Do you judge a book by it’s cover? I want to say I would never do that, but the truth is I do. My friend K. Hutson Price is a wonderful short story writer, and also an elementary school teacher. She does this thing where she holds up a book with a really cool cover and another with an old, boring beaten up one in front of the class. She asks the kids which one they want to read. They always pick the pretty one. She reads the first page of the pretty one and stops. Then she reads the first page of the second one, and she asks the question again about which book they want to read. They always pick the second book. It’s a much better story.
She does this as part of a bigger lesson about not judging people by the way the look. It’s brilliant and she’s able to put it into context for these kids. Before I became an author, I have to admit that I too judged books, not necessarily people, by their covers. I think most people do, though they probably wouldn’t admit it. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had some pretty cool covers so far. I wasn’t super crazy about my cartoon-like characters on my early books, but they grew on me. And they sold, so obviously it was a good thing I wasn’t the one picking the art.
I loved my last two Berkley covers for Dragons Prefer Blondes and the Demon King and I, even though for Dragons I had to change the character’s hair color. Alex had dark black hair in the first book, and as you can see on the right she now has blonde. That’s not the first time my editor had called to ask if I could change something in the book to fit the cover. In Like A Charm they asked me to add a dog character so they could have a dog on the cover. I’m not kidding. Of course I had to do it my way so there are two ghost dogs. But if you check out the cover, no dog. They decided to go another way. I tell people there is a dog on the cover, but it’s a ghost, so you can’t see it. 
I absolutely adore my new cover for Harlequin, which is below. The characters are exactly as I imagined them in my head, as is the setting. It’s tropical and sexy, and that she is on top is significant. The hero is a burned CIA agent on the run, and I feel like they really captured that. And I’m going to share something a little crazy. I have ALWAYS wanted a cover with a half-naked man, and this one is so dead-on that I feel like it’s a dream come true. But I know that some people will see that and think, “Oh, it’s that kind of book.” And that’s where they will be wrong. This is a hardcore action adventure, it just happens to have a lot of sexy spy stuff in it. It’s for people, like me, who like a little romance with their adventure stories.
So I’m curious. Do you pick a book when you see a cool cover? If you’re like me, you might pick it up because of the cover, but you judge a book by those first few pages. My friends and I often make decisions based on the first two lines of a book.
What are some of your favorite covers? Have you ever been surprised when you saw the cover and then read the first page or so? And what do you think of my new cover? Take Me If You Dare is a Feb. 2010 release.
TAKE ME IF YOU DARE
