I promised to post through the various stages of creating my next book, so here is the first in a series about designing and creating the book cover. If you check back there will be several posts over the next 2 weeks, “as it happens”, (almost) real time.
I know everyone has a slightly different order of working, but one thing I discovered on The Raven Sound, working with a cover designer for the first time, was a wonderful and unexpected benefit. To set the scene, as well as providing a synopsis, I had to think about what the themes were, which elements I personally thought might be good for the cover design, and some of the inspirations. It isn’t something I’d usually do at this stage (early draft with readers) but I found it immensely useful in focusing what the themes and motivations were in my own mind. It really helped for thinking about the next edit. As I’m sharing my process, I thought you might be interested in what I sent, as I’m going to post throughout the process over the next couple of weeks, and you can follow the journey. In addition to the synopsis…
The novel is full of old style emoticons, ;- ) :- D :-p :- O :- ) and the music listened to throughout plays an important role counterpointing the themes, from the Simply Red tracks she was once seduced to, to Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head and Neil Diamon’s ‘Sweet Caroline’, which Tiff used to sing with her dad before he passed away (a major plot point), to Cee-Lo Green ‘Fuck You’ (an ‘old’ track listened to by her daughter), Public Enemy’s ‘He Got Game’ (which samples Buffalo Springfield and is used to highlight the differences between the men), and Leif Garrett’s ‘Dancin’ in the Moonlight’ (which Tiffany dances to in her back garden, drunk and happy); all highlight plot points.
The story was inspired by, and parallels (and quotes) the movie Brief Encounter, and the old Nokia 3310 is as much a character as Tiff, Nick or Martin, and should probably feature on the cover? I’m working on the pitch and a final decision if the title definitely works (all thought welcome, it was originally ‘brEf Ncountr’). I’d like to keep a consistency with The Raven Sound in the author font, style and location, and have a different flood colour I think. If I stick with this title, I think it would be good to have the subtitle somewhere, but in a much smaller and less central formatting.
I’m not 100% tied to anything if you have ideas, but thought I’d send this so you have an idea what will be coming, hopefully in a week or two…
So that’s where we started. Most won’t be used by the designer but it gives him more of a flavour than plot alone. Next post will be some of the concept designs which came back, and how I chose between them.
Stay tuned,
Kit