How my book cover was designed!

I've had quite a few compliments about my book cover, and questions about who designed it for me, so I thought I'd chat a bit about my experience of recruiting my perfect artist and the stages we went through before the final cover was created.

I went into this part of the experience quite nervous, as I'd been on quite a few webinars where book covers were discussed and, to be honest, it seemed a bit of a minefield. You have to look at trends, research the books in your genre and ensure yours fits in (if you want sales, that is!), don't pick certain colours because they're not in vogue, don't make the space too cluttered, but not too plain either - aaahhhh! Where do you even begin 😕?

The only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted to work with a designer and get something I loved, but how to do that? I had no idea. I chatted to writer friends, and everyone seemed to have different advice, so I decided to listen to my heart. 

My genre is humorous women's fiction, so bright colours seemed to be everywhere - no black or grey or dark colours of any kind. We're talking pinks, mints, peaches, yellows, the tones very pastel or so in-your-face they could be seen from the moon! And clear-to-read fonts seemed to be popular too - there was an occasional really fancy, twirly lettering style used, but more of them were big and bold.

Okay, so that part of my research was done but during it, I'd come to realise there were some designs I really loved, whereas others didn't do it for me at all. So what, exactly, DID I want? Hhhmmm, tricky 🤔

The funny thing is, when I was writing my novel, I got an idea that just wouldn't go away. The concept of the novel revolves around words beginning with the letter F - they dominate the novel because my protagonist is haunted by them. She had always wanted to be 'fabulous' but life got in the way and as the novel opens, she realises she's inadvertently stuck in a 'fug'! 

Add into that every chapter is about one of her Fs, from family and friends, to fellas and finances, so the F in the title needed to feature strongly on the cover. 

As you can see from the initial sketches (not completed by me, I should add 😂), I'd visualised a mini-Jaye struggling to hold up her burden, an F, and she was stuck in the gloom of its shadow. That seemed doable, didn't it? Discussions with some designers proved it wasn't that easy, so then I had my doubts. 

And there was a second problem. It's set in Scotland, in the beautiful Highlands, and I'd love them to feature on the cover, but my genre rarely has busy covers. How could we bring in a Scottish flavour, whilst also being in-keeping with the genre? Oh dear, I was asking quite a lot, and I hadn't realised.

One thing that became very apparent during my search for the perfect designer was that my vision couldn't be realised by someone buying stock images and putting them together. Yikes!  Luckily I kept looking and stumbled across the amazing Sofie Birkin, a Brit living in New York. 

Sophie's a multi-award winning illustrator, graphic designer and product designer with 10 years experience, specialising in character work and typography for editorial and publishing. Impressive, although what some of that meant I didn't really know! But chatting with her was lovely, as she's this lovely ball of positive energy, and I found out that she sketches all her covers, using the latest technology to convert them into covers, so that sounded exactly what I needed. And Sofie quickly proved to be the perfect fit for me. All these sketches are hers - she gave me so many brilliant cover ideas to choose from, but I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Her first request was to read some of my novel and then start drawing, using my half-formed ideas, and adding a few of her own. 

I wanted to utilise her creativity, because she was the expert, and she came up with some amazing ideas. For example, the dress cover (right) is a scene from the novel, where my main character, Jaye, is getting dressed-up to go out. Buying the 'right' dress had been a nightmare for her. 

Luckily her best friend spotted the perfect dress - red, sequins, and something Jaye would never have the courage to wear on her own. Once bought though, she had many misgivings, and there's a fun scene where she's preparing to go out and nothing goes right with her preparations - even the dress doesn't fit anymore, so she definitely has a love/ hate relationship with it! 

Sofie took this scene and created this amazing cover. I have to be honest, I was blown away by it. The only downside was that it was one scene from the book, and this is book 1 of a series of 3, so it wouldn't translate well into the rest of the books, but I really hated shelving it!

Another of Sofie's ideas was a charm bracelet full of Fs - such a lovely idea (left)! 

But she loved my the huge F idea too and I've included a couple of her many different styles of F she created for me. She gave me far too much choice! But I think her idea of filling the F with a Scottish view was utter genius! 

She played with putting the scene behind (left), but it was too busy, compared to others in the genre. But it does make the F pop brilliantly and her artistic skill would have made a beautiful cover - again, this was so hard to reject!

But we had our winner (first B&W sketch above) and she then got busy colouring it in. Great, I thought, job done. But no! I had no idea this would be another nightmare!

There were definite colours that seemed to be more popular, so Sofie researched for me and came up with some examples (below). There was a choice of background colours, font colours, shading, shadowing, outlining - wow, my head wanted to explode 😂 

The thing about these covers is that I liked them all, but when you have to make a choice, where do you start? 

I went to my beta readers, friends and family, and definite favourites started to emerge, which was very helpful.

Then there was more to-ing and fro-ing, ideas bouncing back and forth. Luckily for me, Sofie has patience by the bucket-full and she needed it, because it was so hard to choose.

Eventually decisions were reached - on the outline-colour of the F and the text, the tone of the shadows, the colouring of the Scotland within the F (she created both sunsets and sunny skies!) and because I love Inverness and the surrounding area, she even drew the silhouette of a Loch Ness Monster in the water - sheer brilliance!

So this was the cover I ended up with, and I'm delighted with the work Sofie produced. She's a very talented artist and if you ever need someone with heaps of talent, then you can see her work here

It was definitely a collaboration and we choose popular colours, went for a fashionable plain background which was enhanced by shading from pink into blue, and she hand-drew a cartoon-style character representing my main character (her hair colouring, frame, etc) in the style that's everywhere just now in my genre.

The great news is that books 2 and 3 also revolve around letters, so this design is going to carry on through the series and I can't wait to see them! Of course, I can't wait to finish writing them either 🤣

So now my book is out in the world, and I'm thrilled. I've already had some lovely reviews, which you can read more about in my blog post here, or you can see them on Goodreads here 

And don't forget that you can also buy a copy - it's available in Paperback or electronically on Kindle (and is currently free on Kindle Unlimited).