My Hat & Changing my Mind about my Cover
January 3, 2010 at 12:20 amIf you’ve missed taking parting my Book Cover Design Challenge, you can still see the seven covers by clicking here.Even if you did receive one of the one hundred and fifty five I.D. numbers that I sent out to each entrant, you might want to remind yourself of the other pictures.
This afternoon I spent a happy couple of hours in Hudson’s Coffee House in the middle of Birmingham, drinking hot chocolate and chatting with a group of Bookcrossers. Because five of those I.D. numbers were going to be randomly selected, I wanted to make sure that all the entrants would know that everything had been conducted in a fair and proper manner,
so five of the group each drew one number out of the nice warm hat I’d been wearing:
From left to right: Matth3w, LyzzyBee, Heaven-Ali, Paraglider(that’s me!) Megmac and Nordie. (the little strips of paper they are all holding are the winning ID numbers)
With a big THANK YOU to Beckydore for volunteering to take this photo!
The winners (who will receive a free copy of Paper Lanterns as soon as it’s ready in a few weeks’ time) are:
ID no.16, Marilyn Ricci from Soundswrite, Leicester poetry group)
ID no. 27, Giles Osborne (from Cannon Poets, where I first ‘came out’ as a poet)
ID no. 51, Helena Brooke Carter (a friend from our long-ago school days)
ID no. 66, John Payne (latest book: The West Country: a cultural history )
ID no. 153, Sarah Jakeman, a gifted novelist and friend
When I set up this challenge, I didn’t want to ask people to vote for their own favourite, because I already knew which one I was going to use. Therefore, the only fair question seemed to be, ‘Which cover do you think that the author likes best?’
As an after thought, I added (truthfully) that I’d also be interested in hearing their views. Although I also said, ‘I might need to think again if enough people choose a different version!’ it honestly hadn’t entered my head that I might have to do just that!
Although I was delighted by the quality and thoughtfulness of the responses, I was becoming increasingly uneasy with each new entry – the cover which I had liked the least was leading the field from the start with seven out of the first ten entries.
I tried to convince myself that this would change as more entries came through, and I clung to that hope while 17 out of 30, then 22 out of 40, 26 of 50 and 32 of 60 consistently followed that preference. By the time the 100th came through, and 56 people had selected that same one, I knew I had to take notice of what was being said.
‘It’s your book, you should use the one you want,’ my friends said, but my brain doesn’t work like that. I can start off by being very clear about my own opinions on all sorts of things, but when I’m presented with other views on the matter, I look more closely at the basis for my decision in the first place and try to weigh up the various pros and cons.
In this particular case, one of the things I hadn’t fully considered was the importance of the instant impact: one of the main purposes of the front cover of a novel is to attract the attention of the viewer - either in the bookshop, where they’ll pick up the book itself, turn it over, read the blurb and the first page, or on-line, where they might scroll down for more information, and maybe click on Paypal, and add it to their basket.
I’ll be posting more soon about the different choices and comments, and why I had to change my mind, but didn’t mind it.
Our afternoon walk through sunlit woodland in Cannock Chase was followed, at the insistence of my adult son, by a trip to the local Multiplex to see what I thought would be a typically cosy family Christmas film, Where the Wild Things Are. 








