Author 'pokes fun' at his book's cover art, which didn't sit well with the illustrator
Authors, maybe don't be mean to your cover artist.
Fantasy author Terry Goodkind has just released his novel Shroud of Eternity, but seemingly wasn't too satisfied about the cover. So he ran a competition, giving away signed copies of the books in exchange for people's thoughts on it.
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"Shroud of Eternity is a great book with a very bad cover. Laughably bad. So let's have some fun with it," he wrote on Facebook last Friday.
Not so impressed was the illustrator of the book's cover, Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme, who responded to Goodkind's Facebook post.
"It was nice working with you Terry. What you are doing is totally disrespectful. As if I didn’t create those covers accorded to exactly what I was told to do," Lecouffe-Deharme commented.
"In my entire career I have never seen an author behaving like that."
And this is how he thinks he can talk to me.#wrongtargetTerry pic.twitter.com/FHUK85R7A6
— Bastien L.Deharme (@deharme) February 25, 2018
Other illustrators and writers on Twitter vented their fury at the "unprofessional" post.
... Wow. Actually appalled to see this post from Terry Goodkind on Facebook.
Artists DIRECTLY follow a brief they are given by YOUR publisher. Publicly dragging the work they do for you is a dick move, not to mention incredibly unprofessional. pic.twitter.com/PJzJXDLfvC— Leesha Hannigan (@LeeshaHannigan) February 24, 2018
Ugh. How rude and unprofessional on Goodkind's part. Art directors/cover artists have a hard job; authors don't need to make it harder by acting like asses. https://t.co/ykUUB8MDCs
— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) February 25, 2018
Protip: authors...don’t. https://t.co/8E3c1GH8D3
— Zoraida Aracely Córdova Toledo (@zlikeinzorro) February 25, 2018
On Saturday, Goodkind responded to the furore by saying he was only "poking fun at my own book."
He added that he wanted to make a point about his publisher and how it chose cover art that's a "poor representation of characters within the book."
"In no way do I feel the quality of the art is rendered poorly. For any misunderstanding, I apologize to the artist, his friends, and of course my own community here ... My dissatisfaction with the art isn't the artist's fault, of course; the art was commissioned and directed by the publisher," he wrote on Facebook.
For Lecouffe-Deharme, the damage appears to be done.
"This person attacked me, and I said my part. I remained correct all the way in front of this despicable behavior," he responded on Facebook. "The rest of the story will unfold privately, between adults, as it should have been the case from the start."
Mashable has contacted Tor Books for comment.
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