31 Days of Horror: Day 26: Horror Covers As a Conversation Starter

Yesterday, I reposted a Why I Love Horror essay by Lynne Hansen, one of the best and most prolific Horror novel cover artists working now. 

I wanted to include her in this year of looking back at some of my best entries in the series because as we all know covers matter so much. Horror covers, even more.

Last Fall I wrote this article for the lineup featuring six Horror cover artists not to miss with annotations of the books they have covered.

Below I have the introduction, but I want to remind everyone that talking to patrons about covers is a great conversation starter. Readers care about covers, but they don't think they should admit that to us. When we bring it up, we lighten the mood and get them more relaxed as we ask them to share what they are in the mood to read. Starting an interaction with a reader with a conversation starter like-- have you seen the awesome cover on this book?-- is a great option.

You can also look to the general blog where I post often about how to use conversation starter to build interactive displays at this post. A great option to build a display is to formally ask patrons to answer the question-- what is a book you picked based on its cover alone? Again directions on how to do this are here.

But I want you to stop for a moment and think about this question. Because most people think judging a book by its cover is taboo, you asking this question will be noticed by your patrons. They will find it a bit illicit even. And, most importantly. it will who them that you understand how readers actually pick books. It will remove their discomfort about asking for their next good read. It shows them that you care and want to help. And finally, it shows you have a sense of humor about it all.

Here is the intro to that article from September of 2023 to help you get started with using Horror book covers as part of your work with readers.

A Librarian Wants You to Judge These Horror Books by Their Covers

From the haunted stacks: Six horror illustrators not to miss.

By Becky Spratford | Published Sep 22, 2023

Psst…. I have a dark, dirty library secret for all of you. I think we have been doing this column long enough that I can trust you enough to share it with you. Here it is… 

 I judge books by their covers.

I will give you all a moment to recover from shock, but it is 100% true. And not only do I judge books by their covers, but I train library workers all over the world to do the very same thing.

Now I know all of you probably heard from a librarian or teacher at some point in your childhood, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and I am sure some of you have taken this as fact and carried it into your own adult reading life, even passing it on to new generations of readers. Well, I am here to tell you to forget it.

Why?

Well let’s start with this actual fact: Publishers want their books to have a cover that sells the book to its best reader. They need the cover to do the heavy lifting of attracting readers as they walk by.

But they also want them to be the right readers, ones who if they are attracted by the cover, stop and read the back and then decide to buy the book.

If publishers are putting that much effort, money, and thought into the covers of their books, why aren’t we using the covers to help readers find the best book for them as well? It actually seems irresponsible for me, someone whose job it is to match books with their best readers, to NOT consider the covers. A cover can never tell you exactly what will happen in the book, but those covers created by the very best artists can absolutely tell you quite a bit about the feel of the book to follow, setting the tone for the story that follows.

Which leads us all to this column. Today, I am going to present six of today’s best Horror book illustrators with two example books, titles that you can 100% judge by the superior art gracing their covers. I have spoken to numerous illustrators, authors, and publishers to make sure I have found artists who are both talented and trustworthy. However, the one disappointment I have encountered throughout this process is the overwhelmingly white and male representation in today’s horror cover art world. In fact, those I spoke to know it is a problem and many have been seeking out more marginalized artists to highlight and support as well.

Therefore, this article serves two purposes. One: to help you break the taboo and get out there to judge a book by its cover. It’s fun and slightly illicit, and since I have vetted the titles for you, I can promise you that the books will be worth your time. And two: to serve as a call to action for horror artists from marginalized perspectives to reach out, leave a comment, and let us know who you are so the community can help lift you up. Then, as people encounter this article, they can explore your art as well.

Click here to read the full article and start using Horror covers as a conversation starter all year long. 

31 Days of Horror: Day25-- Why I Love Horror by Lynne Hansen

Today I have a rerun of Why I Love Horror with a different spin. It is from Horror artist Lynne Hansen. And tomorrow, I have another post to pair with this as well.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2020

31 Days of Horror: Day 18: Why I Love Horror by Lynne Hansen [Cover Artist]

In the October 1, 2020 issue of Booklist Magazine, I have a review of Lucy Snyder's excellent story collection, Halloween Season. In that review I callout the "stunning cover." Seriously, the cover [see below] will grab your patron's attention. The stories shouldn't need a good cover to entice readers, but that is the reality of our world. 

