We’re almost there! The cover above is to be the basis for the cover of tEXt me, with battles still being fought over the colour scheme, but the design is agreed and I’m really pleased with that. It is quite a difficult process, trying to balance finding something I like, with something my focus group of readers likes, to making sure it accurately reflects the genre and contents, to being appealing enough to persuade someone to buy.
I think one of the battles I have as decision maker, is by default I want the cover to reflect the contents accurately, whereas the most important 2 elements are that it looks professional and draw the potential reader in to find out more. Hints at events within the narrative are a nice little bonus but let’s face it, would be mainly for my own smug pleasure, and wouldn’t assist in getting someone to choose this as their next read. Having said that, there are nice touches to this choice which I hadn’t really noticed. The fact there are three phones on the cover is a great bonus, and even though the main text conversations only happen between two individuals, there are three phones involved there, and if we want to get technical, a different character texts at the end so there are also three people. I like that neatness and multi-level meaning, intended or not 🙂
An honourable shout out to this design, which almost made it. I loved, and so did some of my other readers but a few had reservations over the neon and whether it might be porn, which could restrict my audience, so with regret we had to pass on this. I still love it though.
The actual cover reveal will come on Twitter soon, so if you follow me on gthere, you’ll get to be in the group who see the final selection first!
Stay safe,
Kit