DANA- COVER ART

A few weeks ago I went to VCON, my first Science Fiction convention. Among the interesting things there was a panel discussion on cover art, which I took part in. Both the writers and artists had horror stories about how little control they had over the integration between the cover art and the book (and the authors were both well established, and highly regarded, as were the artists!)

I felt very lucky to present my story of how it has been publishing with Aio. After siging my novel contract, I mentioned to my editor, Tiffany Jonas, that I was also an artist, and she asked e to send some samples of my work. When Aio agreed to contract me for a cover painting as well as inside illustrations, I couldn't believe my luck! I did the art for this book after I'd finished writing the draft. The images from the story were still setling in my mind, and in illustrating the places and scenes from the novel, I came to know my own work on a very different level. The cover painting ended up being like a small window into the world of the Broken Glass City. Eson looks out over glass and stone buildings, and the sky is chaotic with clouds. We added a maple leaf into the design, which points out he fact that I'm a Canadian writer. An image of the cover is available on the amazon listing for the book, and on alot of other sites. I will upload one here if I can get my internet connection to load the file!

Does anyone have any comments about cover art, or art in books? It's not very common
for adult level books these days to have illustrations, but hand painted cover art and illustrations add alot, to my mind. (Though I may of course be biased! I like art--alot!)