Judging A Book By It's Cover

Just after I blogged about the cover for Justine Larbalestier's upcoming Liar, the author posted on her own blog, responding to the many posts about Liar's cover that had sprung up in the previous days. In her post, she explains the story behind the cover, expresses her personal disappointment in the publisher's choice to use the cover and goes a bit into the whole "black books don't sell" conundrum/self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I'm not here today to talk about that. I'm here to unveil to you the cover of my debut YA novel, Sip, which apparently - if one does judge a book by it's cover - centers around a fun and funky teen, Naomi, who works and/or hangs out a lot at a coffee shop...and maybe something about how she's never been one to jump into things, but now there's a turning point in her life, and she can't just "sip" life up slowly, but chug it down.

It's not exactly the cover or title (um, or synopsis?) I would've chosen for my novel if I could've chosen on my own, but isn't that just how it goes in the real world anyway? You write what sells, your title might be chosen for you, and the cover is almost definitely out of your hands.

But it's still pretty cool! So, go ahead and make your own debut YA novel cover, following these easy instructions from 100 Scope Notes. Here's how:

1. Go to http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ to find out your pen name.


2. Go to www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml. The word listed under "random verb" is your title.


3. Go to www.flickrcc.com/bluemountains.net/index.php. Type in your title. The first image that appears that features a person is your cover.


4. Using Photoshop, Picnik, or similar software, put it all together.


5. Post and share!

Oh! and since I thought it might be fun, I went ahead and looked to see what Liar's cover might have looked like if it had been randomly generated this way, and...

So, I guess that the cover they went with probably wasn't so bad at all.