I hope this isn't a duplicate thread.
From
Dear Author:
Quote:
Author LK Rigel’s self published book, Spiderwork, has a gorgeous cover. So gorgeous that HarperCollins contacted the artist to purchase it from her. The artist refused. No matter, thinks HarperCollins.
In an email, Nathalie Suellen, the artist, shared she was originally contacted by writer LK Rigel about the license for Suellen’s original artwork ‘City of Angels’ which was created in 2009. The license was sold to Rigel and Rigel used it on her book ”Spiderwork.” HarperCollins contacted the artist in May 2011. The company offered her 4,000 dollars (a very normal value offered for cover art) but knew that the art had been sold to another author.
The artist refused because the cover art had already been used on a book and she didn’t think it was right for the same cover art to grace more than one book. Suellen offered to create another image, including one with the same model but eventually the parties could not come to an agreement. Suellen had no further contact with HC and thought the matter had been dropped. (Read more at Suellen’s site) Then the “Bewitching” cover appeared. Suellen contacted HC and received no response.
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It's ironic, to me, that publishers make a huge deal over copyright. Especially when they are prone to breaking copyright themselves whenever they see fit.
I also think this is hugely insulting to both self-published authors and artists. One of the major issues that readers generally have with self-published work is the lack of editing and "polishing" (i.e. good cover art). It's sad that this self-published author did everything that she was supposed to do. Yet she still may possibly be viewed by the reading public as the person who "copied" the traditionally published author.
I plan to purchase a copy of LK Rigel's book just in support (of course, it doesn't hurt that she's in my genre, too
).
See also:
http://www.lkrigel.com/2011/08/shoul...pset/#comments
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...-rip-off-cover
http://nathaliasuellen.blogspot.com/...publisher.html