Cynthia's Attic: The Magician's Castle

Although I'd like to take credit for this beautiful cover, it was designed by award-winning graphic artist, Nathalie Moore who designed all the covers for my books.

I'm absolutely thrilled with the way it turned out and was asked for my input in advance. The only thing I requested was a mysterious castle. It's better than I even imagined and I love the rich color, too.

I couldn't ask for a better representation of the story, "Cynthia's Attic: The Magician's Castle."

The "Cynthia's Attic" series can be purchased on Amazon/Amazon Kindle, Fictionwise, and Mary Cunningham Books

Splinters: The Pain, The Passion, The Point

My first book, "Splinters: The Pain, The Passion, The Point" was published in March 2009. The book, as the cover relates (I hope!), is an anthology of stories from my life as a female woodworker.

I've recently been notified that the book will be featured in an upcoming release by Harper Collins called, "The New Big Book of Layouts" in May 2010. You can find out more about my book on my site at www.SplintersBook.com Please see my answers to your questions below:


Did you design the cover? The cover of my book was designed by my publishing company. However, I must admit that the publishing company that published my book is actually owned by my granddaughter. I must say that love for books runs in the family. I write them and she publishes and designs.

Did your publisher design the cover? Yes, though my granddaughter (owner of Paige1Publishing acts as Creative Director on most books, she personally designed my book cover.

Did you get to give any input about the cover design? Yes, we had several extensive discussions about the book cover and the specific angle that I wanted to convey.

Is there an interesting story behind the cover design? If so, please share the details. Just what I've already shared. The book has one an award for design and will be featured in an upcoming Design book by Harper Collins publishing called "The Big Book of Layout and Design" to be released in May of 2010.

Who is the cover artist? JP Jones

Are you happy with the cover? Yes. I love it and have received many compliments on it. I feel it definitely gets the reader's attention.

If not, what would you change and why?

Tell us what you think is the best part of the cover. The way it conveys immediately that the book is based around "wood"—and the simplicity of that.

Is there anything else about your cover that we need to know? Feel free to share.

Please provide your website link. www.splintersbook.com

What is the link to buy your book? On my Web site.

Inspiration Divine Book Cover

Did you design the cover?
No, Inspiration Divine's cover was designed by Joy Hart.

Did your publisher design the cover?
No, I'm self publishing.

Did you get to give any input about the cover design?
Absolutely, Joy and I collaborated on several potential covers and refined the design to what is the final version. We went through twenty-one revisions until the final cover as ready for publication.

Is there an interesting story behind the cover design? If so, please share the details.
In addition to the book, I conduct Inspiration Workshops that are based on the teachings of Inspiration Divine. Essentially the workshops are an experiential way to explore the concepts put forth in the book. At the end of every workshop, we ask the students to provide us with one word (written on an index card) that represents what the workshop is for them. My cover designer incorporated these words written by the students in their own handwriting into the front cover of the book.

Rather than boldly making these words the focus on the cover, she blended them into the background color of the book. I think this makes for a much more interesting design and provides something to catch the eye of the reader.

Joy also incorporated a lot of symbolism into the cover design:

• Inspiration Divine is a Mind, Body Spirit title and the three candles on the front represent the Body, Spirit and Mind.
• There are dots above the "i" characters in the word inspiration representing the Body, Spirit and Mind but not above the word divine (indicating that the Body, Spirit and Mind came from God).
  

Who is the cover artist?
Joy Hart,

www.heyjoy.com

Are you happy with the cover?
I love it! Joy did an excellent job of incorporating the message of Inspiration Divine into the cover design.

Tell us what you think is the best part of the cover.
The iD logo is an excellent branding element that can tie the book to other promotional tools that I'll use in workshops, on the website and related products.

Is there anything else about your cover that we need to know? Feel free to share.
We spent a lot of time tuning the spine. One thing I noticed is that libraries paste classification stickers on the bottom half of the book before shelving the book. Thus I wanted to make sure that the title of the book on the spine didn't appear on the lower half of the book. Of course, there is no guarantee that future librarians won't plaster a stick on the top but I still think it is worth it.

You'll notice on the back cover that we incorporated a 2-dimensional barcode above the ISBN. While this hasn't become a retail standard, I noticed that more and more smartphones (e.g. iPhone, Google Android, etc.) have 2-D barcode scanning applications built-in and thus this is designed to facilitate referrals from one reader to another.

We broke with tradition and put my first name (Darwin) on the spine rather than my last name (Stephenson). While many traditionalists will balk at this, we felt that my first name was more memorable and ties into the evolutionary theme of the book (e.g. connection to Charles Darwin).

Please provide your website link.
http://www.inspirationdivine.com

What is the link to buy your book?
http://tinyurl.com/iDBuyNow

Darwin Stephenson