Under the Cover: The Miracle of Creative Collaboration

The cover tells the story, too.

You really can judge a book by its cover. Much like the “back blurb” or the “elevator pitch,” the cover gives the reader loads of insight about the story you’re (hopefully) about to read. The cover has some serious lifting to do. It sets the mood: whimsical or serious, light and bright or dark and weighty, contemporary or somewhere else in time. You see this cover and already, you’re expecting something. You can probably discern this is not going to be a textbook in classical mythology. Ideally, the typography reinforces the tone. And the salient objects—be they falling arrows or drifting feathers or toga-clad figures—begin to hint at the story. Some of this hits you at a visceral level that might not even register in your conscious mind, but you’re taking it all in.

Back in 2000, when we were building our house, I commissioned a mosaic artist to create a family tree representing the five of us (four humans + one yellow Lab). I had an idea in my head and communicated it as best I could to a talented artist. She combined her creative instincts with my descriptions and produced a wonderful work of art I cherish to this day. Same goes for my book cover. I’ve lived with this story in my head and heart for ten years and have certainly harbored ideas about the mood I hoped to inspire. But I have absolutely zero talent for translating my feelings into an actual design. And that’s where it’s handy to have an uber-talented graphic designer for a creative collaborator (and even better to have her as my friend.) So, along came Betti.

The force behind the design

Betti Gefecht is one of the beautiful treasures the Twilight fandom brought into my life. By the time I entered the fandom in 2008, Betti was already a Big Deal writer (whose first language is not English, but you’d never know it to read her stories) and a highly sought-after banner artist. (A story banner is the internet version of a book cover.) Betti also happens to be a seriously talented singer-songwriter, but you’ll have to check out her YouTube channel to hear her sultry voice in your ear. I should also mention she has a thriving business translating English books into German, and you can find all about that on her Amazon page. But I digress.

Here’s how I met Betti. There’s a note in her fanfiction profile: “As a graphic designer/illustrator, I did lots and lots of banners. Want one? Hey, I’m always up for some bartering fun…” Challenge accepted, but what could I possibly barter with? Well, I wrote Betti a pretty dumb poem. And I spelled her name wrong—twice. After gently pointing that out, she quickly agreed to reward my efforts with one of her designs.

Our friendship deepened further when a mutual friend of ours in the fandom was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer and asked us to collaborate to raise money for cancer research. Together with hundreds of other writers, banner makers, and readers, we raised over $13k. Four years ago, Betti traveled from Germany to attend a fandom meetup in Boston, and I finally got to meet my dear friend in the flesh! And then this happened in a photo booth:

How Two People Share a Vision

Truth be told, First Quiver is not the first book Betti covered for me. In 2018, she graciously created this beautiful design for my son Jeffrey’s Isotopia novel. Even though the design was fairly straightforward, we went back and forth a bunch over which forest picture to use, where and how to place the hunter in the scene, fonts, transparency, etc. As you can see, it all worked out pretty nicely.

I drove Betti just crazy enough that she knew what to expect when I first asked if she’d be game to do the Cupid series. (Yep, all four books at once.) She said yes pretty quickly. I do believe Betti loves a challenge.

Since she had already read the First Quiver manuscript, we were able to start with a common understanding of the story, which was extremely helpful. I knew I wanted the cover image to represent the opening scene of the book, when Cupid is tossed off Mount Olympus. And I also knew the letter Q needed to be a very special design element. You’ll see why when you read the book.

I set out to find some covers to represent the style I had in mind—more contemporary/upmarket fiction than your typical genre fantasy cover. I also found some classical-looking fonts to give Betti some starter ideas. Off she went.

The initial sketches

Sooner than I expected, some very pretty pictures appeared in my Facebook chat box. The experience of glimpsing the initial sketches reminded me of trying on bridal gowns. Each gown was prettier than the one before, and the possibilities seemed infinite. How would I ever choose? I’ll never forget the sage advice that first bridal saleslady gave me. You’ll know you have the right dress on when you feel like a bride. (She was right.)

I imagined this book cover design would feel the same, and I lucked out BIG time that Betti had agreed to take this/me on. Because there’s just no way any other cover artist would have welcomed—dare I say, enjoyed?—processing all the iterations and minutiae we rolled through and revisited over the next few weeks.

