This is the final cover copy for my next book, Women’s Hotel. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, especially because we were able to restrict the blurbs to a sane amount in a single location: there are just three of them on the bottom half of the back cover.
I have been frustrated since childhood by back covers that refuse to tell me what the story is about, so I appreciate your choice here. I'm looking forward to reading it!
I never expected to see Charles Burns illustrate a fizzy drink can, but life is full of the unexpected. But I see the problem they had: nothing about that really hints at the flavour, and grey is a very unappetising colour...
Great cover! Completely agree about blurbs and knowing how the sausage is made only increases my eye-rolling at them. But it’s how the game is played right now! And of certain plenty of them are sincere and interesting as I’m sure are all of ones on your book 😊
It's great to have a few good ones, I think! It's just that you hit diminishing returns after three or four, I think, and it's important to know when to stop.
Your point about leaving the audience wanting more is particularly important for readings. It's already hard to get human beings to sit in a room for a few minutes & pay attention to literally anything other than their phone, let alone literature. Performance > Pandering to the Self. I dig it.
Are you doing a preorder where I can get it from you (or your fave independent bookseller) and you'll sign it with your own breathless blurb (inscribed to me!) about how I'm the best fan / reader EVER? Because I would pay a premium, plus shipping for that. And I'd get one for my sister and mum too.
Kathryn is on to something. I’m looking forward to reading the book, and not just because I enjoy your work, but also because I once nearly ended up in a similar establishment in the 90’s. I envisioned my hardscrabble but glamorous youth playing out like the film Stage Door, but I chickened out.
It was January. The housing office at Columbia had put me through the wringer for a week and then said, “go forth and house yourself, if you can.” I was running out of money and entertaining desperate ideas, like convents or The Brandon, but a friend told me that her mother, a social worker, had lived happily in a genteel place near the Cathedral when she was at Barnard, and she was insisting upon providing me with a referral. I stomped over there and remember a white building with a blue awning, but I never went in. Right there on the sidewalk I changed from Ivy League Me into Inferior Safety School Me, and hailed a cab for the station.
That’s a poignant tale. and, it’s their loss, Marina; their loss!
Imagine! inviting a guest, a young person, to Gotham and suggesting that they “house themself, if…” No. it’s simply not done. It’s an outrage against hospitality, enough to make the snarlingest backbiters of Olympus link arms and get all unanimous.
Their loss, Marina. You belong here. With us. just think of the buckets of pretension you were spared!
Thanks for your kind words. I was awfully pretentious, but poverty and ill health and imposter syndrome knocked me out of the game. Nobody at my suburban campus even cared when I insisted upon ostentatiously introducing poetry into every discussion. “This is astronomy class, ma’am.”
How did you choose which dog to hold??
Gogo made the decision for me lol, he leapt up!!
And now I really want some "OK" soda. Look at the font! The ennui expressed so coyly by the art work!
I have been frustrated since childhood by back covers that refuse to tell me what the story is about, so I appreciate your choice here. I'm looking forward to reading it!
I never expected to see Charles Burns illustrate a fizzy drink can, but life is full of the unexpected. But I see the problem they had: nothing about that really hints at the flavour, and grey is a very unappetising colour...
Great cover! Completely agree about blurbs and knowing how the sausage is made only increases my eye-rolling at them. But it’s how the game is played right now! And of certain plenty of them are sincere and interesting as I’m sure are all of ones on your book 😊
It's great to have a few good ones, I think! It's just that you hit diminishing returns after three or four, I think, and it's important to know when to stop.
Your point about leaving the audience wanting more is particularly important for readings. It's already hard to get human beings to sit in a room for a few minutes & pay attention to literally anything other than their phone, let alone literature. Performance > Pandering to the Self. I dig it.
Are you doing a preorder where I can get it from you (or your fave independent bookseller) and you'll sign it with your own breathless blurb (inscribed to me!) about how I'm the best fan / reader EVER? Because I would pay a premium, plus shipping for that. And I'd get one for my sister and mum too.
I don’t know how we would go about doing that! But I would be very happy to sign your book!
Kathryn is on to something. I’m looking forward to reading the book, and not just because I enjoy your work, but also because I once nearly ended up in a similar establishment in the 90’s. I envisioned my hardscrabble but glamorous youth playing out like the film Stage Door, but I chickened out.
Oh my God! I have to know more! What was the establishment, if you don't mind my asking??
It was January. The housing office at Columbia had put me through the wringer for a week and then said, “go forth and house yourself, if you can.” I was running out of money and entertaining desperate ideas, like convents or The Brandon, but a friend told me that her mother, a social worker, had lived happily in a genteel place near the Cathedral when she was at Barnard, and she was insisting upon providing me with a referral. I stomped over there and remember a white building with a blue awning, but I never went in. Right there on the sidewalk I changed from Ivy League Me into Inferior Safety School Me, and hailed a cab for the station.
That’s a poignant tale. and, it’s their loss, Marina; their loss!
Imagine! inviting a guest, a young person, to Gotham and suggesting that they “house themself, if…” No. it’s simply not done. It’s an outrage against hospitality, enough to make the snarlingest backbiters of Olympus link arms and get all unanimous.
Their loss, Marina. You belong here. With us. just think of the buckets of pretension you were spared!
Thanks for your kind words. I was awfully pretentious, but poverty and ill health and imposter syndrome knocked me out of the game. Nobody at my suburban campus even cared when I insisted upon ostentatiously introducing poetry into every discussion. “This is astronomy class, ma’am.”