Drumroll please….This is my book’s cover!
Jian Chan and I spent hours and hours and then a few more hours on it in February. He is the most patient and most talented cover designer. He took a couple of my photos and turned them into art. I am absolutely beyond lucky to get to work with him. 🙂
The back cover blurb:
Sometimes saving the person you love can cost you everything.
There is one person that ties Oliver Richter to this world: his wife Kai. For Kai, Oliver is the keeper of her secrets.
When her telepathy spirals out of control and inundates her mind with the thoughts and emotions of everyone within a half-mile radius, the life they built together in Manhattan is threatened.
To save her, Oliver brings her to the hometown he abandoned—Butternut, Wisconsin—where the secrets of his past remain buried. But the past has a way of refusing to stay dead. Can Kai save Oliver before his secrets claim their future?
An emotionally powerful debut, The Six Train to Wisconsin pushes the bounds of love as it explores devotion, forgiveness and acceptance.
Do you like the cover? Do you think it fits the back cover blurb?
How exciting! I love the color, I think it’s artistic and mysterious enough to represent the blurb. Can’t wait to read it!
I am so so thrilled with it. My cover designer exceeded all expectations. He amazed me. Aw thanks! I hope you enjoy it!
Very cool! Congratulations!
Thanks Marc! 🙂
Looks great, congrats!
Thanks. 🙂 I really love it.
Fascinating story and artful cover, love it! Good luck and much success with it all. Let us know when it goes on Amazon 🙂
Aw, thanks! 🙂 🙂 Will do!
Love the cover! Gorgeous! Chan is extremely talented – is he one of the artists that contributes illustrations to the Story Shack?
I do like the back cover blurb; very intriguing. The one sentence that reads a little awkwardly to me: But the past has a way of refusing to stay dead. It’s the “refusing to stay dead” part that makes me wonder if you can tweak it. I know what you’re trying to say, just my humble opinion that it doesn’t roll easily off the tongue. Maybe something like: But sometimes, the past refuses to die?
Thanks! Nope. He’s my web designer. This is his first cover and he did it because I begged him to help me. I like to work with people I trust and know well and since we’d spent months on the website I knew we’d get the cover perfect. 🙂
Thanks! Interesting idea on the tweak. I’m pretty settled on that blurb but I do appreciate the input and will let it roll around in my head for a bit. 🙂
One more thought – is your back cover going to include the fact that The Six Train was a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough contest?
Great thought! My designer did include it on the back cover. I have the wrap around cover as a .tif file but not a jpeg so I wasn’t sure I could upload it. LOL. I’ll ask him to get me that as a .jpeg so I can put it up. 🙂
I love the cover and the story sounds so interesting. Looking forward to reading it.
Thanks Catherine! I can’t believe it’s only 7 weeks away. Time has really sped by this spring. 🙂
Very nice, Kourtney! I love the swirling snow in the air–fits the mood. 🙂 One thing I might do if I were you, is change the font of the title or your name so that they aren’t identical–or maybe you did that? (Could be my eyes. LOL) The lower/uppercase may be enough difference… I learned that the variance helps from a sales standpoint.
Regardless, Congrats!
Thanks. Jian really has an eye for design. So so glad I can work with him on this. 🙂 I think they are the same font. Great tip! I had no idea. Jian actually came up with the lowercase. I was going to do it all in small caps. Stupid question,why does the variance help? Does it catch the reader’s attention?
Aw thanks. 🙂
Awesome cover! I am working with an artist on mine right now and it just makes the project seem so much more real! I love your choice here xx
Thanks! It took a lot of iterations to get it here. Many times my tweak wasn’t an improvement but my designer indulged me so I’d be 100% certain I loved it. It really does. Having a cover and seeing the ebook get formatted really make it real. Holding the actual book will be the pinnacle of reality. 😉 I can’t wait to see yours.
I love it, Kourtney. Je l’adoooore! Congrats 😀
Thanks Cha! 🙂 I really appreciate hearing that from an artist–you’ve got such a great eye for things.
