Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover
Don’t judge a book by
its cover.
We’ve had that drilled into us—at least my generation did,
and, to a large extent, we believed it—I believed and I still do. At least as
far as people go. And dogs—you ever meet a dog who looks mean and you want to
step back but then he approaches you gently and licks your hand?
Anyway, never judge a book by its cover, unless of course, it is a book. I’ve been thinking about
covers a lot lately. It started when we released Vampire Rising, my allegorical Vampire novella. It pays homage to
Bram Stoker’s Dracula while reinventing the Vampire genre. In the story I tell
there were certain elements that helped tell the story—mockingbirds who appear
wherever Vampires gather, the iron gates that demarcates the separation between
the Vampire state and the human world. And the story is described in grays and
purples. So I wanted to include all of those elements that in the cover.
The Original Cover |
When my publisher notified me that they would be
re-releasing the Boughs of Evergreen holiday
anthology, which contains my short story, “The Christmas Present,” I jumped at the
chance to change the cover. As I said, I’ve
been thinking a lot about covers. With Vampire
Rising, I deliberately choose not to have a man on the cover—I felt there
were too many m/m romances with buff shirtless guys on the cover.
Thinking about the new cover for “The Christmas Present,” I realized
what troubled me most about all the men on the covers of gay books was the fact
that they are almost always white.
Once I realized that, I set out on a mission to find a black guy to put on the cover.
The scene below is taken from “The Christmas Present” and is what the cover is
based on:
The new cover |
He erupted out of this
seething, boiling cauldron of salt and water, cloaked in moonlight and sea foam
like an ermine cape. He stepped out of the rioting sea with the easy sinuous
grace of an eel. About Aidan’s age, he was handsome, with broad shoulders and a
narrow waist. His body, well-muscled and solid, seemed to vibrate with
suppressed energy, seemed to contain all the fury of the sea, tightly reined.
His beryl eyes, which seemed to hold all the colors of dawn, searched the
beach, found Aidan standing stock still, his long flaxen hair plastered to his
skull and shoulders by the sea spray.
Then came Black & Ugly: A Tale of Men & Wheelbarrows”
which is a stand-alone story but also features Mama Black Widow, the old Obeah woman
who appears in “The Christmas Present.” Because Ugly tells the story of a dark skinned young man who is taught he
is ugly because he is dark, I knew it had to have a dark skinned black man on the
cover. Deb and I discussed the title—it was originally much more innocuous—I suggested
another title and Deb took it a step further and made it bold and in-your-face
while also telling a story. I knew this cover was going to be special as we
worked through several covers iterations. Still I was blown away by the strength
and power of the final cover the designer delivered.
If someone wants to judge this book by its cover, I am good
with that.
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