NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER ...

....as the saying has it. Just before Christmas an artist friend, Roger, and his wife came to supper. Conversation was lively over the boeuf bourginon, as always. Then Roger said, 'You do all realise that society as we know it today couldn't function without artists.' We were all rather stunned - such a grandiose statement - but then he is an artist and a very good one. Back in the day he designed record sleeves for major groups - think, The Rolling Stones, Status Quo etc. He has work in the V&A. We asked him to qualify his statement. He did - with a looooong list of things that had started life on the drawing board/computer. Packaging for just about everything. Clothes. Cars. White goods. Garden tools. Mobile phones.....on and on and on the list went. 'Book covers,' I said....one he had left out. And it got me thinking. Are book covers a largely overlooked - although very important - part of the publishing process? I was curious how covers are designed so I asked Berni Stevens (she designs all the covers for my publisher, Choc Lit) how she goes about it. 'I always try to read the book if I have the time, or skim read it if the deadline is looming,' Berni says. 'I find it gives me a better insight into the book and often helps me think of an angle for the cover.' Berni works by using a method called photo illustration. She uses library images and then puts lots together in Photoshop to change colours, add different backgrounds, and sometimes even adds people. Sometimes, she will take her own photos if she can't find exactly the perfect photo that she needs. 'It is quite time-consuming,which a lot of people don't realise," Berni tells me. 'The thinking - generally - is that everything to do with computers is fast. Not necessarily so!' I asked Berni if she has a favourite book cover. 'Fashion changes with book covers the way it does with everything else. But a highlight of my career was working on the cover of an unauthorised biography of David Bowie. I'd recently been to one of his concerts and was a huge fan. That cover was a real labour of love and I was allowed to try out lots of different finishes. The CEO of the publishers said she didn't even know how to begin telling me how wonderful she thought it was, and I was over the moon.' I had an over-the-moon moment of my own regarding an illustration that went with a story I had published in Woman's Weekly. I e.mailed my editor there and asked her to pass on a message to the artist to say how thrilled I was with it. So, imagine my suprise when I got an e.mail from the artist himself saying I was welcome to have the original watercolour for a donation to a charity of my choice. That illustration now hangs on the wall in front of my desk. So, book covers.....all published authors will have experience of these. When Choc Lit agreed to publish my first novel, TO TURN FULL CIRCLE, I was sent six images from which to make my choice.....although I was told that wouldn't necessarily be the one that would make the final cut, as it were. Three of those images were portrait shots and I fell in love with one of them instantly. But it was not to be. I was, however, allowed to have a say in the final decision of the colour for my book cover. Thinking about all the above got me thinking about myown favourite book cover. For me it's a How-to book - MAKING SHAPELY FICTION by Jerome Stern. It's in an Art Deco sort of style, which I love. And it does what it says on the tin. So, that's my favourite cover - what's yours?