As I’ve mentioned before, author Steve Brezenoff and and I have been working with a YALSA Galley Group in St. Paul called Teen Know Best to figure out the best way to put a cover on that guy’s book, The Absolute Value of –1 (|-1| for short). We’re almost done. I’ll let  Steve and TKB director Adela Peskorz tell how it’s going:

Steve, on his blog:

Last night was our last pre-final-cover meeting with the wonderful TKBs. It was a blast, naturally, and there were even more questions and comments for me, which was nice. See, there was more time at the end before the members had to scatter because we only looked at four comps on the old overhead. Anywho, the questions and comments were mostly very flattering and I probably went red once or twice.

The point is I think most of the members who read |-1| (at least those who spoke up) liked it.

Oh! And the covers. Well, I was pretty hot on one of ’em, and pretty cold on one of them, and downright unmoved by another, but one of them in particular has me more excited than a crawfish at a clambake. Unfortunately, the AE warns me that it’s nowhere near in the bag yet, what with all the necessary approvals down the road from Sales and departments like Sales. So I can’t say anything specific about it. You’ll all have to be patient with me. But it won’t be long, mind you, as we need finals pretty right quick for the catalog.

Adela, on the TKB blog:

The whole process was fun! We loved Brezenoff’s book (especially the controversial twist :0) and enjoyed the company of Steve, Andrew, Elizabeth, and all their friends at our meetings!

We can’t wait to see The Absolute Value of -1 in print!!

I can say that Steve’s preferred cover is in the process of being wrestled into the bag. Things look good.

For my part, I’ll just say it was great to have so much thoughtful feedback on this project. The teens in the group blew me away repeatedly with their insights.

Covers for YA novels are always, always, always hard. I’ve worked on scores of them, and it only gets more difficult. Sometimes I wish Steve had written a  self help book, in which case we’d have been done ages ago:

I mean, it’s just a mock up, but see how I left room lots of for an Oprah seal?

-Andrew Karre