Judging a Book by its Cover - Part 3.

And then came this one. Book number five. I loved this book. I think the writing and the story were some of my best. And I had a great time researching it, including getting to do a ride along with the firefighters in Calgary.

So when the book was done, I have visions of the cover in my mind. Bright, hot, reds, oranges. I mean it was about an arsonist, a fire fighter, a fire investigator and a fire hall.

And you can see that I didn't get what I imagined.

So, I was brave and I argued my point. After all, hadn't they told me ages ago that they would listen to my comments and take them into consideration? And the did. They listened, they took my comments into consideration and then they went ahead with the cool blues. Drat! (I was actually thinking a worse word.) The funny thing is, the picture is exactly what I expected. It's just the colours - I really wanted to bright and vibrant colours to reflect the action inside.

In the end the publisher wins. And in the end, that is okay. They have a marketing and publicity department that knows way more about this stuff than I do. And they have invested a lot of money in my, publishing five of my novels so far and getting them out there into the world.

You know, what I really think is that an artist of any sort has to decide what is most important to them. People speak of integrity and prostituting yourself or selling out. But would arguing about a cover design really be worth not having my novel published? No, not in my mind. For me, it is about getting my stuff out there and continuing my publishing career. If they publisher thought another city would have been a better setting, I probably would have changed it. I know, I can hear half of you gasp out there. But I don't believe there is right and wrong (or is that write and wrong) - you have to do what is right for you. And it's not about money - Lord knows it's not about money - it's about reaching my goals, which is to be published and build my reputation as an author. Yours might be different and that is okay too.

So there you go, don't judge an author by their covers, they really don't have much of a say in what they look like after all.