I. BEHOLD:
This is the U.S. cover for Eleanor & Park, my second book, which comes out March 5, 2013. It was designed/art-directed by Olga Grlic at St. Martin’s Press and illustrated by Harriet Russell.
Isn’t it just just?
II. SOME BACKSTORY:
Have we met in real life? No?
Well, if it had happened some time in the last six months, it would have gone like this:
You: “Hi, Rainbow, how are you?”
Me: “. . .”
You: “AHEM.”
Me: “What? Oh. Sorry. Don’t mind me. I’m just obsessing about the book cover for Eleanor & Park. Venti decaf latte, whole milk. What? No? That’s not … Who are you again?”
I care A LOT about the covers for my books.
And it’s a potentially painful, stupid thing for me to care about because it’s mostly out of my control.
Selling a book to a publisher is something like an open adoption. (Hopefully this isn’t an offensive comparison.) You still get to see the kid. You might even get to be there on big days. But it’s not exactly, legally, really yours anymore.
What the book looks like, how it’s sold — that’s largely decided by the publishing team. Which MAKES SENSE because this is what these people do for a living. They know the market, they have professional designers and illustrators . . .
It makes sense. But it can be torture for someone like me.
I always care way too much about the way things look. Not people. I don’t much care what people look like. But things …
It hurts my brain to look at something ugly that could be beautiful. And everything designed by a human being has the potential to be beautiful. I once went five years without a couch because I couldn’t find one I could bear to look at every day. And a couch is just a couch; a book cover is personal.
You spend all this time on the book itself, and the cover is the face that it presents to the world. It’s painful to think about ending up with a cover that doesn’t represent you. (For me. For me, it’s painful.)
I also really believe that the ebook revolution has made cover design more important than ever. Buying a book — a real ink and paper book — is an aesthetic decision now. People see books and CDs and newspapers as clutter, as things they have to dust or dispose of, unless they’re beautiful.
If I like the cover, I buy the book. If I don’t, but I still want to read it, I buy the ebook.
So, if you’ve read this far, we’ve established that:
– Authors usually don’t get to choose their covers.
– I’m a little neurotic about this fact.
III. NOT “A LITTLE,” ACTUALLY …
As proud as I am of Attachments (super proud!), I don’t feel like I carved a piece of it out of my heart the way I did with Eleanor & Park.
I hope that I write better books someday, I hope that I grow as an author — but I’m not sure I’ll ever write anything that feels this personal again. If I were Joni Mitchell, Eleanor & Park would be my Blue. (I’m obviously not Joni Mitchell.) (But you get what I’m saying here, right?) (This is a great album; you should listen to it.) (The cover is just okay.)
My worst fear for the Eleanor & Park cover was that it would look like the sort of book Eleanor would never read.
I had the same concern for Attachments, and it drove my editor crazy. She’d say, “Lincoln is a twenty-eight-year-old IT guy; he is NOT our target audience.” And I would say, “I know, but it’s his book. I don’t want a book that he’d be embarrassed to be seen with.”
I ended up lucking out bigtime with the Attachments cover, which is beautiful and clean, and perfectly concepted. (It was designed by Jon Gray, who goes by gray318. You can see more of his covers here.)
Neither Lincoln nor I are even a little bit embarrassed by it.
Eleanor, unlike Lincoln, is the target market for her book. Or she could be. She’s a 16-year-old girl who reads a lot and really cares about books.
She’s also cynical and judgmental and a little weird. Eleanor is a misfit. By choice and not by choice. She’s chubbier than she knows what to do with, she dresses funny, and she has bright red, curly-curly hair.
I had this ongoing nightmare that the Eleanor & Park cover would end up with a beautiful red-headed model on it. Probably with her face cropped half off.
Have you noticed this about contemporary YA book? Lots of cropped faces. And legs. And backs.
I didn’t want a cover with girl parts on it.
And I didn’t want a cover with some effortlessly, conventionally, obviously beautiful girl, who is obviously not Eleanor.
IV. DO YOU WANT ME TO BLOW ON THOSE DICE FOR YOU?
Because seriously.
First, Eleanor & Park came out in the UK, and it looked like this:
So sophisticated and gorgeous, and I wish that was my actual signature.
And then I started working with St. Martin’s Press on the U.S. cover.
AND THEY WERE GREAT!
Was it a difficult process? Yes. Maybe it always is.
