The saga of the book cover

Plus, pre-orders are live!

She’s here!

Next to me is a box full of galleys (also known as ARCs—“advanced reader copies”). My title, name, and, now, beautiful, original cover art stare back at me. It’s not held together by a demented plastic spiral like all the drafts I once printed for $64 at Staples, but by a professionally bound spine with textured, gorgeous pages.

But it wasn’t always this dreamy.

Anyone who knows me well knows I had a total mental breakdown over the cover.

To be clear: I love the cover. My very first thought when I saw it was: “I feel so seen.” I love that she has curly hair. I love that she’s surrounded by pillows (a nod to a detail in the book). I love her focused, desperate expression, that’s not any one specific emotion but is unequivocally intense. I love the wilting flowers at her bedside—an attempt, but a failure in the end, to treat herself well. I love the bag of chips beside her (though in the book it’s a box of cereal; maybe that felt too esoteric?). And I love the colors.

But before I loved it—or maybe in between me loving it, then questioning it to the point of madness, then loving it again—there was drama.

I should have known that no cover was going to feel right. Not unless I had a very specific type of professional painter (which I couldn’t possibly describe because I actually know nothing whatsoever about visual art) sit with me for six months (maybe six years?) so I could explain the nuance of the themes and the characters and that one scene so that she (obviously, it’s a woman) could capture it all just right. Anything less was bound to fail.

It’s impossible to boil a novel you’ve spent years writing—in my case, more or less the culmination of a decade of work—into a single image without it feeling insufficient. Which is why, I’ve learned, cover art is not actually supposed to do that. It should, instead, intuit a vibe. (And although I feel strongly that this word is overused to the extreme—a lazy shorthand for what would otherwise be a delightful description—it really does come in handy.) A cover should speak to the ideal reader and, in a sense, convey a book’s essence.

The first version of the cover I received seemed more or less psychotic. It was an awesome design, but the image screamed unhinged and I was worried that only my most niche literary friends would be brave enough to buy a book looking like that. Also, it had big Stepford wife vibes, which is very much not my book. But then, I worried that this current cover wasn’t unhinged and psychotic enough. My book is creepy, many characters are arguably twisted, not very good people. Like a classic Goldilocks, no cover felt just right. There was another option that seemed kind of in-between, but it could have been any cool-girl suspense story; mostly, the woman on that cover had perfect hair, which played prominently in the image, and betrayed something very, very deep in my soul.

The mental breakdown started innocently enough: me texting everyone I know who would listen with the various options and begging them for input (thank you; you know who you are!!). But after an entire day staring at my phone, typing little, manic messages with no clear direction, it become clear that I needed to take the matter into my own hands. And so I spent the next 48 hours on Canva, attempting to create my own version of a cover.

Reader: I AM NOT A DESIGNER. In fact, I am quite possibly the OPPOSITE of a designer. Physical reality barely registers to me. My boyfriend can hang a piece of art or organize a new shelf of plants (he actually does this, god bless him), making our apartment look objectively better and I will VERY likely not notice. I live in my head; aesthetics, to me, are a distraction.

Alls to say: my Canva journey—which mostly played out in bed between the hours of 10pm - 3am each night—was a coping mechanism, a loss of reality, a desperate attempt to feel in control of something I was very much not in control of. It was, in other words, a VERY BAD IDEA.

But we don’t realize this when we’re in the throws of the monster! We think it all makes total sense and, quite frankly, that it’s the only option. And so I obviously emailed my agent that Monday morning with multiple versions of my aesthetic brilliance—clearly better than the HARPERCOLLINS PROFESSIONAL ART DEPARTMENT!!—like a complete and utter lunatic.

My dear, dear sister; Annie, I love you. Shortly after I hit send, I very shyly called her over to my computer (we were on vacation together in Vermont—lol, vacation).

“What did you do?” she asked as soon as she saw my face.

“I kind of made my own covers.”

“You need to stop.” This is a common refrain from Annie to me. There is a dark side of a productive mind that, when left to its own devices, can spin completely out of control. Annie has seen me spin off a cliff many, many times.

“And… I sent them to my agent.”

“Oh, god.” She sat down. “Let me see.”

I showed her my “designs,” my head completely buried in my hands.

“Oh, god,” she repeated. “Em.” She just shook her head.

My agent is an angel. By the grace of the universe, she wrote back quickly: “Let’s chat through this over the phone.” She was wise, and I was mortified. Very gently, she eased each one of my concerns and explained why the cover we landed on was the right choice.

Obviously, she was right. My anxiety was primarily the unbridled stress of having something I worked on for ten years finally enter the public sphere. Everyone at the agency loves it, everyone at the publisher loves it, and now that I’m no longer possessed by the little devils in my mind, I love it, too. I’m so grateful the publisher went through many revisions and commissioned original art and took my feedback throughout. I’m so, so grateful that my agent kept me in check, and that I had the wherewithal NOT to include my editor on the email with my “designs.”

When I opened the box, all my worries melted. I know book / baby analogies are a lot, but I kind of felt the way I imagine parents feel, racked with anxiety pre-birth, then, when the baby comes out, thinking it’s the most beautiful thing in the world—no matter what!—delusion takes over and it’s absolutely perfect. This is how I feel about my book.

And so we’re here! MY OWN NOVEL IS IN MY OWN ACTUAL HANDS!!!

One of about 30 shots of the book and me in my office (idols Jacqueline Novak and Miranda July featured on the bulletin board in the background).

And now that the cover is out in the world…pre-orders can commence!! 🎉 🍾 ✨

And so, too, of course, can the shameless self-promotion. I know everyone tells women not to apologize, but I mean it when I say: I’m sorry for the ruthless self-promotion that will endure for the next 6 months or so. I am not sorry for how proud and excited I am, not at all. But, chances are, it’s gonna get a little tedious. I’ll try my best to keep the cringey-ness to a minimum (tho I will most certainly fail), and pepper it all with interesting stories and hopefully helpful tips if you’re interested in the publishing journey. I’ll also try my best to write about things besides the promotion of the book. And, please, if you have any tips or thoughts on promotion—I am ALL ears!

But for now: PLEASE BUY MY BOOK!!!! 😊

No, really. Please buy it!!

A note on why pre-orders are so HUGELY important:

Until recently, I didn’t really understand the importance of pre-orders. But the truth is—for better or worse—they have an enormous impact on the commercial success of a book. Early orders signal interest to the publisher, which results in more money and effort behind promotion. All pre-orders also count towards the first week of sales, which increases the chances of a book getting on bestseller lists! Often, the first week of a book’s life is its best chance to get on these lists, which then impacts its chance at success post-launch.

So here’s the link, one more time for good luck 😇

Thank you so, so much for being a reader of this newsletter and supporting my work!! It truly means the world, and I can’t wait to share this book with you. xx

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Other posts on the publishing journey:

On how I got my agent (featuring the old-school spiral-bound Staples printout)…

On the submission process and selling the book…