This thought and my general RA advice that we should judge books by their covers as we help readers, led me to contact Lynne Hansen, the cover artists for this specific book and for many others, to ask her to be my first ever horror artist for the "Why I Love Horror" series.

Below Hansen shares her love of the genre but also how carefully she crafts the cover to represent what readers will find inside. She uses Halloween Season as a specific example. 

So keep judging books by their covers for general RA purposes and read the first ever cover artist entry in my "Why I Love Horror" series below.

 
Why I Love Horror: Finding the Right Book

by Lynne Hansen

One of my earliest memories is curling up to watch the Acri Creature Feature with my dad on one side and my big brother on the other—and my mom clear on the other side of the house. Not every kind of horror is for everyone, but the genre is so wide that there is something for everyone here.

As a horror artist, I have the very best job in the world. I get to read amazing books by fantastic authors and then create art around my favorite parts. I get to help authors and publishers connect their stories with the right readers, just like librarians get to help readers connect with the right books.

My first drawings as a kid were of monsters. Acri Creature Feature had an art gallery segment every week where they would slowly pan across a wall filled with art sent in by kids. When I was five, I drew a picture of Bernie the Talking Skull and my brother helped me mail it to the television station. One week, I saw my creation on the screen. Sure, it was only for a split-second, practically subliminal, but I was hooked!
When I started school, my first stories were of monsters. I remember writing one about how when I wasn’t around, my stuffed animals would get up and have adventures—but not normal Toy Story type adventures—SCARY adventures.

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s—BG, Before Goosebumps—so when I wanted something scary to read, well, there were mysteries like Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. And I read a ton of fantasy, devouring Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, but as far as scary books for teens, the only thing I ever found was a series called Dark Forces where teens battled the supernatural. The covers usually featured a shocked or possessed student, and they were only available at our local bookstore—never the library.

At school I read Edgar Allan Poe, and was so excited to find stories that creeped me out and could still be part of curriculum.  I made a book report diorama for “The Pit and the Pendulum,” complete with rope-gnawing rats and a real working tin foil pendulum. I can still remember exactly which shelf in the library housed Poe’s books. (Fourth shelf down on the bookcase to the left of the window, and I read every book there at least twice.)

So there weren’t scary books for me growing up, just movies. But in 8th grade, I made off with a copy of Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews, thinking it was my best friend’s book, only to discover it was her mother’s. Probably not the best choice for a 13-year-old, but it started me down the path of reading adult horror. When I hit high school the next year, I got to read Stephen King’s Carrie and Clive Barker’s Books of Blood collections and I never looked back.

What I loved about horror, and still do, is the roller coaster ride it takes you on. When the lows are so low, the highs are even higher, and the adrenaline rush is amazing—when you find the right book.

It’s just so important to find the perfect match for a particular reader, and luckily there’s a great variety within the genre to choose from.

When I started out as a cover artist, 11 years ago this month, I would create art for whatever kind of book you needed—horror, of course, but also mysteries, young adult, sci-fi—even spicy romance. But my roster was always much more on the horror side. A little over two years ago I decided that I only wanted to make art for the genre I loved. If that meant I had fewer clients, that would be fine by me because at least I’d be doing the work that was most important to me. Wonderfully, I didn’t lose work—I got more. And more. And more after that. I’m so insanely grateful.

I think it has a lot to do with being a lifelong horror fan. I know that there are nuances to horror, and although we horror fans love our haunted houses and creepy skeletons I know that putting a generic version of one of those iconic symbols on a cover isn’t enough to connect the right readers to the right book.

Most book covers first reach out to readers as a tiny thumbnail, whether the reader is seeing the book online or across a crowded library. At this point, a good horror cover has to be readily identifiable as belonging to the genre. Even if a potential reader isn’t familiar with a particular author, they still have to think, “Hey, I like that kind of book! Let me take a closer look!”

And when the reader clicks the cover or crosses the room to pick up a book from a display, the reaction needs to be more than just, “Oh look, it’s bigger!” There needs to be a bonus element, a special detail that makes the reader say, “Oooh! I didn’t notice that! Now I want to know more about this book!” (I call this the “lean in” moment.) And hopefully they’ll flip to the back of the book and read the book description and be unable to put the book down until they reach the circulation desk.

