The cover for panGasm was an original mixed medium painting by a deceased friend of mine, Michael Abbey. I have self published this book and chose the image myself because it represents the principle of panGasm perfectly. The principle of panGasm introduces the Divine Feminine Principle of Dark Matter, and here She is holding the Earth in her hand. As well, panGasm uses ancient text and pyramid inscriptions to merge modern scientific discovery to validate the Star-Gate of 2012 as the beginning of a New Age. The Mayan Pyramids behind the image of the Dark Mistress represent the time tables demonstrated by pyramids around the world and feature a maze in the forefront as an image indicating mankind's evolutionary progress. Since panGasm is introducing a revolutionary Sexual Ethic for the New Age, I felt as though the nude image of a mysterious woman would be a great magnet that would pull readers to it, and it is proving itself as such. This book is available at lulu.com/pangasm, I hope you want to know more.
Thank you for the great blog idea, I had wanted to share a little about the selection process for my book cover and will tell more about the story of how this image came to be available to me as a result of the passing of a friend of mine, if there is stated interest about hearing this story; it is a little long-winded to add to this blurb. Mahalo for your aloha
Feel free to give as much detail as you want and if there are other specific things you want to include that relate to the cover and book design – definitely include them.
We want you to share your book cover with us. An attractive cover is a big element in the appeal of your book.We want the details about yours.
Did you design the cover?No
Did your publisher design the cover?
Yes. Inner Traditions/ Bear & CO. Cover Design by Peri Swan.
Did you get to give any input about the cover design?
My publisher designed the cover. My input was approving the cover design and thanking them for doing such a marvelous job.
Who is the cover artist?Helena Nelson-Reed
Are you happy with the cover?Yes
Tell us what you think is the best part of the cover.The cover is beautiful and portrays the beauty, joy, and strength the reader experiences as a result of embodying the heart teachings in the book.
Is there anything else about your cover that we need to know? Feel free to share.
The illustration is called Hathor, the Turquoise Lady. Hathor is the goddess of beauty, joy, love, music, dance and bliss. Chapter 8 is about an Egyptian temple called Dendera which is dedicated to the goddess Hathor and provides the reader with support in shifting from fear and obligation to living from joy and purpose.Living from bliss and joy is a key message in the book, so that Hathor blesses the cover of the book is simply divine.
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Hello, This is my book cover, a painting by Nicholas Roerich painted in the 1930s.There is a Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York. The web site is: www.roerich.org
I first saw the painting in James Wasserman's book on art and symbols of the occult. It's called "The Mother of the World."I was drawn to it immediately. About a third of the book is about a trip I took to Southern France to follow the Black Madonnas. There are 200 in France alone, 450 in the world. Although this painting is not a Black Madonna, she seemed numinous to me and the 'her" of the title, The Future That Brought Her Here, is the Divine Feminine principle which is returning to the world. This millennium is called The Millennium of Women, and I also think of St. John's reference to The Woman Clothed by the Sun in Revelation, who is in labor, giving birth, I believe to the the "New Earth" as predicted.
The earth is feminine and the ancient goddesses are always related to the earth. She is also me, and my guides, as I was told the some of the spirits around me, whom I become aware of claire-sentiently in the book, are ME from the future. They are helping me with the ascension process, which is the process a lot of humanity is undergoing right now as the species hovers at the edge of evolutionary leap in consciousness. In the first chapter I tell about a spontaneous altered state experience I had and then wrote a poem about in 1984. The poem is called "The Future That Brought Her Here" and relates to the experience I had. It was years later that several psychics told me the figures I saw around me through my third eyes were me from the future. I immediately remembered the poem. If you read the first chapter you'll understand the context. I liked that the memoir title also had several layers of meaning. The poem was published in 1994 by Alice James Books in my poetry collection Where Divinity Begins.FYI here is the poem.
The Future That Brought Her Here
—the invisible pressure of some other time on time.
