It's Official: My New Book is Complete and the Design of the Cover has Begun

After all the writing and editing, after the Beta readings, the rewrites, the trimmings and more trimmings, we finally arrive at the cover design. I find this part of the book process to be interesting, even exciting. In my mind's eye I have an image of the cover that will wrap around the content I've agonized over for three years, but that image is more emotional than visual. It's more related to the reaction that I hope people will take away with them upon viewing the cover than the cover's elements themselves. I find myself hard-pressed to describe to my designers the vision I hold in my head. The creative process of book covers feels half magical to me and going through it is like photographing music. The part I don't enjoy is how much it all costs. Of course, everything in this complicated book world costs something, and many of the promised results prove dubious. In the case of the book cover, however, I clearly accept that it as my only chance to make a first impression.

Writing books is such a strange addiction: there's way more lows than highs, so it's a wonder anyone keeps at it. For me, it takes years of hard work to go from a blank page to a finished manuscript. It entails days of delight and days of despondency, often back to back. I know, we live in an era where AI software pinky-promises that they can deliver a glorious, finished book in just a few hours, if we'll only feed them a half-baked premise and a small fee. Want to change genres? No problem. They'll even throw in a stunning cover and the trailer for the upcoming film for a slight up-charge. As far as I'm concerned, I still believe that writing is for humans and AI can assist but not replace real authors. I'm happy to discuss that thesis but not here and not now.

The book design company I'm currently working with is Damonza Studios. They are the brainchild of Damon Freeman, an advertising and design refugee, who saw the self-publishing boom coming back in 2012 and built a small company to welcome it. He and his team have now designed covers and interior formatting for literally thousands of books. Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Damon's company of motivated professionals somehow convert the thoughts in your head into compelling images on a cover. I've seen them in action once before with my Literary Novel, Still Breathing, and I'm trusting the magic still holds true.

I enjoy working with Damonza because their approach is so straight forward. I've completed their first steps already: chosen a package, filled out their practical forms, and sent along my own hopes for front matter, body matter, and back matter. I've delivered my copyright page as well as my ISBN numbers. I've finalized my Author's Notes section and I've made my deposit payment (50% of the total fee). Most importantly, I've sent them my final "tweaked and perfect" manuscript as a Word document. My project has now been assigned a number and I've met (via email) my project manager, Robynne. I've sent Robynne my written thoughts about the cover and she's moved them on to her right people. Damonza guarantees I’ll have three draft designs to view within 14 days. If none of the initial drafts (or any follow-up first draft attempts) feel like the right fit, and if I'm not satisfied with the direction overall, they’ll refund my full deposit with no hard feelings. Otherwise, if I select one of their design directions as the one I want to go with, they will revise it "endlessly" until I say it's exactly perfect. (That's quite a fair guarantee!)

Today, at 6 pm my time (Auckland is now 17 hours ahead), I have a 15-minute Zoom conference with my project's creative director, Damon Freeman himself, to talk about my expectations and ideas regarding the cover design. I'm looking forward to that discussion and will report back how it goes.

This new book, Her Lost Diary, is in a new genre for me, Contemporary Romantic Suspense, and I expect the cover to be different than what I'm used to. I'm a firm believer in allowing human experts, especially those more skilled than I am, to have their way. It doesn't mean I abdicate my responsibility to say yes or no, but it means I listen first and weigh their reasons for what they create, before I make any decisions or offer reactions.

We will see what we will see.