Skip to main content

I’m in Love with… Romance Cover Photo Shoots!


As a publicist, there are parts of the book process that I have no part in—acquisitions meetings, copyediting and proofreading, page corrections… but I’ll be honest, all of those things make my head spin. However, I’ve ALWAYS been interesting in the whole cover process. I love getting called into a cover meeting and give my opinion—“I like that color and that image, but it should be cropped”—like I’m secretly an art director or something. So when our senior managing editor asked me if I wanted to go on a photo shoot, I said yes without hesitation! One snowy Friday morning, I made my way to the studio of Izui Photography, Inc., and met our great photographer, Dick Izui!

I was surprised how professional everything was—no matter that people were half-naked and barely knew one another in passionate poses. A few of the models hadn’t done romance covers before, so it was a pretty cool learning experience for everyone.

Between the photographer and his assistants, the models, the wadrobe director, the hair and make up artist, our creative service managers, an in-house Sourcebooks designer, our editor Deb Werksman and myself, it was a full house! But it was so much fun to be a part of it all, suggesting poses and helping everyone understand the motivation behind the characters being portrayed on the cover. We were able to get some great photo options for a bunch of our covers for late Fall 2012!

Now, I do have photos but please be forewarned—they are blurry... I could not use my flash because it would have interfered with the photographers lighting, and I didn't want to get in the way! But I hope you get a behind the scenes look at the romance novel cover process, and look for these books in late 2012 and early 2013! We'll even have a behind the scenes video and much better photos soon to share with everyone!

Bright and early, our very own Deb Werksman was on set helping the model, Todd, understand the story behind Terry Spear's Savage Hunger.
 
 
Next, it was on to another Terry Spear title, A Howl for a Highlander--complete with kilt and sword!


Donovan, the former Scottish werewolf, became a proper English Gentleman and joined Lindsey for A Waltz with a Stranger (by Pamela Sherwood)...



Ok, how pretty is this dress on the model, Crystal? You'll see it soon on A Lady and her Magic, Tammy Falkner's upcoming paranormal historical romance!

Finally, these last two are concepts for Royal Strings Attached, a women's fiction novel by Megan Mulry. The studio was able to find a real milliner: Jenny Pfanenstiel, Couture Milliner of Formé Millinery, Haus of Formé.
 She had so many amazing hats--check out the site for more!




There were some other covers shot as well, so get excited to see some really fabulous covers coming from us soon. We'll have more behind the scenese photos (better quality!) and video coming soon; I can't wait to share it all with you!

All photos credited to Dick Izui, http://www.izui.com/, because even though I took these, he and his team set them up and made them look wonderful!


Comments

  1. What fun, Danielle! Thanks for sharing your outing. I've often wondered about Sourcebooks' process with cover design--now I have the inside scoop!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Seems like most of my covers have come from stock photos, but Anne Cain does wonders with them. Cool stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This was so great, Danielle! I shared it with the whole world when you first tweeted about it. Fans can't wait to see what the covers look like in the end and I'm going to share before and after pictures, which should be really fun. I mentioned it last night in a presentation I had to do before a group of Christian writers on how to promote! :) Thanks for sharing, Danielle!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have been fascinated by the extent to which a simple photo I thought was NEVER make a decent cover can be cropped, shopped, painted, and otherwise turned into delectable cover art--much like one of my manuscripts. Hmm.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for sharing your exciting day with us and the photos! Did they pass out disposable drooling bibs at the door?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow, it does sound like great fun!

    I can't WAIT to see my cover for SEND (Sourcebooks Fire). :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a blast! Thanks for the inside look into the cover process, Danielle!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow, I would love tobe there in person seeing the behind the scenes photo shoots for the covers. The pink dress on Crystal is stunning! I'm going to look for it on the cover...A Lady and Her Magic. Keep up the great cover and stories!

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is awesome! I've always been curious about what goes on during a cover shoot.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Everyone! Sorry for the late response--was in an all day meeting yesterday! Tha photo shoot was a blast, and I'm so glad I was able to share some photos with you. We'll have more updates soon, with better photos and video footage. Thanks for your lovely comments :)

    Have a great weekend,
    Danielle

    ReplyDelete
  11. Such fun! Can't wait to see the video you mentioned. Thanks for sharing this

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow! Those are so awesome! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you for including my hats. I had a wonderful time at the shoot and can't wait to see the book!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment