Sandra Saidak on the Joys and Trials of Commissioning Cover Art

We have an especially interesting and practical topic today from author Sandra Saidak, who writes novels inspired by prehistory and folklore. Her latest work is The Seal Queen, and she shares some insight into how its cover came to fruition.

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Art : The Journey

Of course I knew that artists did things a certain way—notably their way.  After all, I’m an artist myself, in that I’m a writer.  As far as I’m concerned, writers, painters, musicians, costumers, jewelry makers, and several groups I’m probably leaving out (sorry folks) are artists.  And there are certain stereotypes associated with all of us: we’re flaky; we create when the spirit moves us, not because someone tells us to; deadlines are more targets to aim for; we’re passionate about what we do, or we don’t bother to do it.

I’ve been a writer since I could hold a pencil and make letters.  But my first novel was published in November, 2011.  Since then, I learned a startling fact: I am no longer a single-person business.  I need professional help (no, not that kind).  With every book, I need editing, marketing advice, computer help, and the most exciting so far: professional cover art. 

For info on artist Fred Capp, visit www.littlelevers.com/Angels

I was nervous, but still very excited when I approached my first artist.  I knew just how it would work: I would describe in words what I could so clearly see in my mind’s eye, and I’d get to watch the process of seeing it come to life in all its glory.  Then the plan met reality.  I worked with three artists before The Seal Queen was finally graced with the cover you see here.

The first artist I found sent me some terrific pencil sketches—before deciding she had taken on too many commissions, and just when some real life issues hit her out of the blue.  (It might have been nice if she had told me this; unfortunately, she just stopped responding to my e-mails.  I found out all that other stuff much later.)

I’m not quite sure what happened to the second artist.  I found him through DeviantArt.  We exchanged e-mails.  I sent descriptions, he sent a price quote.  Then nothing.  Apparently, somewhere along the line, he had decided we weren’t a good fit after all.  That was a new one for me.

The next artist was the one who finished the piece on time, and got it to look like what I had envisioned.  Fred Capp is an old friend of mine, and I was nervous about working with a friend.  What if I didn’t like what he came up with?  What if he flaked out like the others?  What if the art was great, but he couldn’t meet the deadline?  What if we ran into artistic differences?  What if he couldn’t draw a seal! I discovered I was scaring myself.  And some of those things did become issues, but I’m happy to say we worked them out.  And we’re still friends.

Out of all this, I’ve come to understand certain differences between the people who write the books, and the people who create the cover art.  Mainly, that an author will usually work on one project at a time.  An artist will likely be juggling many projects at once.  And every client is concerned about the art being perfect for his/her work; that this book will be released on time.

The artist also has the difficult balancing act of getting the author’s vision to appear on a piece of paper (or computer screen).  Easy if you’re a mind reader.  Not so easy if all you have to work with are words.

So a toast to all the artists out there, in all the different media.  As everyone who’s done any of it before knows: it’s not as easy as it looks.  

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You can learn more about Sandra Saidak on her website.

You can purchase The Seal Queen on Amazon.

Guest Blogger: Novelist Sandra Saidak talks prehistoric fiction

Oh, I do love a nice theme! Last week we enjoyed a discussion of dinosaurs and megafauna in middle-grade lit. This week we are fortunate to have Sandra Saidak, author of Daughter of the Goddess Lands and Shadow of the Horsemen, sharing secrets about how she writes prehistoric fiction.

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Turning Prehistory into Fiction

The genre of prehistoric fiction, as most of us think of it today, began in 1980 with the publication of Jean Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear.  Before that, it was mainly a sub-genre of science fiction, involving time travel or the modern-day discovery of people (and usually dinosaurs) lost in time somewhere on earth.  Legendary pioneers like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells contributed some of prehistoric fiction’s earliest pieces.

 

In the nineteenth century, archeology was coming into its own as a science, and the acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution made it possible for people to view newly discovered fossils and artifacts in an entirely new light.  We had ancestors unlike anything described in the bible!  Who were they?  How did they live?  And perhaps most importantly, what could they tell us about ourselves?  Most of the early writers incorporated the new discoveries into their fiction—a trend which continues to this day.

I love prehistoric fiction—both the writing and the reading of it.  The farther back you go in time, the less is known—a perfect playground for the imagination.  Artifacts abound, but for many of them, there is no consensus among the experts as to what they mean.  This allows anyone with enough creativity to build an entire world from a few bones, tools, and burial sites.  It also allows an author to do a lot of research in a few hours.  If you want to write a novel set in Tudor England (and clearly, a lot of people do these days!) you’ll have to read hundreds of pages of legal documents and family histories, livened up by the sometimes juicier diaries, letters and broadsheets.   Tudor England was an extremely well-recorded time in our history, and if you want to do justice to the reality of it in your fiction, you need to read it all.

Not so with prehistoric fiction.  I sometimes find the most useful research to be just staring at a map of the world for a few hours.  Inevitably, I’ll fixate on a section and ask myself: “How many transatlantic crossings could have happened before Columbus?  Who crossed?  Why and how?” or  “If there was no land bridge from Asia to Australia when the first humans journeyed there, what could possibly have made them risk crossing open water if they didn’t even know there was land on the other side?”  Or, even more tantalizing: “Did they somehow know there was land?  How?”  And I’ve asked the same about Japan. 

Then, once the story has me firmly in its grip, I go to my bookshelf or the internet, and look for what information is there.  Sometimes it’s not much more than maps of how those places looked at the times I’m interested.  Sometimes it’s conflicting theories, or a news story about a strange artifact that shouldn’t be there.

And for great prehistoric fiction, sometimes that’s all it takes.

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For more information about Sandra Saidak, visit her website.

You can purchase her books on Amazon.