Inside the Momfluenced cover design process
I laughed, I cried, I probably annoyed Beacon's design team to no end!
Ever since I started writing and publishing stuff, I began to fantasize about The Book. Not the book’s premise, the book’s genre, and certainly not the book’s thesis, but the book’s cover. For as long as I’ve dared to dream that one day I might get to write a book that people will actually want to read, I’ve dreamt about what the book will look like.
I’ve dreamt about The Cover.
Maybe it would be floral and irreverent, à la Kate Baer.
Maybe it would be shockingly sparkly like Chelsea Bieker’s Godshot.
Maybe it would be typography-forward like Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror.
Maybe the there would be bright colors and “book blob” graphics like Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half.
In my fantasies about The Cover, I didn’t know what The Book would be about. I just knew it would look beautiful. It had to be, I reasoned, because only a beautiful object would make sense as the endpoint of hours, weeks, months, and years of ass-in-the-chair work. Only a beautiful cover could encapsulate my dreams, my fantasies of one day being an Author with a capital A.
(Reader, if you spend years of your life fantasizing about something, and then have an opportunity for that fantasy to come to life, I strongly recommend spending some time exploring the notion of fantasy versus reality. You will save yourself several unnecessarily emotionally fraught hours.)
Once I signed the book deal for Momfluenced, I remember being hit with the sudden, shocking realization that there would be a real cover, not simply a fantasy cover. I Pinterested and tagged and copied and pasted like my life depended on it. Every time I thought about the cover, it was Christmas Eve and I was seven.
(I did not spend any time exploring the notion of fantasy versus reality).
During an early meeting with my wonderful book editor Maya, she walked me through a rough timeline the year before the book would publish. She estimated that April 2022 would be when I’d see the first cover. “Cover Month!!!!!” I typed into April 1st on my Google Calendar. It was happening. My Fantasy Cover was going to happen.
When the first design option came in via email, I was in the bathroom with my phone, and this is what popped up on the screen.