The first sketches were already wonderful. A cheery, bright palette gave the cover a cartoonish feel I loved. Betti had perfectly captured the chaos of falling arrows and floating feathers. The bow-and-arrow letter Q was nearly perfect. We did round it out a bit in subsequent versions to make it more obviously a Q.

But something was missing—Cupid!

“I love it, and …” I typed.

Betti typed, “Yes?” and waited. (As the process wore on, she grew to ask, “But…?” instead, but I always pictured her smiling.)

Communication

Since I’m hopeless at drawing, I needed to come up with a way to communicate my ideas graphically. At first, Betti encouraged me to create rudimentary sketches and promised not to make fun of me, a promise she didn’t keep for very long. (In fairness, my sketches were AWFUL.) I solved this dilemma using my mad photoshop skills. All that banner making finally paid off.

At the left (image #1) is a section of Betti’s initial cover layout. I googled “cartoon man in a toga” (image #2), flipped him upside down, and slapped him onto her drawing (image #3).

Next thing you know, BOOM! Betti produces my dream Cupid, flipped upside-down, sandal flying over the series banner (image #4).

From that point forward, I expressed myself using found images, mainly cartoon characters illustrating whatever facial expression I was otherwise unable to convey. I am ever grateful to the kind folk who post such esoteric things on the internet. And even more grateful for Betti’s enthusiasm while playing “Mrs. Potato Head” with me until we were both satisfied with the results.

Typography

One of the biggest challenges of a cover is finding the right font. Combining classical and whimsical can be a bit of a head-scratcher. In this, too, Betti found a solution with seeming ease. I love the font she chose—Charlemagne, “inspired by classic letterforms of the past, from early Greek inscriptions, circa 400 B.C.” I love even more that the font was designed by the first woman and only the second American to receive the prestigious Charles Peignot award for outstanding contributions to type design. Carol Twombly also designed the Caslon font Betti used for the back cover. And look how beautifully she shadowed the white lettering with a deep blue to make it pop!

Can we talk about the spine and the back cover?

As a reader, you might not think all that hard about the spine of the book. Yes, it’s the part you see when the book is shelved, so it better have the essentials. But when you’re publishing a series, you want those four books to line up and tell another kind of story, a series arc.

#1, right up top. Guess what’s going to line up with that!

Author name

Title (duh)

A section of Cupid’s wing to remind you where we are in the saga.

Remember that Q we discussed? Here it is again! *wink*
And last but definitely not least, the Isotopia Publishing crown.

But really, here’s why I love this cover.

This cover tells YOU a story, but this cover tells me a story, too. A story of empowerment and joy. Two qualities I had nearly lost for good in the whole process of agent querying and subsequent (repeated) rejections.

I’d promised myself to do my darnedest to secure agent representation, and I made another solid effort to find an agent after finishing book four in April. Once those last queries had died their slow, quiet death, I stepped up and honored the second half of my promise: If I still didn’t have an agent for book one when I finished writing the series, I would publish them myself. As you can imagine, the moment of reckoning wasn’t exactly festive.

But “indie publishing” offers many advantages over traditional, and I was poised and determined to make the most of those. The number one advantage, besides actually having PERMISSION to publish my book, is the ability to choose my own team. When I first messaged Betti about doing the covers, she didn’t immediately jump backflips at the idea. Believe it or not, she doesn’t design many covers, and she knew this would be a giant project. And I think somewhere in the back of her mind, she didn’t want to disappoint me. Plus, I’ll admit, I can be a pretty big pain in the butt to work with. (Betti nicknamed me “Lady Pestershire” when I was being a tad picky over how much “leg” Cupid was showing.)

But once Betti said yes, an amazing thing happened: JOY. And I think it’s fair to say it happened to both of us at once.

I look at this cover and smile over how every detail came to be. How every color and line and eyebrow was a spirited debate between two people with a great deal of respect for each other. Neither of us could or would have produced this cover without the other, and that makes it very special to me. The creative energy we kicked up in our little Facebook chat box revived me and gave me a much needed jolt of energy and empowerment.

And TITLES! Now there was a surprise! It never occurred to me the design process would drive the title selection, but it absolutely did. Of the four book titles, only the first is the original name I picked before asking Betti to design the covers! That gets us right back to the beginning of this post, how the cover tells the story. I hope, with all my heart, you’ll judge my book by its cover.

If this blog post reads like a love letter to Betti, then I’ve done it just right.

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