The Making Of A Cover

In ten days - November 16 - my third book, An Unexpected Visit, will be available to own in both paperback and e-book formats. Within the next few days, I should have information to share regarding pre-ordering for those who wish to do so.

Today, I want to talk about book cover art; I'm one who believes a book should be judged by it's cover - not entirely, but the cover is as important as a good title. While the contents of a book are what it's all about, the substance of the cover design cannot be overlooked. The image that makes up the cover is a book's first line of defense; it's the silent sales pitch - it's what attracts the eye and curiosity of the person scanning shelves or online listings.

I was very fortunate with my second novel, The Painted Lady, as I was given the option to be the designer of that cover. When I'm writing a book, I consider a lot of angles and aspects - especially the image that'll represent that particular story. With Lady, my publisher felt they couldn't top the batch of concepts I had sent them - giving them my ideas for the cover to inspire their designer - so they assisted me in creating and finalizing that book's design.

With An Unexpected Visit, I had an idea for the cover, but not the talent to follow through. I'm good with sketching, but to have a fully fleshed out design is beyond my capability. Therefore, I reached out to a friend and very talented artist, Christopher Wright (www.clwright.com), who was excited at the prospect of taking on a book cover (I believe this was his first). All I had given him was a description of what I wanted (a farmhouse with a separate garage sitting back in a field at gloaming), and this sketch I did of the house:

This is the design, in full, Christopher created:

Gorgeous. I have the original canvas on display in my office. Christopher, originally, was going to paint a second design, to provide me more options, but I loved this one so much I told him to stop there.

Now comes the unfortunate bit of news. Even though my first two books are measured 6x9 (and I figured Visit would follow suit), you always want to have some wiggle room in a design. Therefore, some of the original image was cropped out to fit the final cover, which appears below.

So, yeah, as you can see we lost the garage at the top of the drive, and a bit of the trees along both fringes, but it's still an incredibly beautiful, and powerful image. It does the story right, and that's what's vital.

Come back later this week as I continue counting down the days to release; my hope is to put up an interview with the talented Christopher Wright about his design for An Unexpected Visit, as well as his motivations, style, and a casual discussion of his past, present, and future work.