Well, I didn't think that would happen so fast. Barely a week after making enquiries about a new cover for my book, the Kindle version is up and running. Here it is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Schizophrenia-Memoir-Louise-Gillett-ebook/dp/B0057P6M46
The paperback will take a little longer - it's going to have a new wraparound jacket, with the same design as the Kindle one, but because it has to include a bar code, blurb, reviews and so on it is a bit more fiddly.
I am so pleased with it all. The incredible thing is that the image on the new cover - of a mother and daughter balancing on a train track, holding hands - actually looks very much how my mother and I would have looked forty years ago. The cover designer - Briony from Goldust, highly recommended - read the book and said the cover symbolised my mother and I, and that the idea was to have a bright image, but with a hint of something sinister (the possibility of an approaching train symbolising the threat of mental illness in my case, the ravages of alcoholism in my mother's...)
She sent me several possible cover designs, but that one really stood out. In fact, I felt close to tears when I saw it. I really do think it's fantastic. Feedback from anyone out there would be really appreciated.
It is such a relief to get my face off the front cover. I am going to have a new author photo, but just a small, normal one on the back cover of the book. Also professionally done! I am splashing out, because I feel that although the book has done really well (especially for a self-published work) it still has the potential to reach a wider audience. It deserves to look more professional - it has done me proud, garnered lovely reviews and given me the confidence to believe that I really can write.
Hopefully I will not always be a one-book woman. I am moving on - slowly - but that book gives me enough income to be able to stay at home and call myself a writer. I do write every day now, but I won't go on about that in this post because I have written a lot recently about my various endeavours.
The recovery book should come out soon (she says). I was aiming for the end of the summer term - the middle of July - but I may have to adjust my sights. It will definitely, one hundred per cent, be done by the end of this year though. Even if I am not entirely happy with it, which I may never be, I am going to publish, so that I can move on with my other writing. Hopefully it will help someone, somewhere, on their path to recovery.
And I already have a cover designer lined up - so the new book will look as professional from the start as 'Surviving' does now. Hurrah!
Congratulations, Louise. It looks terrific. I am discussing book covers right now with the publisher and we do not agree on what we think is needed. It is nice to see that your designer came up with something that you really like, which makes me think maybe I should be more open to what a designer may think works.
ReplyDeleteHi Rossa. How exciting to hear that your book is so close to publication! Re the cover - I feel privileged to have an input, I know that some authors (published in the traditional way) have no say at all over their covers and can feel quite upset about it. Go with your gut instinct - it's your book, after all!
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