Our dearest* Edward Wyatt (who went and got himself an excellent headline this time out) takes a look at a bad cover and how it was made right. We can only speculate about what was being smoked in the cover-decision meeting, but for the person who put Rick Moody and Conan the Barbarian together in the same thought, we salute your boldness.
Of course, our salute means nothing when it comes to visceral reactions to bad covers. The He-Man pose didn’t work for the target audience, and, rather than standing back and watching the book sink into oblivion, the art concept was revisited.
“The decision came completely out of the response” at the convention, Mr. Pietsch said. “Particularly the response of women booksellers. The novel is almost entirely peopled by women, women in business and women in the film industry, and it is aimed at women readers. The fact that women were not responding meant that it was a fundamental error.”
* – Yes, this remains pure fantasy on our part.
