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7.
AOTW: Often, true crime books are marketed with provocative titles and feature brightly garish covers (particularly paperbacks). Once you've turned in the text, how much say do you have over the book's presentation or marketing?
Susan Kelly: Pinnacle Books has treated me very well --- they sent me the jacket copy for my approval. I was permitted to edit it --- not that it wasn't good copy to begin with. The cover of the Strangler book is quite well-designed; it calls attention to itself, but not luridly so. The whole book is in fact well-produced in terms of typeface and layout. I'm pleased.
Gretchen Brinck: As a new writer, I felt my publisher knew more than I did about presentation and marketing. I provided the photos used on the cover but did not design its layout. I should add that when the text had to be modified in places for legal reasons, the publisher allowed me to do the rewrite myself.
Michael Fleeman: I have some say in marketing. I'm basically satisfied. You have to accept certain facts about the genre, and boring covers don't sell.
Brian J. Karem: Not enough.
Burl Barer: [HA HA HA HA HA --- he laughs] I have a lot to say about the provocative titles and garish covers --- the more garish the better. I want my mass market paperbacks to leap from the bookstall shelves and grab readers by the throat and drag them kicking and screaming to the cash register! I actually have approval, believe it or not, over the lurid, exaggerated back cover text of my pulse-pounding Pinnacle True Crime titles. I have driven them nuts with changes, and rewrites!
Don Lasseter: The publishers of my nine true crime books have been very cooperative in giving me latitude about cover blurbs and photos. I've not been thrilled about one or two of the titles they assigned. In two cases, the victim's families were angry with me over a title and a cover photo. But, we all know that it's a highly competitive market, and provocative covers help sell the books.
Irene Pence: I have chosen the titles for every one of my books and discussed at length with the publisher what the cover will look like. I am opposed to the garish covers and my book A Clue from the Grave looks like a romance novel with a picture of a handsome bride and groom on the cover. I asked for the prettiest photo of the murderer to be on the cover of Buried Memories, and Ann Rule emailed me that she thought it looked "very classy." The publisher has me approve every word that goes on the front and back cover, and I am very much involved with marketing the book.
Sue Russell: I've always had the opportunity to review the back cover copy before the book is printed. I'm not a marketing whizz, so I don't mind leaving that side of things to the experts.
Robert Scott: I've always found the Pinnacle Book covers to get right to the heart of the story. I particularly liked their use of the photo of Benjamin Pedro Gonzales on the cover of Savage. It conveys how truly sinister this guy is. And I always review the back covers to make sure all the facts are correct.
Carlton Smith: Lurid covers are the bane of my existence, mostly because they promise something that isn’t going to be delivered. The poohbahs who make these decisions feel this is the best way to market the material, and while I have the right of "consultation" --- whatever than means --- the final decisions on covers and titles belong to the publisher, who is after all in the business to make a profit. And if the publisher doesn’t make a profit, I’m out of business, which means that the subject won’t get written about at all.
Dina Temple-Raston: I've been lucky. My publisher, Henry Holt, and my editor there, Elizabeth Stein, always saw A Death in Texas as contemporary history, as a story about race, not a book about a gruesome murder. So from the start we were in complete agreement about the marketing of the book. This is a book about a town's struggle for redemption and the personalities there. The murder just provided the drama needed to analyze Jasper.
Carlton Stowers: I disdain the "true crime book" look. I've been fortunate in most cases that my publishers have avoided the garish covers and have made it clear that no book with my name on it will include crime scene photographs.
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