Tag: Book cover design

Busy, Busy

Last night I answered questions from the design team for Looking for Home about my book, key scenes, setting, suggested cover images, and characters to inform the design of the book. That was fun! Hopefully some designs come in later in the week and I can pick from them.

The designer said she liked to try to pull the theme out of the book and into the cover to attract the reader. I have no idea how that might work–I know what I’ve always envisioned for the cover, but I don’t have a graphics design degree, so I truly have no idea what may be coming. But I look forward to finding out!

In other news, I have another two events this coming month for Hurricane Baby: Stories! I go back to Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Flowood, MS on Saturday, December 6 from noon to three p.m., signing and selling books for Christmas. Then the next weekend on Saturday, December 13, from three to five p.m. I sign and sell books alongside Natchez native RJ Lee at Dixon Books in Natchez, MS for their Christmas sales. So we will see how those events go.

Things seem to be moving fast this holiday season–before you know it, it’ll be Christmas, then New Year’s. If you want to buy a book by an indie author, debut author, and Mississippi author all in one, click on “Hurricane Baby: Stories” in the left-hand menu, then look for the order buttons to the right on the book page. I think you’ll be glad you did!

Book Cover Planning

So in the author questionnaire I filled out for my publisher, I was asked my ideas for the cover design of Hurricane Baby. I’ve been asked this one other time, and my idea for the cover hasn’t changed–I wanted a faded black-and-white or sepia-toned photo of the barrier islands on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with the title and my byline in italics so it would look like the words were being blown across the page. My publisher thought that was a neat idea.

So last time I checked in with the publisher, she said I could start working on the cover by creating a “mood board” of pictures that I would like to see. She suggested I use Shutterstock, but I don’t have an account there, so I used Morguefile instead, a free site I have used before for blog post pictures back when I was guest blogging.

I used the keywords of “Hurricane Katrina Mississippi Gulf Coast” and got lots of pictures. I didn’t want any that were of graphic direct hurricane damage–i.e. houses broken down to matchsticks or anything like that, because the hurricane damage in Hurricane Baby is largely psychological, rather than physical. I didn’t want to give away much about the story, so I didn’t want an actual baby on the cover. So I pulled three photos that really evoked the mood–one of a clouded-over sky, another of surf on the beach, and another I really liked: a tree standing alone on the beach having not been knocked over by the winds.

That picture particularly struck me because Hurricane Baby is all about people who survive the storm but are changed forever because of it. They are still standing–but they’re scarred and alone in their inner turmoil.

Anyway, I sent those to the publisher and she latched onto the tree one as well. So that was happy. I told her that I wasn’t wedded to any particular picutre that I sent and she was welcome to send me any others when the time came to select the cover, but that these three represented the vibe I was going for. So once I get the manuscript to them after this edit I’m currently in, I will see what they come up with for the cover and have fun!

So if you will excuse me, I will go back to editing! Happy Sunday and happy writing!