I sent an e-mail to Meghan today, telling her my thoughts about the proposed book covers. I started the e-mail by telling her I liked those two covers very much (frosted sky/sea and mirrored ship silhouettes). Then, I included this one-sentence summary of FV, thinking it might be helpful to the cover designer to assist him in focusing the cover on the book’s main theme: Frozen Voices is a captivating tale of four lives, intertwined and changed forever by the worst accident in New England’s maritime history.
In my note to Meghan, I added, “I was wondering if the cover could reflect more of the human aspect of the story. Show silhouettes or fuzzy images of people or have some people visible on board the ship. Although the shipwreck is the event that brings the characters together, it doesn’t happen until three-quarters of the way through the novel. The novel is about the people more than about the ship.”
A few hours later, I received a reply from Meghan. She said she’d spoken to Dan, the cover designer. He said that he may be able to add some silhouettes of passengers to the mirrored ship design but besides that, “nothing else would really work.” Since most of the photographs were not pictures of the real people, he felt uncomfortable using them without having clear copyright approvals. Dan also said that the fuzzy effect may take away from the quality of the book cover’s look.
I think I’ll contact Kaitlyn Lamb to see if she’d like to take a shot at coming up with a book cover design. I really liked what she did for the website/blog and would be curious to see what she’d suggest for the cover.
FORMER TRAIN STATION IN PROVIDENCE - 1901