today we bring you the 2014 brooklyn book festival from new york. coverage includes panels on city planning, politics, nelson mandela, voting rights and public education. on "after words," the story of a tragic car accident due to texting and the effect technological distractions have on society. steve almond takes a critical look at football from the brutality of the sport to the financial privileges it provides. calls books about the -- also books about women in the civil war, the drafting of the emancipation problem proclamatid intelligent machines. for more information, visit us online at booktv.org. >> i'm the executive art director for the simon & schuster or imprint. >> host: and what does that mean? >> guest: well, i oversee and design the simon & schuster imprint, and there are many different imprints of simon and

schuster, scrivener, touchstone, gallery. there's all different art directors for those, but i solely do the simon & schuster imprint. >> host: so you do the covers of books. >> guest: yeah. >> host: what goes into a cover of a book? >> guest: well, the first thing that when we hear about this project, usually from the editor, we find out what the book is about. there's a manuscript or sometimes there isn't, sometimes there's just a little bit to read, and you get a flavor of what the voice of the author is. and from that we kind of have a discussion with the editor, the publisher and the author to find out do they have any preconceived notions of what they're looking for, and it's always good to hear that up front. you get -- even if they don't, you get a sense of their aesthetics, and you can do some

research at the bookstores, see what the competition is like, what the -- what books they're going to be facing in that limited book shelf space. >> host: well, i want to start with this one, and this is former senator james webb -- >> guest: yeah. >> host: his new book, "i heard my country calling." how did this develop? how did this cover develop? >> guest: well, this one was actually pretty straightforward in that it's a story of his and his father's years in war, and he had these, a trove of photographs. and so we knew we wanted to kind of give it a little illustrative look, a little bit, you know, of a nostalgic feel. so it was marrying the two photos together so that they were cohesive. >> host: what went into your madison's gift: five partnerships that built america -- this is a new book, right? >> guest: right, this is a new

book. well, it is madison, so kind of calls for having his photo on it. and because of the subtitle, "the five partnerships," you know, you kind of need to explain that, what does that mean and who are those five people. so in this case it worked out nicely that we had five beautiful portraits of the five people that mattered. >> host: one of the other books you worked on, jackie, was "the bully pulpit." and we all know what the cover looks like. >> guest: right. >> host: here's the cover of the book, and that's the finished product. but what was this? >> guest: so, you know, when we first learn about a book and we do a little exploration as to the photographs that are out there, there were great photographs of the two of them together. and so we thought that was a

great opportunity to design something with that. but when we started to look at it, it didn't have the big hook that we wanted, the epic feel. and you see that typography has that feel, that historical feel. but then we started to think maybe it needed to just look classic. so we tried some different fonts, tried adding a little color, and, yeah, so that's how we ended up. >> host: did doris kerns goodwin have any say in the cover -- >> guest: oh, absolutely. >> host: do authors get to say yea or nay to a cover, or is it the publishers? >> guest: absolutely. both do. obviously, an author who's worked on their baby, so, and they're going to go out on the road selling the book. so you want them to be happy.

and when they, when they are, it's wonderful. they're very appreciative. and it's a little give and take, you know? with doris she didn't want her name on the top, she wanted it on the bottom. so she wanted to see a little bit more of the faces. so, you know, we played with that a little bit. >> host: do color schemes come in and out of fashion as well? >> guest: oh, yeah, sure. sure. you know, sometimes even fashion itself, the hot color of what's on the runway can effect what is on a book cover. but, yeah, definitely. obviously, i think red is always a sure shot. it's always been known that green not necessarily unless you're a book about golf and money. [laughter] finance book. so i think blue sell ises really well -- sells really well.

>> host: well, john mccain, senator mccain has a new book coming out, and here's a cover that you're currently working on. >> guest: right. and that's actually a work in progress because we're reworking it. a couple of the retailers have told us that they'd like to see a more classic historical photographic treatment. so we do get feedback like that from places like barnes & noble and sames and costco when -- sams, when they feel something isn't quite to their market. >> host: and so you respond to that as well. >> guest: absolutely. we respond to it, and sometimes we don't change it and sometimes we do. so it's really up to the publisher's decision. to make that kind of a decision. >> host: jackie, is there a cover, is there artwork in a book that you are extremely plowed of or that you -- proud of or that you really worked

hard on? >> guest: well, i think the steve jobs book is one that i'm, i really thought was striking. we worked closely, actually, with the author on the hard cover -- >> host: which has an older picture -- >> guest: an older photograph, right. and that was definitely a classic photo. we were very fortunate when we went to paperback that i guess mr. jobs likes that pose, because it was the exact same pose done 30 years before. so we saw it as a marketing opportunity to give the book a fresh look, to maybe even have people who bought the hard cover wanting to have a collect or's item of the paperback. so -- >> host: and why black and white and gray for this book? >> guest: you know, that just happened to be, it all has to do with the photograph. and that's really, it's not a conscious decision, it's just when you have a fantastic photo,

you let that shine. >> host: jimmy carter, "call to action," his most recent book. >> guest: uh-huh. you know, it's very serious. he takes the subject very much to heart. and we did it, this book came about very quickly, and it's his passion about women's rights. and so we knew it needed to be very straightforward, nothing that's embellished. it's a hard subject matter, so, you know, the blue color is done to kind of soften the tone. >> host: has it ever been a time when a book is going to print and for whatever reason the cover has to be changed? >> guest: oh, yeah. [laughter] um, i'm running a blank on that now but, yes, absolutely. that happens, but usually it's not quite so right at the point

that it's going to the printer. and it could be, like i said, feedback, feedback from the retailers, or there's another cover out that has the exact same photograph, very similar. we didn't realize that we need to change. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. this weekend it's the 19th annual baltimore book festival being held at the city's inner harbor. from october 10th-12th, the southern festival of books in downtown nashville hosts over 200 authors and features three performance stages with live readings and music. the following week from october 16th-19th is the wisconsin book festival in madison, wisconsin. and on october 25th and 26th,

booktv will be live from austin, texas, for the 19th annual texas book festival. the festival from the state's capital city will showcase over 275 authors. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area, and we'll add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv at c-span.org. >> malcolm byrne takes an updated look at the iran contra scandal using interviews with key participants. he argues the scandal was likely bigger than previously believed. this is about an hour and a half. ..