Cover Art?

Depends on what's stipulated in your contract. Many large houses have a clause that says authors will be consulted, but not necessarily given direct input. It's something that, if you have strong views on it, your agent can negotiate for you.

Very rarely do you get ultimate say-so. Personally, I just want my work published, so I don't care all that much!

Usually not, especially with the big houses. Covers are often dictated by marketing geniuses who rarely if ever bother to read the books.

I screamed in horror when I saw the cover of my first novel. It was absolutely awful, but apparently got the job done to let people know in a glance what the book was about. Sort of.

Some houses actively discourage the artists from speaking to the writers.

Under very unusual circumstances I've had influence on a couple covers, but only because my co-writer had some clout. The publisher was open to suggestions, but didn't give a yes until he saw the art work.

Smaller presses may be more open to author suggestions, but don't count on it.

i'm with greenwillow books which is an imprint of harpercollins.
as far as i know, almost every person in my small imprint has
read SILVER PHOENIX--they even had the photographer who
did my cover read it. his wife read it, too! ha!

i think something was written in my contract about the cover,
that i would be consulted when necessary on it. no, i didn't have
final say. but i was asked along the way about chinese costumes,
possible background designs, etc. i also helped to choose the model
we used. so as a debut author, i was pleasantly surprised at how
much i was included in the process!

i didn't get to choose which pose they used, etc,
but i couldn't have been happier with the final cover.
i think it was really collaborative in my case because
they wanted to make sure they got the chinese details right.

every publisher is different, and experiences will vary
even within house.

I'm published by a small publisher. The contract gave the author the choice to design the cover or leave it to the publisher. I had very specific ideas so I worked it out with the publishers artist.

It's rare that you'll get much input on cover art. My advice is not to worry about it -- chances are, the publisher's designer will have a better idea of what works than you do. In the rare cases that this is not so, however, sometimes you can work through your agent to get a few modifications. (This isn't what happened to me, but I've heard about this with others.)

They asked what I wanted.

Luckily they liked it - and that's what I got. However I'm aware that this isn't usually the case.

I am asked for my input every step of the way at my small press. Basically, I have veto power, which I have used to date on four different cover suggestions. I'm phobic about horrible covers--as a matter of fact, the character on the cover of Temptation is the first character portrayal I've ever approved. The artist worked very closely with me, as did the art director, and the result was a cover that I really like, encapsulates three major images/plot points in the novel, and doesn't look like some Adult Swim cartoon reject.