A little bit of trivia: My original working title for Violet on the Runway was Shrinking Violet! So this book has been on my radar for a while. I love the cover, and I invited Danielle to come talk about it. Here she is:"When I imagined my cover, I thought there might be a girl speaking into the microphone and maybe her face would be obscured. My publisher did not ask for my input, so I was definitely on pins and needles waiting to see what they would come up with.
"When I saw the cover, I was like, wow, this is my cover? MY COVER? Then I thought, wait a minute, Tere has curly hair and brown eyes! Then I thought about it some more for awhile and decided to make those changes to her character to reflect the cover and was happy that I did. I never would compromise who she was but I have always secretly wanted green eyes so I thought they would definitely add to Tere's character, being a more unique eye color. The cover is a stock photo. I think they just changed the color of her sweater from blue to violet.
"We talked about the changes in hair and eye color and decided together that I would make the changes to the manuscript instead of her going back to MTV for a cover change. The only thing that really changed about the cover was that they decided to put the blurb from Ellen Hopkins on the front cover of the book. I also had input in the back copy when we had to shorten it because the text was too crowded.
"I am really happy with my cover. I truly like everything about it. And now I am a total purple fiend!
"My favorite question about the cover is when people ask is that you on the cover? My answer: 'I wish!'"
Yes, I totally feel that way about the Violet series covers too! Haha. I love the sly shyness of this cover. And I'm so glad the cover matches the character's traits because it drives me crazy when that doesn't happen. What do you guys think?
PS-Alea posted a Lookalike story about this cover on her blog, and it's really fascinating!
PPS-Michael Northrop's Gentlemen (remember his great Cover Story?) got a review in the New York Times this weekend! Woohoo! Go enter his fun, related, Mad-Libbian contest to help celebrate.