Ta-daaaahhh! Gorgeous new cover

Due out November 2013

I’m thrilled to be able to reveal my new cover.

I think it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Covers are crucial to giving a book a chance of success. Completely contrary to the saying ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ books are constantly judged in exactly that way. Browsers, particularly, are attracted or otherwise by the visual appeal. We sometimes refer to it as ‘pickupability’ – that elusive image that draws prospective readers to take a book from the shelf.

Choc Lit have given me a fine array of covers and this one is no exception. Berni Stevens is the talented cover artist who created this (and Dream a Little Dream) and I often don’t envy her her job. It’s common for cover artists to submit an array of concepts, have one taken up, work on refining and completing the design with the publisher – only for the buyers from major booksellers to give it the thumbs down. So then the cover artists begins all over again …

Berni was particularly under pressure with this cover because not only were we getting close to deadline for the American market but the lovely people at My Weekly had asked me to write a story for their 2014 Annual, due out in October 2013, and were including an interview with me, partly about Is This Love?, due out a month later. We all wanted the new cover to be included in the feature – and they go to press with the annual first thing this morning. So Berni did a fantastic job getting the cover finalised with a day in hand.

From a writer’s perspective, part of whether a cover ‘works’ for us relies on whether the it correctly interprets our words. It must be irritating to be given a cover depicting a woman with red hair if the story tells us her hair is black or that the hero drives a sportscar but we see him in a family saloon. And I never see how glaring inaccuracies contribute to pickupability. So I’m lucky that Berni reads my books and then creates something that’s truly awesome.

What do you think? Do you like the new cover?