Creation of a Cover!

I was happy to meet author, Laurie Boris, this year at BEA and hear about her new book, The Joke's On Me. The cover is really cool and different so I was intrigued. She told me she and her husband made it and I was so impressed! Want to know how it was created? Read on!

About That Cover by Laurie Boris

I write the books in the family, but my husband, Paul Blumstein, paints the pictures. In his long career, Paul has illustrated enough covers for a whole shelf of books, and for almost twenty-five years, I’ve had the pleasure of watching each design blossom on his drawing table. (And, much to his embarrassment, of pointing them out to random people whenever I spy his work in bookstores.) So when 4RV Publishing’s publisher, Vivian Zabel, agreed to take on The Joke’s on Me, I hoped I’d be allowed to choose him as my cover artist.

I wrote, “I hoped” because back then, there were several things I knew for sure. There was no tooth fairy, it was not possible for me to watch Casablanca without blubbering up a storm, and new authors have no input into their cover artist or design, and sometimes even the title.

Fortunately, the underlying philosophy of my publisher is that they work closely with authors and illustrators to produce a quality product in alignment with the author’s vision. We agreed from the start that my working title needed a makeover, so together we brainstormed to develop something catchier. When I rather timidly offered my husband’s services, 4RV’s art director, Aidana WillowRaven, asked for some samples, and gave him the green light.

It helped that his whimsical, quirky style fit the tone of the book. It helped that before devoting my life to writing, I was a graphic designer, and began my career at Syracuse University Press laying out book covers. So Paul and I were tasked with working together on a cover design. It also helped that he read the book in an earlier draft, so he knew the story.

One day we were batting a couple of ideas around. Because the book has more than its fair share of tomato metaphors (I have this thing for tomatoes), I suggested including tomatoes or tomato sauce in some shape or form in the design. Since Frankie, my protagonist, was a stand-up comic, one concept included splashing a tomato across the cover, the classic symbol of audience disapproval. (My one bit of violence in The Joke’s on Me is a marinara rampage, but I don’t want to give too much away.) We worried that it would look too much like blood. While that might work for a James Patterson novel, it’s not what this story is about, even if we spot-varnished the seeds so it was clearly a squashed tomato and not O negative.

Paul suggested just using a couple of tomatoes–one representing younger sister Frankie, the Hollywood stand-up comic, and one for Jude, the older Goldberg sister, an ex-hippie and serial divorcee.

I liked it. It felt clean and simple, and satisfied my tomato lust.

So he went to the farmer’s market and picked out a few pretty tomatoes. He shot them with his digital camera, then pulled it into Photoshop and began to play. Tomato Frankie got movie star sunglasses; Tomato Jude got a peace sign and some love beads. He paired this with fun, but very readable fonts. I hesitated about the white cover. After I’d done a little recon work (a trip to Barnes & Noble) and scanned through my book collection, it seemed like nearly every novel in my genre had a full-bleed (printing runs off all sides of the page) cover.

“But that’s just the thing,” Paul said. “The white will make it stand out.”

In the end we left that choice up to Aidana and Vivian. They also preferred the white.

Tomato Jude and Tomato Frankie went into the produce bin to await final approval. When everyone signed off, Paul chopped our “love apples” (as tomatoes used to be called) into a delicious tomato and cucumber salad, and we ate them.

In the end, we couldn’t tell which tomato was Jude and which was Frankie, who lent the sweetness and who lent the tang, but that’s the magic of tomato salad. It all becomes one.