Bodacious Book Covers

The cover of a book is like a handshake with the reader and makes a lasting first impression. Too limp and lifeless, it's ignored, and if it's painfully strong--ouch!  In other words, the cover speaks volumes before the first word is read. The title and artwork combine and create an invitation to read.

Preliminary Sketches before the title was finalized.

My experience with titles is mixed.  While I’m drafting, I use a

 working title which, so far, has never been used on the final cover.

And for nearly every project, I have long lists of possible titles

 that for one reason or another don’t measure up.  

 I loved Sketch number 5, but because it didn't represent the story as well as others, we decided against it.  

Sometimes I come up with the final title, and sometimes it's a collaboration. But often the publisher comes up with a title that fits perfectly.  The title for my new book is an example of this. I had a couple of working titles that were OK, but  when Doris Baker, of Filter Press suggested Trouble Returns for the third Ruby and Maude Adventure, I didn't hesitate to agree. 

There is a lot more suffering surrounding the choice of cover art.  I suspect Doris Baker and the artist, Jamie Stroud, are sorry they ever asked my opinion! I try hard to make mind pictures for my readers when I write, but no one visualizes the characters and setting the same way as I do.

I understand this, but I'm still like a spoiled child when it comes to the cover illustration.  I want the cover characters to look exactly the way they are in my mind.  "After all, they ARE my characters!”  I spend more time with them than I do my best friends and lay claim to the mental images created from hours of  historical research, time spent sifting through historical photos, newspaper archives, museum visits, and travel for the purpose of depicting the story as accurately as possible.

When I first see the cover sketches, I agonize over every detail and wish for an artist clone who can mind meld with me and reproduce the contents of my brain. In the end, I'm thankful no clone exists. Recently, I shared the above image for Trouble Returns with a friend, and she blurted, “I love it!”

And that has been my experience with the many readers who comment on the covers for my books and give them high praise.  The cover artists have done wonderful work. From Cathy Morrison, http://cathymorrison.blogspot.com/  cover illustrator for the book Hard Face Moon...

...to my Cousin Shannon Chandler https://www.facebook.com/scchandl/about who illustrated the cover for Insects in the Infield.

And most recently Jamie Stroud  http://jamiestroud.com/children.html  the artist for Trouble Returns and all the other Ruby and Maude Adventure covers.  Thank you, Jamie, for letting me share your thumbnail sketches, and for your vision and artwork on behalf of Ruby and Maude.

                      

The Pudding is in the Proof

I clicked the button.  Submit.  My hand was only a little shaky this time, and if I decide to do more self-published books with Create Space I might even get used to quivery feeling in the pit of my stomach before I click.



Book Cover by Shannon Chandler Gross. 
Ask if you'd like contact info.

 In my last blog, I mentioned that the next step after approving the mock-up was the Interior Proof stage.  This is when all the samples from the mock-up are put together into a complete book with lay-out, total page count, the way it will look when it's printed. You still have an opportunity to make changes at this point, but if they are changes that greatly affect the layout, then from this point on they cost extra.

I was ready for the final read of the proof. I did mine in chunks so that I was wide awake and didn't go too fast.  I caught a few mistakes that had been overlooked when I submitted my completed manuscript, but also couldn't resist making a few word choice changes.  When I did this, I kept them to a minimum and made sure they didn't add lines or change formatting.  If, letter for letter, I could make a replacement with a better word, I felt great. Or, as in one case, "great" became "swell."  Pretty silly change, but it fit better with the time period for the book.

It was actually a surprise how many little things cropped up, and it's a testimony to the concept of how a little stress can sometimes be good.  Stress and focus!  I probably mentioned earlier that I opted not to hire a professional editor, so this is where the hand started trembling over the submit button. (I'd only had coffee to drink.)

I decided, at this point, a couple of cold reads would not be a bad idea.  Yes, it slowed things down, but I figured it was worth it.  I asked my aunt Marlene, a retired librarian and avid reader, to read for me, and another friend who'd mentioned that she was good at picking out mistakes when she reads. 

True to her word, Jane found an comma after the word you're, but that was it. And my aunt made a couple of suggestions but didn't find anything that would stop a reader.  This is not to say that it's perfect.  My husband would say I've goofed up on a few of my comma rules, but on this, we agree to disagree.

Being queen of the project, I deemed the book finished and uploaded the revisions.  It would be seven more days before the changes would be incorporated.  Tick tock.

During this time I attended a writing conference, the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the SCBWI.  A friend of mine, Nancy Jurka, had her self-published poetry book with her, and we compared notes.  I watched her thumb through the book and talk about formatting.  I kept watching her open and close the book.  Blank page, title page, poems...  Blank page, title page, poems...

That blank page at the beginning started niggling at me.  Is that something I'd taken for granted would be added?  Did I need to give instructions for it?  The first page of my book started with the title page only.

What now?  I went home and started looking through my previously published books and other books in the house.  All of them had a blank page or a pre-title page before the "real" title page.  I sent a message to the design team at Create Space asking about adding the extra page at the front.  I also asked about what kind of a delay there would be, and was told that once I received the next proof, I would have to send it back again to have the blank page added. 

Groan...   Another seven day wait, and the next proof wouldn't arrive for a few more days.

I tried my hardest to convince myself the extra page wasn't needed and even went to a book store to peruse the shelves. Many of the books there started with just the title page. I tried to convince myself that it looked OK.  But the other books looked better.  The extra page at the front gave them a more professional look.

Ugh. 

To shorten this story, my husband and I returned from a short trip and there was a phone message from the Create Space design team.  One of the team members had seen my email message and asked if I wanted to have the blank page inserted at the beginning.  Yes!  Not only that, they added an image to the front of the blank page, dressing it up a little more.




For the next steps, the cover will be submitted, and they'll send me my first copy.  For sure any changes after this will be costly, but I'm not anticipating any. There are a few things I'd would do over from the start if I had the chance, but for now, I'm ready to go forward and see where this publishing adventure leads.  I've clicked the button and my hands have stopped shaking.