But I felt like they cared so much about getting the cover right. And they really listened to me.
I mean, at some point, they probably would have thrown me off the back of the train, but it never got to that point. It got to THIS point:
Isn’t it LOVELY?
THE AMPERSAND!
And also THE AMPERSAND!
And the colors . . . And the type . . . And the word balloon . . . And they’re in love! I feel like these drawings are in love. Also, it matches Attachments; I don’t even think that was intentional.
I am so happy and so proud of this cover.
Eleanor would totally read this book.
That IS a really fantastic word balloon.
It occurred to me this morning that it’s a nice nod to their comic book talk …
You mean the comic book bubble wasn’t intentional?
Also, THE AMPERSAND! ♥
It probably WAS intentional, but I’m just now getting it.
I think publishers like Penguin have realized that about aesthetics being important now. Because their classics collection is GORGEOUS and totally a reason to buy them. Same with some others. This makes me happy. Now it’s not just Vintage that has awesome covers.
“I had this ongoing nightmare that the Eleanor & Park cover would end up with a beautiful red-headed model on it. Probably with her face cropped half off.”
Ahahahahahahaha
Also I enjoyed your excessive parentheses. Also how do we know you’re NOT Joni Mitchell? (omg is Joni Mitchell dead? maybe that was terribly insensitive. what if she were your mother or something and now I’ve just reminded you your mother’s dead. this hasn’t been a good morning for tact)
It’s cool. Joni Mitchell lives. And that concludes this edition of “Dead or Canadian.”
I heart both these Eleanor & Park covers. Maybe the US one slightly more because the red hair is there. And THANK YOU for making sure the cover wasn’t made up of girl parts. Why do YA books do that?
Alley, I promise you that there is SO MUCH RED HAIR in this book. It’s like “Brave” without bears, Baby.
Also, I don’t know what’s up with the parts. A lot of great, great books have covers like that. I think publishers fall into patterns — ruts — that feel safe. If you see a book with a cover like that, you immediately know it’s contemporary YA.
This was perfect. I connected to everything you said. Everything. I always wait to find the perfect fit, and my house is full of pretty things. Things SHOULD be pretty. I feel the exact same way when I want to read a book: pretty cover, buy the physical copy; not pretty: buy the digital version. Yours is beautiful and does totally match the Attachments cover. I loved my hardcover cover (with Dutton, who does beautiful covers) and just went through the process of getting a new paperback cover and it is SO HARD. Thanks for this post. I think the open adoption analogy is good. We authors give up so much control when we sell a book. But we still are proud of our babies. Can’t wait to read Eleanor & Park!
Thanks, Melanie!
I hope you ended up liking your paperback cover.
I truly love the cover(s). Eleanor & Park looks like love. Tentative, on the verge, not-sure-where-this-might-go love. And I adore the ampersand!
Thanks, Mary Lou!
Oh! I love both of the covers! You are so lucky! Your team and the artists did amazing jobs with the covers. I can’t wait to read it.
“Lincoln is a twenty-eight-year-old IT guy; he is NOT our target audience.” And I would say, “I know, but it’s his book. I don’t want a book that he’d be embarrassed to be seen with.” {—-This
I’ve been trying to get my brother to read “Attachments” and I really appreciate a non embarrassing cover. There’d be no way if there were girl parts on it (I do not get that trend).
I totally buy books based on the covers. I know I’m going to buy “What’s Left of Me” when it comes out even though I have not had good luck with dystopian lately. That cover is just really cool and appropriate.
LOVE the US cover of Eleanor and Park! I would definitely pick that up even if I knew nothing about it.
The word balloon is my favorite. No, wait. The ampersand is my favorite. No, the word balloon is my favorite. I mean… <3
Oh, and let me add this – one of the biggest abominations in book covers is using the movie poster for the book cover. It makes me stabby.
ME TOO. GOD I LOVE YOU SONJA.
I make every single attempt possible not to own a movie-poster edition of a book. I think the only exception I’ve made was for “Revolutionary Road” because it was ten cents at a yard sale and I wasn’t sure I was fully committed to the reading journey. Haha!
