About a year and half ago I commissioned a painting for a book cover. The book was not scheduled but, why not get something done early, right? Wrong.
About two weeks ago I was just two days from going to press on the jacket. By odd chance I was procrastinating...I mean, doing "important research" online and I came across a cover that was practically the exact same image on an upcoming book -- revamped slightly, the colors shifted a little...but ultimately, the same image. On a book in the same market. Releasing around the same time as ours...Soooo not good.
I spent the day trying to contact the artist, thinking that perhaps someone copied their work. As the day went on, and I looked at it a few more times, it became clear that both versions really were...well....the same and must have come from one artist.
Even though I had commissioned the piece over a year ago, I had to pull the plug on our jacket. Of course, at that point it had already been approved by the editor, publisher, and sales department, the author had it for months, it was too late to change our catalog, and I needed to scramble around to create a new cover in two days. Really, not good.
Latter that day....
By odd chance (again) I was attending an annual cocktail party for publishing art directors held at the Type Directors Club. I ran into a friend and started describing what a dreadful day I was having. I didn't name names, I just started describing the painting a bit. They stopped me in mid sentence, realizing that I was describing their cover! They weren't much happier about the situation than I was. They were in better shape, even though I had commissioned the art first, since their book is releasing two months before ours and their jacket has already been making the rounds. Still, they were livid, understanding that it could easily have happened the other way.
The next day the artist was highly apologetic (working too hard, didn't realize, etc.) and everything worked out. The second cover might be as good as the first...I've kinda lost perspective on it. The worst part of it was that, as it gets harder and harder for art directors to work with artists, two of us sat at that TDC party complaining about an illustrator rather than be excited by them.