tales, Whitley Strieber’s Aliens, Starshore, Hot Blood, The Age of Wonders, etc.

1. Tell us about Alien Dreams, published by Drollerie Press.

It’s my most cosmic novel, with dark, evil, and angelically beautiful aliens. Captain Eric Latimore leads a mission to a distant world where he is transformed into a giant alien in order to save his crew. After he makes love to their lovely queen for 10,000 subjective years, he travels across space to do battle with a godlike Gatekeeper who rules this universe.

2. What’s your most recent publication?

Dax Rigby, War Correspondent (Lyrical Press), is about a young reporter who travels to Arcadia to investigate two warring alien species. There, he falls in love with a beautiful pilot and discovers a deadly conspiracy. He also learns he’s the incarnation of a god, and only he can save billions of lives back on Earth.

3. Tell us about a favorite minor character.

Thaddeus Burke, in Dax Rigby, is a dissolute drunk heavily into pornography who becomes spiritually reborn when the hero brings someone back from the dead. However, he still writes bad poetry, which is unintentionally humorous.

4. What inspires you most to write your novels?

I love to write about people who go to distant worlds and have amazing adventures, especially with bizarre, fantastic aliens. I like to find the humanity in aliens who seem completely different from us. I also write about people transforming into weird or marvelous new forms, or about a messiah who saves humanity.

5. What is your favorite thing about writing?

Getting turned on by doing it. Nothing beats having the words flow and feeling inspired. I also like selling a story, and having readers say they liked it.

6. How do you get ideas?

Sometimes they come from almost NOTHING. One novel came from a single word: Dreamfarer. One time my wife put three bulbs of garlic in my suitcase and I wrote a crazy tale called “Three Pounds of Garlic in a Dead Man’s Hand.” Once I took my son trick or treating and he disappeared briefly behind a trellis, so I wrote a story about a man whose son disappears on Halloween and enters another universe.

7. What are you working on now?

Dark Wizard occurs in San Luis Obispo, CA. The city has strange sights, including Bubblegum Alley with decades of gum on its walls. The main character “woke up” two months ago and doesn’t know who he is, but he can read minds and bring dead people back to life. Then he discovers an alien monster inhabiting his mind and meets a beautiful girl with a dark secret.

8. When did you realize you were a story teller?

It goes back to early childhood when I lay in bed in the dark and listened to scary radio programs like “Lights Out.” Then I’d write stories in crayon.

9. What is the best part of world building for you?

Making it interesting! In A Senseless Act of Beauty, due out from Blade Publishing, I create an African-like world with a vast, underground alien complex. The fun was creating endless new sights and vast rooms with mind-stretching wonders.

10. What is the biggest mistake new writers make?

Quitting because of rejection or flagging motivation. You know, a lot of folks get ideas. The writer is the one who grabs onto them and makes something grow, even if it involves sweat and hard work. Not reading enough good stuff is another problem. It’s hard to make a flower grow in a mental vacuum. Science fiction, for example, is largely a genre of ideas. You need to read it to see which ones have been used before.

You can learn more about John Rosenman at his website: http://www.johnrosenman.com/ and he writes a monthly blog at http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/.

Thank you, John, for sharing your strange new worlds with us. They all sound fascinating and "out of this world". :) ~Cheryl Kaye Tardif, bestselling author of The River