Functional art is my favorite kind; the only kind that makes sense to me. The cover is…perfect. From what you’ve said about the story, it’s a perfect match. I too, shamelessly, buy a lot of books based on their covers. (B&N has SO many free ebooks to download and I just cannot, CANNOT download a book with a haphazard cover. In a store, they would not get a second glance.) But this…this cover for Eleanor & Park…I would pick this book up in a store and hold in my little hands and marvel over it’s simplistic, clean design and drool over the cleverness of that ampersand. Oh how I love ampersands. The sneakier the better.
Thanks, Cheyenne!
We are totally on the same page about sneaky ampersands.
Hello!
I just ran across your blog and nearly went ballistic over the fact of having come across a fellow writer’s blog!
I love writing..am e-publishing a book soon, so I decided to get serious about blogging. And of course, with that came networking..and then I started looking for writer/book blogs…but I’m very picky and it’s hard to come across ones I like/enjoy genuinely!
All this to say that I am VERY picky about book art cover, and I honestly believe that the art chosen for your covers is divine! It’s cute and picturesque… I often fall under the folly of letting the book cover influence my buying opinion. I work at B&N (a dream job for a writer/voracious reader like I), and I looooove perusing the artistic book covers.
I understand that you would want to have control over your book cover. It only makes sense!
But like I just said, I TRULY liked it. It’s lovely! 
Good luck on those sales!
Thank you! I know! I really lucked out with this book cover; all hail St. Martin’s Press!
Good luck with your writing!
Just finished the UK version of Eleanor, and I.LOVED.IT. Personally, I like the US version of the cover better, also because of the red hair and headphones. Perfect for the story inside. I have already given a copy to my bestie mate, and she read it in one day! Congrats on your success, and keep writing. I will read.
Jackie, thank you SO-SO much! Hearing this means so much to me. Maybe other authors are supremely confident and never think about whether people are reading or enjoying their books … But I feel like the books are out there in the world without me, all vulnerable and probably not wearing scarves.
Notes likes this make my day. Every single time.
Oh, and I LOVE, LOVE the ampersand.
THE AMPERSAND. It’s gorgeous. I was already smitten with the UK cover, but this is even more perfect (though I’m not that lucky Gayle Forman who has obviously read and loved it ALREADY).
March cannot come quickly enough.
Hi,
I just finished listening to the Attachments audio book, and I loved it! When I found your site though, I was a little astounded to realize you look a lot like the way I pictured Sam. Is that insulting? Is that weird? Sorry, if so.
Oh my goodness. I just finished reading this book, and it was the European cover, which is gorgeous, but the US one is so much more appropriate. It’s exactly how I pictured Eleanor and Park sitting side by side on the bus together. Oh Rainbow, I can’t remember when I last read a book where two characters were so deeply felt within my heart. I adore this book, the characters, the writing…1986 and first love absolutely resonates with me. I will be thinking about this book for years! I’ve already decided I have to get a copy for my best friend for Christmas (can’t part with my copy). Thank you for writing this fabulous book.
Okay, I’m a process junkie, and a comics fan, so I get into this sort of thing…
Who designed the E&P UK cover?
Who did the artwork?
(Ah, I just read your other post. Nevermind…)
It’s quite subtle… the figures and the ampersand are the same color, so it’s an abstract of the title. Then the blocks of color help join the two figures together via the title words.
And since someone mentioned Penguin…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbuckleydesign/
Paul Buckley is the designer for the Penguin Classics Deluxe covers with artwork by well-known comics artists. (My favorite: James and the Giant Peach, by Jordan Crane! It makes me wish for a complete graphic novel!)
Hello RR,
I cannot wait to read Eleanor & (!!!!ampersand!!!) Park for many reasons, not the least of which is that I LOVE THE COVER and I LOVE THIS POST, which, hello, echoes the reverberations of my very SOUL. My debut YA novel sold recently and the first thing everybody asks (after they say “Shut UP!”) is whether or not I’ll have a say in the cover. No, I tell them morosely, but if I DID have a say, I’d want it to look something like THIS (at which point I whip out the cover of Eleanor & Park). I’m so pleased to know that Eleanor would love this cover, too. Makes me know I will adore her when I meet her on the page, and also makes me think she’d get along beautifully with my own book’s characters (one of whom, of course, has rockin’ red hair).
Best of luck to you and this BEAUTIFUL book…I can’t wait to meet E & P!
Sarah
Thank you, Sarah — and good luck with your own cover!
I haven’t read your books before, but now I’m going to. Why? Those covers are AWESOME. I especially like the British Eleanor and Park one.