Win-It Wednesday: The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June by Robin Benway

Last week's winner of The DUFF galley is... Raelena! Email me with your address, R.This week, Robin Benway is giving away a signed galley copy of her newest release, The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June. Robin shared her Cover Story with me last week, and she sent along some photos she had that matched the characters in her mind. Do you guys do that? Dream up characters in your head? I want to hear about the best covers-matching-characters that you've seen. I actually think the paperback of Audrey, Wait! is a really spot-on character match. What covers can you think of? Comment below and you're entered to win (sorry, this one's U.S. only, but if you have any address in the U.S. you can win and Robin will send there).

Cover Stories: The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May and June

Robin Benway shared her Audrey, Wait! Cover Story on Monday, and she's back to tell the tale of her newest release's gorgeous art.Here's Robin! "I thought that after having gone through cover anxiety with Audrey, that April, May & June would be a breeze. So wrong! So very very wrong! It's so nervewracking to get the image of your book cover emailed to you! "I had originally always had this idea in my head of three linked paper dolls again a navy blue background with the words 'April May June' written over their heads. I loved this image, but I was pretty sure that my publisher didn't want that as the cover. (It's probably why I became a writer, rather than a cover designer.) "Razorbill had asked me to send over some images of what I thought the sisters would look like (above, l to r, May and June--I could never find a picture that matched the April in my head) but when I saw the initial cover design, the girls looked nothing like the images! I was a little disappointed at first, but then the cover really started to grow on me. The feedback from my friends and family was amazing, too. It's difficult when you realize that your characters are going to be seen as something entirely separate from the image that you've had of them in your head, but now the girls on the cover feel like April, May & June to me." I don't know about you guys, but the primary colors of this cover totally drew me in! What do you think? PS-Robin twitters here, and her characters? They twitter here: twitter.com/aprilstephenson twitter.com/may_stephenson twitter.com/june_stephenson

Cover Stories: Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

The super-fun Robin Benway has two Cover Stories for our enjoyment. We'll start with her awesome debut, Audrey, Wait!, and you'll get the tale behind her new cover (for The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May and June) later this week.Here's Robin! "In my first book, Audrey, Wait!, Audrey is a character who loves music, so I always had an image of a girl's wrist covered in wristbands. Not bracelets, but the sort of wristbands you get when you have to queue up in line for a concert or to get backstage. I thought that'd be so cool! When Audrey sold, however, my publisher hired Rodrigo Corral to do the cover. I was over the moon at this news, since I had seen so many of his book covers and thought they were beautiful. "When Razorbill first emailed me the image that would become the hardcover Audrey cover, I was driving down to Orange County and my phone at the time couldn't download photos. My agent called me and was saying, 'Did you see it? Did you see it?' and I was FREAKING OUT because I couldn't see it and I didn't have my computer with me and I was an hour away from home and I NEEDED to see my book cover! "So I did what any rational person would do: I drove to the nearest Apple store, hopped onto a computer, and pulled up the image. I immediately loved it. I kept walking back and forth across the Apple store so I could see it from far away, just to get an idea of what it would look like on a bookstore shelf, and then I stood there and had a 20-minute phone conference with my publisher and agent about it. Thanks, Apple! "For the paperback version of Audrey, I knew that my publisher wanted to change the cover and put a girl on it, but I saw some rough draft images of the ppbk cover that were so not what I had envisioned for the book. So I sent Razorbill a photograph of a girl that, to me, personified Audrey, left. (The cool thing was that Kristen Pettit, the Razorbill editor who bought Audrey, had had the exact same image on her wall!) Razorbill was really great about keeping me in the loop and sent me some headshots of models to pick from and did a photoshoot with one of the girls, and I really love the way she's doing that little look over her shoulder. "(Fun fact alert: On the cover of Audrey, the model is actually wearing my editor's skirt.)" Thanks, Robin! I really love both covers. I like the first one because it stands out and feels original to me. I like the second for its real-girlness and total capturing of Audrey, who looks just like I pictured she would. I'm torn! Also, can I just say that I adore the back of the paperback Audrey, Wait! because it's covered in reviews, many by book bloggers? AMAZING. Which cover do you guys like best? PS-Robin has an album with all the foreign Audrey covers on facebook. Here's a peek, but go check out the full images--so cool!