Last week I wrote a post featuring every book bloggers favorite thing, book covers. If you missed the post, I’ll briefly sum it up for you. I threw a question out into the blogosphere: “When can we post a book cover?” Ultimately I was hoping to find the answers to the following questions: Do we have to wait until to author reveals it on their website or blog, do we have to wait until we see it on online book seller, can we get images from a online publisher catalog?
There were a lot of interesting comments, but the main consensus was apparent. None of us had a clue. We all had our assumptions and had been acting on those, without knowing if we were in the wrong.
I thought it might be a good idea to know exactly what the correct course of action was, so I went straight to the source. The publishers.
I contacted multiple popular imprints among Young Adult literature. I appreciate those of you that took the time to reply to my email. Thank you! (You know who you are.)
The general opinion from all of the publishers that replied to my email was:
The more visible their covers are, the better.
It wasn’t surprising to find out that they want us (bloggers) to post about their covers. However, there were some issues mentioned.
The main concern from all of the publishers was that the correct cover is being used. That being said, there are times when the cover in the publishing catalog isn’t the final image. It’s probably a good idea to do some searching on online retailers, author websites, etc. before simply using the cover in the catalog. It was also expressed that some sort of information about the book should be presented with the cover, if it’s available.
The majority of the publishers also mentioned that if they are furnishing a copy for you to review, they are more than happy to provide a high-res cover image (nothing is worse than a fuzzy cover!) and any other assets you might want; book trailer, browse inside, author photo, countdown widget, etc.
So what did we learn...
Do
- feel free to take a cover image out of a catalog, but do the research to make sure it’s the correct cover
- post information about the book along with the image
- feel free to email a publicity contact for cover images and other goodies
Don’t
- take images in the catalog at face-value, do the research
- post blurry images, email your publicity contact, or even check out the publishers website, sometimes they have high-res images available for download
Thanks again to everyone who provided me with information for this post!