First of all, here it is - the glorious cover of my next book, French Lessons!
I love it so much. (I know, I always say that - but I always love them. Just this one a bit more so).
The covers for the Ava & Claire books were done by a different designer, who's doing so well with her fiction now that she doesn't have to do cover design to make ends meet. We should all be so lucky, but then again, all she was was persistent and talented. I can do that.
I sent my new designer (the one who did the Tudor Court revamp) the covers for Coming Apart, Coming Closer, and Coming Together, along with a vintage photo to use in the new cover. I told her to keep the scrapbook-with-elements concept of the previous covers, but to put her spin on it. While I like the script font on the old covers, I wasn't against changing fonts, but I wanted something handwriting-esque, because there are a lot of letters in the books.
Here were some of my notes from the cover brief: Women’s historical fiction. Emotional, feminine. Set in Paris, so French, if that’s a feeling. Paris, 1946-47. Pearl is a 25-year-old girl who finally takes her dream trip to Paris to become a writer. She’s had to wait out the long years of WWII and she’s finally there. But she’s left her family behind, feels somewhat lost, and Paris seems to have plans for her (love) that aren’t what she wants. Not sure how you want to take the cover-with-ephemera idea, but for this book – French newspapers, letters, home, lilacs, vintage postcards of Paris.
She hit it out of the freaking park on the first draft.
I stared at it for a day, thinking that if I had to, I could absolutely upload it to Amazon and not be ashamed to sell a book wrapped in it. Then I decided what few things needed changing (the type of flower), removing the watch, swapping the keys into that spot so it didn't look as crowded, and let her know, in words and with drawn-on suggestions.
She gave me back two options with slight differences in flower/color, and one of them was almost exactly it. I gave her brief notes about version 3 (spacing at top left corner, mostly, and adding the tag line that I'd forgotten) and we were done.
It took less than 4 days, and included stretches of time with no contact because she's in a very different time zone and our waking hours don't cross for long.
4 comments:
i can't wait to read this book! I just finished "Coming Together;" I finished the whole series in about 3 weeks. I was thinking how wonderful it would be for you to continue the story, especially about Pearl. So happy to find your website!
--June H.
June, thank you so much! Pearl absolutely wanted her story told. Though Thelma has been making rumblings, and even Grace has opinions.
Beautiful cover!
Thank you! I'm a little overexcited about this one.
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