I was just reading in the May/June Poets and Writers about Fence Magazine's tenth birthday (http://www.pw.org/content/qampa_rebecca_wolff039s_fence_turns_ten). The article mentions the magazine's controversial decision to put a naked woman on the cover.

I missed that issue (though I am now trying to find it on EBay - for research purposes of course). So I can't comment on that decision. But it has occurred to me that we may have missed a major opportunity with the cover of my novel The Marriage of True Minds. We could have used a Naked Lobster.

Here is the existing very interesting cover design:

(http://www.redroom.com/publishedwork/marriage-true-minds).

As you can see, our lobster is wearing (or possibly living in) a tasteful top hat. That's appropriate, reminiscent of the screwball comedies from the Thirties to whose spirit the book is beholden.

But I am wondering now if a Naked Lobster on the cover might have rocketed sales into the, well, I don't really know how many copies have been sold. But more.

Then again, with a cover like that, maybe the book would have had to have a brown paper wrapper, or been sold from behind the counter, or even been relegated to the Prurient Crustacean shelf in the back of the store behind the red bib. So I guess the designer knew what he was doing after all.

I suppose I should leave cover design to the pros. Frankly, I'm still amazed my book has a cover I didn't have to type myself.