Happy 25th Anniversary The Covers—Behind the Scenes with Harlequin editor Kathleen Scheibling

Hi everyone, Kathleen here, Senior Editor of American Romance. I was delighted to be asked to contribute an entry to the HAR author’s blog to help commemorate our 25th anniversary and thought I’d write a bit about how the covers of our series books are created.

The process starts with the authors, who fill out an Art Fact Sheet (AFS) for each of their books. The AFS will include physical descriptions of the characters, scene suggestions for the covers, and a short synopsis of the book. This synopsis is very helpful for the Art Director (Tony) who really wants just a general overview of the story. Once a month the editors, AD and our marketing Product Manager meet to brainstorm what would best sell the book. This is the chance for the editors to fill in the blanks for Tony—what’s the tone of the book? What did the author’s previous book look like? Is it part of a miniseries and do we want to keep the same look for all the books?

During these meetings, it’s also standard practice to beg Tony to take us on photo shoots so we can meet hot, hunky men. We all have our favorite models—Johanna was recently enamored of a new guy we’re using who kind of looks like Matt Damon. I enjoy drooling over a dark-haired man who resembles JFK Jr. I think he’s on Marin Thomas’s November cover. And guess what—that man actually played JFK Jr. in a made-for-TV movie! Anyway, I think Tony assumes we’ll embarrass him by jumping all over these guys. We keep telling him we will behave ourselves. Really, Tony. Promise!

After our art meeting, Tony books a photo shoot. I did go on one of these shoots a couple of years ago, and was really interesting. The whole thing is quite a production, I can tell you. There’s a makeup and wardrobe person, the photographer and an assistant who helps with the cameras, backdrops, lighting, etc. Things must have been very different before digital technology but now you can look at everything you shoot right away and make adjustments. You can literally take hundreds of shots to get the right one. We were looking at them on a large computer screen as the photographer clicked away. Fascinating. And then you have to imagine what the cover would look like with the branding, title and author name on the picture.

Tony works with the photographer to choose the best shots, and then he makes whatever adjustments need to be made to the photo. (Don’t ask me about that because I have no idea how it works. Voodoo, I assume. I’m still getting to know my own digital camera.) He mocks up the cover and it heads off to Production, where it is placed into a grid—the standard branding on every cover that makes the books easily distinguished as a part of a series. From there, the cover goes through a series of approvals—proofreading (not just for the back cover copy but to make sure there are many pairs of eyes on the correct spelling of the author’s name and the book’s title), marketing, back to me, back to proofreading, back to Production, back to Tony. Whew!

And then we do it all again next month…