Under Cover

I just re-read my last post, and I feel that I must wrap up the loose end I left about how I would feel after signing the paperwork to license the cover photograph for Secernere. I signed the contract late last week, paid the fee, and downloaded the final high-resolution TIFF from the lovely and talented photographer (who I believe is also the model in the photograph).

I tell you I did not feel one single twinge of regret. Not one pang. The only thing I felt was a fluttering heart, much akin to the feeling when one receives a note from a new lover. Owning the rights to this perfect image has solidified Secernere in my mind as more than just words on a page, as more than a manuscript. The paperwork, the signature, the out-shelling of money, the filed-away invoice as a statement of business expense: this was my first real move down the independent publishing road.

Over the weekend, I finished the layout to my cover, including the spine and the back, on which I posted draft sales copy and an exorbitantly laudatory (fake) blurb. And I am so happy with it. It's this perfect little decoration that I will wrap around my interesting little story and turn it into this nebulous idea called a "book."

On the Awl yesterday, I read a quote from Mark Jude Poirier that summed it up so well: "The cover of your first book is like your wedding dress if you’re a woman: You want it to represent who you are, but you want it to make you look much better than you normally do."

Now I'm not all that into weddings, and I don't put much time into daydreaming about a wedding dress, but my first book cover is shaping up to be a pretty good goshdarn stand-in. Timeless, classic, simple, muted but memorable. (Too bad it probably won't make my mother quite as happy.)

But oh my gosh, I can't wait to share it! Stay tuned.