Active Voice:
Judging A (Hot Pink)
Book By Its Cover
by P. Kristen Enos
(Originally posted Jan 23, '10. All rights
reserved.)
When I first
seriously considered self-publishing a lesbian
erotica novella, I had a pretty good idea of what I
want to accomplish: a classy, intelligent series
that could be enjoyed with a certain amount of
emotional zing to it. Everything was aligned from
making time in my personal schedule to taking up a
long standing offer from a gifted artist to do a
custom cover for the book.
Well, as the time came closer to submitting the book
parts for design and printing, my artist wasn’t able
to do my cover after all. Though momentarily
disappointing, I just considered it another obstacle
to overcome.
Since what little drawing skill I had was almost
thirty years out of practice, I decided to take
advantage of the cover design services my printer
offered. However, they needed some direction from me
on what I wanted. Now that I would have to rely on
the creative skills of people that I had not worked
with before, I realized I had to take a step back
and revisit my ideas of what I wanted the book to
look like.
At the least, I wanted a repeatable design since
this would be a series of three books (at the
minimum). I also decided to go for pocket size since
the book was going to be small in terms of page
count to add to the “discreetness” factor. Instead
of trying to arrange artwork with another artist, I
decided to forego that option, leaving as much to
the reader’s imagination as possible. Having the one
word title of “Deseo” (Spanish for “desire”) should
be enough if presented right.
All that was left to decide what colors, if any, I
would use on the covers.
That’s when I decided to turned to inspiration from
my current creative muses: Japanese entertainment
idols Rika Ishikawa and Hitomi (Yossy) Yoshizawa.
They started their decade-long careers as singers in
Japan’s number one all female group Morning Musume.
While in that group, they had “official” colors,
Rika’s was pink and Yossy’s was purple.
I thought those two colors would be appropriate for
a lesbo ero novella. So my final instruction to the
cover designer was to use those two colors with the
options of white and/or black.
I was thrilled when I got the cover design proposal,
especially with how the colors started
with one and blended into the other.
So I gave the full approval for the printing to move
forward.
One of the first people to buy a copy was a female
friend, Lucy, who was heterosexually married.
Well, Lucy tried to read this book at home in the
living room, since she also decided the small,
discreet look of the book would not cause any
unwanted attention.
What she didn’t count on was that the design of the
book became a prize for her seven year old daughter,
Elyse. So when Lucy put it down, Elyse confiscated
it, and told her mom she wanted it.
And her reasons were very rational: it was tiny, a
nice pink color that was appealing for girls her
age, and it had a big, simple title with cursive script
that she was starting to learn.
Lucy tried in vain to persuade her daughter that the
book was not something a little girl would be
interested in.
Lucy’s husband and
another adult friend came into the room to find out
what was going on. The adult friend looked at the
book and because he could read Spanish, he stated,
“’Deseo’ is the Spanish word for ‘desire’.”
Realizing that she needed to curb this conversation
as quickly as possible, Lucy whispered to her husband what kind
of book this was.
His immediate response was to tell Elyse, “Give that
book to Mommy. We’ll get you another one just like
it.”
And that seemed to work because the girl
relinquished it to its rightful owner.
(Plus, Lucy made
arrangements to read it with her husband later.)
When she told me this story, I had to admit I was
embarrassed that I had accidentally designed a
lesbian porno book that was perfectly enticing to
innocent seven year old girls. And when Lucy asked
me to sign her copy, I wrote an apology for that,
partially in jest of course.
This was last summer.
I recently talked to Lucy and found out that she
finally finished the book and told me she loved it.
I genuinely thanked her and told her that I would
start posting teaser installments of the next book
online in preparation for publishing it.
She responded with enthusiasm and then told me,
“Don’t make it hot pink!”
I didn’t have the heart to point out to her that the
style AND color scheme were the signature of the
series.
Maybe she’ll just buy the e-book copy next time.
And no, I don’t know what book they got as a
substitute for Elyse. At the least, I know it’ll be
pink.
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