Take for example the cover I created for Lucy A. Snyder’s collection Halloween Season from Raw Dog Screaming Press. [Click here to access it.] When you first see that book in thumbnail, you see a giant pumpkin house with excited trick-or-treaters about to ring the doorbell. Potential readers conjure fond childhood experiences with the holiday. Then they lean in to learn a bit more and discover that all is not all soft-focus nostalgia. There’s a silhouette of a man with a knife in one window, and in the other, we see a pair of little hands calling out for help. And is that a zombie crawling out from beneath the porch?

Most importantly, the cover mimics the range of stories you’ll find inside Snyder’s collection, which includes tales that will fill you alternately with love and dread for the Halloween season. If the cover to Halloween Season connects with a reader, so will the stories inside.

And as an artist, that’s all I ever want—for readers to find the authors and stories they’ll love if nudged in the right direction, kind of like I did. I couldn’t have a better job.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynne Hansen is a horror artist who specializes in book covers. She loves creating art that tells a story and that helps publishers and authors reach the audiences they deserve. Her clients include Cemetery Dance Publications, Thunderstorm Books and Raw Dog Screaming Press. She has illustrated works by New York Times bestselling authors including Jonathan Maberry, George Romero, and Christopher Golden. Her art has been commissioned and collected throughout the United States and overseas. Art-Haus Gallery in Atlanta will be hosting her solo art show “Lyrical Nightmares: The Art of Lynne Hansen.” For more information, visit LynneHansenArt.com or find her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at @LynneHansenArt.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 62: The Ghost Sequences

After a week off to recover from the October blog-a-thon, I am back with one of the most talked about story collections of the year, put out by one of my recommended independent presses for libraries.  But first, here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #61. Our winner was Vicki from Lexington [KY] Public Library. Now on to today's giveaway:

Today I have a finished copy of the gorgeous [look at that cover-- seriously, look at it!] and critically acclaimed story collection by A.C. Wise, The Ghost Sequences.

Wise is an author on the rise. One you should know about. Wise takes the tropes you think you know and makes them entirely new, original, and chilling. 

I will not be surprised if this collection ends up nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for story collection. Not at all.

Some of theses stories are from anthologies to which I gave a star review. Wise has caught the eye of editor Ellen Datlow in a way I haven't seen since she started promoting Stephen Graham Jones [and we all know how well that went for him].

Don't believe me, take a look at the glowing reviews on Goodreads here. And I 100% agree with the publisher readalikes of Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Angela Carter.

Enter to win, but also, order a copy for your library collections ASAP. And thanks to Undertow Publications for the giveaway copy.

31 Days of Horror: Day 18: Why I Love Horror by Lynne Hansen [Cover Artist]

In the October 1, 2020 issue of Booklist Magazine, I have a review of Lucy Snyder's excellent story collection, Halloween Season. In that review I callout the "stunning cover." Seriously, the cover [see below] will grab your patron's attention. The stories shouldn't need a good cover to entice readers, but that is the reality of our world. 

This thought and my general RA advice that we should judge books by their covers as we help readers, led me to contact Lynne Hansen, the cover artists for this specific book and for many others, to ask her to be my first ever horror artist for the "Why I Love Horror" series.

Below Hansen shares her love of the genre but also how carefully she crafts the cover to represent what readers will find inside. She uses Halloween Season as a specific example. 

So keep judging books by their covers for general RA purposes and read the first ever cover artist entry in my "Why I Love Horror" series below.

 
Why I Love Horror: Finding the Right Book

by Lynne Hansen

One of my earliest memories is curling up to watch the Acri Creature Feature with my dad on one side and my big brother on the other—and my mom clear on the other side of the house. Not every kind of horror is for everyone, but the genre is so wide that there is something for everyone here.

As a horror artist, I have the very best job in the world. I get to read amazing books by fantastic authors and then create art around my favorite parts. I get to help authors and publishers connect their stories with the right readers, just like librarians get to help readers connect with the right books.

My first drawings as a kid were of monsters. Acri Creature Feature had an art gallery segment every week where they would slowly pan across a wall filled with art sent in by kids. When I was five, I drew a picture of Bernie the Talking Skull and my brother helped me mail it to the television station. One week, I saw my creation on the screen. Sure, it was only for a split-second, practically subliminal, but I was hooked!
When I started school, my first stories were of monsters. I remember writing one about how when I wasn’t around, my stuffed animals would get up and have adventures—but not normal Toy Story type adventures—SCARY adventures.

