A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are made. Thanks to Simon and Schuster Children's Books, I have been fortunate enough to interview their Senior Designer, Paul Coomey about how he designed the cover for The Dark Inside by Rupert Wallis, as part of The Dark Inside Blog Tour. Other than the cover, all images in this post are copyrighted to Paul Coomey and used with permission, and can be clicked to enlarge.
Can you tell us about the cover for The Dark Inside? What do you hope it tells readers about the story?The Dark Inside is one of the best books I read in 2013. I’m fortunate enough to work on a fiction list that is packed with excellent reads, but working on this book has been a particular treat. It’s my kind of book, the kind of story I would have devoured as a fourteen-year-old, a solid, dangerous kind of tale that puts you firmly in harm’s way. It’s not without hope, of course, and it might just have a happy ending.
With many cover designs, a single image will present itself at the first reading of the manuscript. For example, with Find Me by Romily Bernard, I was taken with the idea that the main protagonist, Wick, was locking everything, all of the woes of her family and Tessa’s case, inside herself, and this became the image of a profile in silhouette containing the broken glass and other elements. This was not the case when reading The Dark Inside. There are many iconic moments and strong images throughout the text, but there isn’t a single image that I would say defines the story.
