You know how I was pretty much MIA here on this site for the past six months?
And I kept telling you I was working on a new book?
Yet you had no tangible proof that was true?
And you started to suspect I was just hiding out in my basement, eating candy, and watching The Real Housewives?
(Okay, that part might have happened a little bit.)
Well, today I have some proof by way of new cover and a release date.
And yet me being me, I must first take a circuitous route prior to the big reveal.
So, we know book covers are important, yes? And that whole can't-judge-a-book business is horseshit because if the cover doesn't appeal to you, why would you even pick it up? (Sidenote: I'm aware there are people who don't abide by this rule. I occasionally get unhappy emails where these readers are angry because my books are filled with curse words. Yet I maintain when there's profanity IN THE FUCKING TITLE, one should probably expect more blue language to follow.)
Anyway, before I show the new cover, I thought it might be fun to share a couple of covers that didn't make the cut for previous books. First up, Bitter...
Honestly, I thought this cover was pretty cool and it would totally catch my interest on the front table at Borders or B&N. And yet my argument against it was that a book about a defiant fat girl was not best represented by a defeated six-foot model with an ass small enough to fit on a Hello Kitty suitcase. So the art department went back to the drawing board and came up with the concept of the iconic dress which to this day I love so fiercely it makes my heart hurt.
For Bright Lights, there were no prototypes - the image on the cover now was the first and only one I saw. In my opinion, it could not have been more perfect. What's funny is the designer got cover inspiration by looking at a line of Marc Jacobs handbags. Then, a year after the book's release, Marc Jacobs came out with this purse, called the Jen.
Coincidence?
Although, really, if I was somehow Marc Jacob's muse, the polite thing for him to do would have been to send me one of these bags.
Such a Pretty Fat took some tweaking...
... before we nailed the concept. And then it was just a matter of adjusting colors.
For Pretty in Plaid, I was desperate for the loafers to be featured on the front cover, but they just looked weird, so the art department made sure I got a little jpeg of them on the back cover. (Which kicks ass because technically authors have no control over covers.)
Point? Penguin's art department has been making me happy for five years and I need to say thank you for creating the kind of books that can absolutely be judged by their covers. You guys are the best!
Anyway, I hope you all dig their latest effort as much as I do...
In bookstores May 4, 2010 and available for preorder now!
(P.S. I swear in this book, too.)
