Cover Story

Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books thanks you all for your feedback about the cover for John Dodd's forthcoming book A Company of Planters. He writes:

As with most online polls, one has to expect a mixed bag of constructive criticism and, well, just criticism. We took all of the views into consideration ... too dull, none of the above, too brown, odd machine gun, Gollum lookalike ... and decided to start from scratch! Option 1 is obviously aesthetically pleasing as it is simple and symmetrical but the Gollum references -- and queries from a number of other people about the origins of the boy: was he African, South American, Indonesian? -- forced us to drop it from the running. Despite the machine gun confusion -- don't Malaysians know planters were issued with arms during the Emergency period? -- we strongly felt that Option 2 and 3 were more relevant to the story. After all, the image is of a real planter in 50s Malaya. Back in Dublin our designer tweaked fonts, increased the subtitle point size, extended the photograph, repositioned text, handcoloured the bag and cushion and added texture to the image. The result, we hope, is a cover with character that will entice browsers to pick the book up and read the backcover text. Of course we could now ask your readers for their help with the backcover text but, from experience, we would never come to an agreement!

We really valued the input from your readers and I'm sorry we couldn't choose Option 1 but we felt the comments required us to step back and rethink the design. We can never please everybody but I hope those who voted for Option 1 will take a look at the book if they see it in the bookshop!

A huge thank you to everybody who voted and commented, you really did help us with the cover design for this book.

So who won the competition? We decided that we had to work on The Visitor's appauling ignorance. We felt desperately sorry for jy living in the land of chocs and clocks but deprived of books in English. And we enjoyed secret history's great story about her toothless grandfather.

Can each of the winners please send me their full postal addresses so Philip can post you a copy? (My e-mail is sbakar at streamyx dot com)

What's in a Cover?

First impressions count - whether we're meeting someone new, or browsing new titles in the bookshop. As Jamelah Earle says on the Literary Kicks website:

Of course, it's no secret that design is an art form, and book cover design is one of its most specialized genres. ... It's one thing to create a good design, but something much greater to create a good design that manages to incorporate a book's subject matter and present it in a way that will make people want to read what's underneath the cover.

Publisher Philip Tatham of Singapore-based Monsoon Books would appreciate you advice about a book cover with a Malaysian theme. A Company of Planters: Confessions of a Colonial Rubber Planter in 1950s Malaya by John Dodd is due to be released here at the end of March.

The blurb on the book reads:

With true stories that would make even Somerset Maugham blush, this memoir offers a fascinating and often hilarious glimpse of colonial life in 1950's Malaya. But life was more than just a series of stengahs in the club house, dalliances in the Chinese brothels of Penang and charming “pillow dictionaries” – there were strikes, riots, snakes, plantation fires and deadly ambushes by Communist terrorists to contend with.

Which cover, in your opinion, will appeal more to book buyers in Malaysia? (The covers below were all created by a designer based in Dublin: she won "best fiction cover design" award in Ireland last year).

The one that receives most votes in this poll will be the one used, so this is your chance to feed into the publishing process.

Option A

Option B

Option C

Which cover do you like best?
	Option A?
	Option B?
	Option C?
pollcode.com free polls

And now announcing this blog's first competititon with real prizes (not just "You can take me to lunch if you win" which hasn't had a huge number of takers, for some reason.)

Philip is giving away copies of this book to the three people who make the best case for receiving a copy.

Post your entries in the comments. You have one week. The competition is open to overseas readers of this blog too, and will be judged by Philip and meself.