Duck and cover

Here is the front cover

They emailed me the cover design for my book yesterday.

I think it needs to grow on me. It's very ... crowded. Busy. They decided that less isn't more, but that more is more.

It's a photograph of a desk, covered in stuff--absolutely covered. Newspapers, clippings, snapshots, postcards, coffee mug, press pass, ashtray, just all kinds of stuff. And pencils: about a million pencils. At one point they had a cigarette butt in the ashtray, but I asked them to get rid of it (I have never been a smoker) and they complied.

They would not comply with my request to delete a few of the pencils; said they needed them for balance.

Hmmm...

The book will stand out, I think, which is good. But the title and author name get a little lost admist the clutter, and that's not good.

Here is the back cover.

About six different people from the Press hastened to assure me that it's a terrific cover, and maybe they're right.

(Obviously the chatter on the back jacket is not for my book; it's type from a different book that they flowed in to show where the words will go. They haven't yet written the copy for the back of the book.)

It will have to grow on me. (I do, however, love love love the fact that Toby is on the back cover.)

Please do not offer suggestions for change. You can tell me you hate it, if you do, but don't make suggestions. This is the way it's going to be, and I have no power to change it. I'm just happy they got rid of the cigarette butt.

Then last night I had nightmares about my book. I dreamed that I went to a bookstore to do a reading, and they only had two copies of the book for sale, so if anyone wanted to buy it, too bad. I dreamed that I opened the book and saw that it was riddled with mistakes--names misspelled, proper nouns not capitalized, names entirely wrong (including the name of the bookstore I was in).

I dreamed that the book jacket was just a hard plastic jacket, like what you'd find on a children's Little Golden Book. No proper dust cover, just a garish plastic jacket.

When I woke up I told the dream to Doug who said, "It's going to be a long second half of the year, isn't it?"

No kidding. Galleys later this month. Panic has already begun.