April Martinez: Cover Artist and More
INTERVIEWER: Joyce Ellen Armond

I can be daunting for an author to share creative control over a story. And nobody gets creative control quite like?.(ominous organ chords, thunder crashes)?The Cover Artist. April Martinez is art director for Liquid Silver Books. Her artistic visions have also graced covers at Loose ID, and her creativity gives authors and publishers a visual brand. You can check out all her work at graphicfantastic.com. But you can read about what goes on in her mind when she creates a cover right here.

SPECROM: What drew you, no pun intended, to designing romance novel covers?

APRILM: As an artist I've always wanted to do book covers, but I always dreamed that it'd be in the science fiction, fantasy, or children's genres. What drew me to romance was pure chance. I used to frequent digital art communities and their job forums. In 2003, someone posted an ad looking for book cover artists for a new e-publisher of erotic romance. I knew nothing about e-publishing or the erotic romance genre, but I saw the words "book cover artist" and was sold. I responded to the ad, and the publisher liked my work enough to send me my first cover artist contract. I've been doing book covers for the genre ever since.

SPECROM: Give us a peek into your creative process. When you are faced with a new title, how do you approach creating the cover art?

APRILM: I never start without some kind of direction from either the author, the publisher, or both. I see myself mostly as a tool in this business, and as a tool I don't operate very well in a vacuum; I need a really good craftsman to direct me in my work. If the work is my own and for my own personal pleasure, I have no problem being left on my own to do as I will and create what I want, but when it comes to making cover art, I need someone to tell me about the book behind it. One of the many misconceptions in this business is that the sole authorship of the cover art belongs to the artist alone, but it's really a collaborative work. You can't have the picture without first having the author's words inspiring it. Really, that's all I ask when assigned a cover, inspiration to illustrate those very words. Some new authors don't realize that and end up telling me very little about their book in their cover art request forms, but without their words to spark my imagination, all I can really give them is a blank canvas or a cover that may have absolutely nothing to do with the book.

Once I have a sense of the book, I compose a few images in my head based on what I know of the story and on what's available to me as scrap. The more information and resources I have available to me, the more possibilities there are for the final art. For a photo-illustration, for example, this might mean searching the stock photo sites for a long time, trying various keyword combinations based on what they've told me, just to see what I can find. If the author has given me a richness in word pictures, the combinations can be endless, the photos infinite. Anything that suggests a possibility or two gets added to my lightbox, and if several of those look like they might go well together, then I make a mental note. I often study my lightboxes for a day or two before deciding on the next step, but once I have a solid image in my head and everything I need to make that image, I begin, and the process from that point on pretty much goes in the way that I've described in some of my blog entries.

SPECROM: Has changing technology changed the way you approach designing cover art?

APRILM: Yes and no.

Even before I did book covers, I was a graphic designer by day and a digital artist by night, so I've used the same basic tools all along -- primarily Photoshop and a Wacom tablet, and occasionally Illustrator, Painter, Poser, Bryce, Amapi, and a desktop publishing program like QuarkXPress or InDesign. I've also always used both PC and Mac. Except for later versions of software, none of that has changed.

I have, however, started using more royalty-free stock photography, now that stock photography sites have started offering a wider selection and more reasonable rates, and I think that's due mostly to the rise of affordable quality digital cameras. With more people shooting pictures and offering their work, there are more possibilities for any single piece of art ... more photo references, more scrap, and less painting or rendering from scratch. I've even started to use my own photography in some cases, now that I own a Nikon camera.

The only other change is that since I've moved from computer to computer, trading in smaller hard drives for bigger ones, slower RAMs for faster ones, I'm no longer afraid to create really huge digital files, up to 600 MB for a single piece. I work faster now and more complex, without ever having to worry about my hardware slowing me down or restricting my art. And I've gone from archiving everything to CDs to archiving some things on DVDs.

SPECROM: If you could create a checklist of do's and don'ts for authors working with cover artists, what advice would be at the top of both lists?

APRILM: I've actually already created such a checklist in Liquid Silver Books' private forums, but if I were to pick what would be at the very top of that list, it would be DO Communicate with your artist and DON'T Be Inflexible.

Communication is very important between the author and the artist because ideally, they are rendering the same setting, the same characters, the same story, and the same tone. Whether that bit of communication happens via the art director, the art brief, or the manuscript itself, it needs to happen so that the artist knows as much of the book as they need to in order to create the right cover for it. Since the artist starts at zero in this process, knowing nothing about the book, it's up to the author to draw the artist a picture with their words. That's the author's craft. It's why they're in the business. If they can't create an image of their book in the artist's head using the tools of their trade (i.e., words), then they've made a bad career choice. If the author never tells the artist that the heroine is blonde, and the heroine ends up being a brunette on the cover, that's not the artist's fault. That's the author's fault, for failing to communicate that little fact.

On the other hand, sometimes the communication can be too much for an artist, especially if the author is unbending about every single detail in the book. There are times when too much attention to detail can really hinder the process, and there are times when the artist just doesn't have the skills or the tools to give the author exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, what she wants. In this case, it helps when the author is flexible with their vision for their cover. The original vision just might be too cluttered, too cheesy, too overdone, or too whatever. Artists usually know what they can or can't do, and they usually know what they can make look good and what they can't make look good. If they don't feel they can pull off the author's concept, it won't matter how good or bad a concept it is; if the execution isn't there, the cover art will suffer. So it's a good idea if authors are flexible and have a few other cover concepts that they can suggest to the artist. The more options they provide the artist, the easier it will be to find a great match for the artist's execution and illustrative style.

SPECROM: You designed Loose ID's unique and clever brand image. How important do you think brand image is for individual authors?

APRILM: For authors, brand image begins in their writing. Always. If they can prove a consistency in quality and voice with each book, there is no better kind of branding. Everything else is merely an extension of that and should only reinforce what's already evident in the books themselves. For example, if an author's books are usually lighthearted, comedic, and sweet, her covers, web site, and other marketing material should reflect that.

SPECROM: You've been honored for several covers you designed for Loose ID and Liquid Silver titles. How does it make you feel, that industry recognition? And how do you feel about cover snarks?

APRILM: I'm actually both proud and ambivalent about both the recognition and the snark. I'm proud of the praise and the criticism because it means the cover art has gained some attention, which is the primary purpose of the cover art anyway. And I'm ambivalent because in the end, much of either don't come from peers, the people who most understand the work itself, and almost none of it comes from anyone outside of the genre or the industry, which is actually quite small if you look at the big picture. If, on the other hand, any of the acclaim or critiques came from big name creative directors or from the mainstream, I think I'd faint straight away ... because I'd know I really accomplished something.

SPECROM: What are the best and worst parts of working with authors?

APRILM: Authors are artists, too, in their way. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It depends on the individual, so I can never tell which it will be. Talent, temperament, uncompromising vision -- it can all be good or bad; it's just a matter of whether theirs fit yours. Authors and artists are generally used to working alone. Their work is solitary for the most part. But cover art can be like a film; it's a collaborative work -- if the actors, director, screenwriter, and producers can't get along or agree on a single vision, it's a pain in the ass to make. And sometimes, you get Casablanca. Nobody liked working on Casablanca. They were always rewriting it on the set, no one knew how it would end, and they all just wanted to get it over with. But in the end, you got Casablanca. The point is, however smooth or rough the going, you never know up front what you're going to get in a collaboration. That's how life is when you work with creative types.

From her home base in rural Pennsylvania, awaiting the zombie apocalypse, Joyce Ellen Armond edits the Speculative Romance Online newsletter. Check out her fiction and non-fiction at www.JoyceEllenArmond.com.