Love the cover. Love the blurb. And I think the two match well. It’s getting closer!
Thanks Carrie! We really worked to make them fit. I can’t believe it. Proofing ebooks this and next week. And then next week the actual paperback proof may arrive!
I think it looks great. It’s getting closer 🙂
Thanks Pete! Time seems to be pouring through my fingers. But we’re still on schedule. Thanks goodness! 7 weeks until it’s available.
I’m sure it’ll continue to fly by. 🙂
Just when I think I’ve on top of things, a dozen new tasks suddenly appear.;)
Yes I do. The cover is stunning and fits really well with the storyline. Intrigued!!!
Oh good! I’m so glad to hear that Catherine. We played around with dozens of images before we settled on this one. Excellent–the cover is doing everything I want it to then. 🙂
Yes, I think the cover matches the blurb. As August pointed out, maybe a somewhat different font for your name from the title, but impressions like that are very subjective. In traditional publishing, you’ll often find headings in a sans serif font and text in a serif font. The differences serve to distinguish the two levels of information. For book covers, there is much more room for creativity. But again, what “looks good” to one person’s eyes may “look awkward” to another. Before you finalize it, you may want to look at some of the book covers in your library and see what looks good to you. 😉
Of course, a lot of readers won’t even notice something like that. They’ll be looking at the photo and title, then turning over the book to read the blurb. 😉
Great! 🙂
My cover designer spent a while pouring over covers to get ideas on fonts and layout. He actually selected the font and picked the small caps and the lower case. We tried several different combos before we settled on this one. I’m not so good at that stuff–all my suggestions were knocked out of the running. He’s got the eye for it!
Interesting. I never noticed that until you mentioned it. I’m really happy with how the cover turned out. This is our finalized version. Just waiting on Createspace to print the physical proof with it.
My heart fluttered when I saw this—-I can imagine how it made you feel to see this. Really, really like it Kourtney. Congrats.
Aw thanks! Every time I look at it, I thank my cousin James for introducing me to Jian! 🙂 I am so giddy to see the book and so delighted to have this cover on it. 🙂
It’s beautiful!!! Great job.
Thanks Jenny! 🙂 I loved the cover of your anthology. Mysterious and intriguing!
Great cover, Kourtney! I love that it’s an artsy photo. So exciting. 🙂
Thanks Coleen. 🙂 I just took the photos and asked my cover designer to mix them together. He somehow got exactly what I wanted. 🙂 It’s really cool to be adding the cover to the ebook and to the paperback. It’s coming up sooo soon!
I love both the cover and the blurb for the same reasons – they are simple, clean and entice the reader in to find out more. Good work 🙂
Thank you EllaDee. 🙂 That makes me so happy! I spent months on the blurb and the cover. More time on the blurb though. My cover designer did all the heavy lifting for the cover. 🙂
Yes, I like the cover. Congratulations, I wish you the best of luck with your book.
Thanks! I appreciate the support. 🙂
I LOVE the cover! Fabulous. Much luck on I’m sure a really good read.
Thank you! We went through dozens of possibilities and then dozens of iterations. It was amazing to see my vision laid out and improved upon. I <3 my cover designer!
Wow! I’m in love with the cover and the blurb totally sucked me in. I want to read it.
Thank you so much Char! 🙂 I’ll be giving away some free copies via Goodreads and blog tour giveaways in June. I might get the ebook up a little before the release date too. 🙂
Beautiful cover!
Thanks! Still waiting on the proof copy. Createspace does not always adhere to my expected timelines. 😉
Well, how dare they. 😉
LOL. It’s publishing. So it’s a lot of hurrying up to wait just over a shorter time span than traditional I guess. 😉 I just wish they had been more forthcoming with possible lag times early on so I could have planned better and allotted for them. 🙂
So exciting. I love the cover and the blurb, and I think they go well together. 🙂 Nice job to you and Jian Chan.
Thanks Kathryn! Aw that totally makes my day! I am so unbelievably lucky to work with him! 🙂