Island Life, Word Birds & Process

It’s a typically ‘island’ morning. Heavy mist brings a sense of isolation, perfect for a writer, pondering what to write on her neglected blog. It’s a month since my last post. It occurred to me just now that it’s three days shy of a year since I revealed the cover for my second book, Snow Sisters.

Tenterhooks wasn’t in it. I’d spent weeks, watching the process of cover-creation unfold, silently screaming, ‘It’s too blue!!!’ The original image was a lot paler & it was partly why, when I was offered the image, I jumped at it. And then the designer came on board & the blue set in.

‘Trust the process,’ said my editor, when I voiced a small concern.
Too blue, I muttered to myself.

Oh, ye of little faith.

One of the things you learn, as you navigate the publishing world, is that the importance of a cover has little to do with what you, the author, imagines it to be. It isn’t about your vision or the pictures you’ve been hoarding ever since you thought up your first title. (Which, FYI, could well end up have nothing to do with your initial idea either.) It’s about marketing: shelf-appeal, genre-style & how customers (often subconsciously) react to covers, to colours & font. And getting all of this right is a skill. Like professional editing & diligent proofreading, cover design is down to someone else’s skill-set & rarely to yours.

Blue then – deep, subtle blue with hints of ice… Perfection. And apparently, popular.

I love my book covers. On the shelf, my wee books are bobby-dazzlers.

In a year (minus three days) of Sundays I doubt I could have come up with anything remotely as sweet. Brava Honno, (longest-standing independent women’s press in the UK, by the way) you do us proud.