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s—BG, Before Goosebumps—so when I wanted something scary to read, well, there were mysteries like Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. And I read a ton of fantasy, devouring Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, but as far as scary books for teens, the only thing I ever found was a series called Dark Forces where teens battled the supernatural. The covers usually featured a shocked or possessed student, and they were only available at our local bookstore—never the library.

At school I read Edgar Allan Poe, and was so excited to find stories that creeped me out and could still be part of curriculum.  I made a book report diorama for “The Pit and the Pendulum,” complete with rope-gnawing rats and a real working tin foil pendulum. I can still remember exactly which shelf in the library housed Poe’s books. (Fourth shelf down on the bookcase to the left of the window, and I read every book there at least twice.)

So there weren’t scary books for me growing up, just movies. But in 8th grade, I made off with a copy of Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews, thinking it was my best friend’s book, only to discover it was her mother’s. Probably not the best choice for a 13-year-old, but it started me down the path of reading adult horror. When I hit high school the next year, I got to read Stephen King’s Carrie and Clive Barker’s Books of Blood collections and I never looked back.

What I loved about horror, and still do, is the roller coaster ride it takes you on. When the lows are so low, the highs are even higher, and the adrenaline rush is amazing—when you find the right book.

It’s just so important to find the perfect match for a particular reader, and luckily there’s a great variety within the genre to choose from.

When I started out as a cover artist, 11 years ago this month, I would create art for whatever kind of book you needed—horror, of course, but also mysteries, young adult, sci-fi—even spicy romance. But my roster was always much more on the horror side. A little over two years ago I decided that I only wanted to make art for the genre I loved. If that meant I had fewer clients, that would be fine by me because at least I’d be doing the work that was most important to me. Wonderfully, I didn’t lose work—I got more. And more. And more after that. I’m so insanely grateful.

I think it has a lot to do with being a lifelong horror fan. I know that there are nuances to horror, and although we horror fans love our haunted houses and creepy skeletons I know that putting a generic version of one of those iconic symbols on a cover isn’t enough to connect the right readers to the right book.

Most book covers first reach out to readers as a tiny thumbnail, whether the reader is seeing the book online or across a crowded library. At this point, a good horror cover has to be readily identifiable as belonging to the genre. Even if a potential reader isn’t familiar with a particular author, they still have to think, “Hey, I like that kind of book! Let me take a closer look!”

And when the reader clicks the cover or crosses the room to pick up a book from a display, the reaction needs to be more than just, “Oh look, it’s bigger!” There needs to be a bonus element, a special detail that makes the reader say, “Oooh! I didn’t notice that! Now I want to know more about this book!” (I call this the “lean in” moment.) And hopefully they’ll flip to the back of the book and read the book description and be unable to put the book down until they reach the circulation desk.

Take for example the cover I created for Lucy A. Snyder’s collection Halloween Season from Raw Dog Screaming Press. [Click here to access it.] When you first see that book in thumbnail, you see a giant pumpkin house with excited trick-or-treaters about to ring the doorbell. Potential readers conjure fond childhood experiences with the holiday. Then they lean in to learn a bit more and discover that all is not all soft-focus nostalgia. There’s a silhouette of a man with a knife in one window, and in the other, we see a pair of little hands calling out for help. And is that a zombie crawling out from beneath the porch?

Most importantly, the cover mimics the range of stories you’ll find inside Snyder’s collection, which includes tales that will fill you alternately with love and dread for the Halloween season. If the cover to Halloween Season connects with a reader, so will the stories inside.

And as an artist, that’s all I ever want—for readers to find the authors and stories they’ll love if nudged in the right direction, kind of like I did. I couldn’t have a better job.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynne Hansen is a horror artist who specializes in book covers. She loves creating art that tells a story and that helps publishers and authors reach the audiences they deserve. Her clients include Cemetery Dance Publications, Thunderstorm Books and Raw Dog Screaming Press. She has illustrated works by New York Times bestselling authors including Jonathan Maberry, George Romero, and Christopher Golden. Her art has been commissioned and collected throughout the United States and overseas. Art-Haus Gallery in Atlanta will be hosting her solo art show “Lyrical Nightmares: The Art of Lynne Hansen.” For more information, visit LynneHansenArt.com or find her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at @LynneHansenArt.