—Ann Lauterbach
She’s still discovering injury.
The childhood doll
with its cobalt eyes struckopen,
ginger lashes greasy with years,
a death in her retina
where only an absence appears.
The woman blinks
into the dawning, violet
light of her bedroom
rinsed in hallucination—
Wrapped in the quilt
of her flowering sorrow,
she arranges the cumulative rain.
Birds swoop and crop her terrain
in a scree of time
and the room slides through its layered history:
bookcase into fireplace,
latex into lacy paper,
the same hydrangeas bluing the air.
And she is years back, masked
to an earlier sensation, married
to memory that blunts her senses
the wayhunter’s headlights stun
deer. And she falls
through the future
that brought her here.
I did lobby for this image for the cover and my publisher also liked it. They have their own book designer and she put it together. There is more detail in the painting itself. Nicholas Roerich had a spiritual experience in Tibet or India and he has painted many religious and occult figures, virtually all of the avatars and masters of the White Brotherhood that are, in occult traditions, members of a council of guardians over Earth. Roerich is no longer living.He was Russian though he traveled throughout the world and here's a quote from Wikepedia:
"He created about 7,000 paintings (many of them are exhibited in well-known museums of the world) and about 30 literary works. Roerich is an author and initiator of an international pact for the protection of artistic and academic institutions and historical sites (Roerich’s Pact) and a founder of an international movement for the defence of culture. Roerich earned several nominations for the Nobel Prize."
He was also a writer. Tremendously prolific. There is quite a lot of information on him and his other paintings are also marvelous. I chose the cover mostly for its symbolic significance. The World's Mother is holding her hands facing outward as if to extend healing energy. In the whole painting, which I've attached below, she is surrounded by lights that look like figures, whether angelic, or fairies, or little Buddhas, it's hard to tell. She sits on rock that is floatingabove sky, but the sky also looks like the ocean, so she is obviously associated with the landscape of the earth. Much of my book has to do with the earth and the power of the ley lines beneath it, what the aborigines call "songlines," which are the power centers that dowsers look for to find springs. Many of the ancient goddess figures were found buried at these "sacred" places over springs.
I am happy with the cover, however, I wonder if it makes the book appear to be too religious. I don't want it to look "Christian," and I wonder if the cover has put off some people from buying it, or even looking at it because of that. It is a memoir, a modern story with research in it and perhaps it doesn't appear to be that at first sight. I guess the best part of it for me is the figure herself and the lovely colors.
I do "dream image work" with individuals and groups, an intense process of re-entering the dream in a Theta brain state and reliving it. I guide people through their dreams with certain questions and eventually the meaning of the dream reveals itself through the emotional power of the images and associations. I also mentor writers, doing all stages of editing from development to copy.
Did you design the cover? Yes. I designed the cover in a very primitive way, my artistic skills are lacking.
Did your publisher design the cover? No. I didn't like their artists.
Did you get to give any input about the cover design? Of course, an author should automatically have that privilege.
Is there an interesting story behind the cover design? If so, please share the details. It was created in a weeks time.
Who is the cover artist? Thomas Brierly
Are you happy with the cover? I am ecstatic . If not, what would you change and why? It's exactly how I wanted it to be, though I could not draw it myself.
Tell us what you think is the best part of the cover. The sword. I thought finding someone to portray the swords as I saw them would be near impossible given their detail, but my artist got it done in one try.
Is there anything else about your cover that we need to know? Feel free to share. The cover gives an insight to the surrounding throughout most the story and another glance at it after completing the story will give a view of what will come next.
2)No, my publisher did not design my book’s cover.
3)Yes. The finished product is the result of criteria’s I submitted to the graphic artist.
4)The story behind the design.
One Sunday afternoon while visiting a clairvoyant friend, she informed me that soon I would see a bird with a branch in its beak and that it would speak volumes to me once I acknowledged it.
The following Wednesday following a shower, I grabbed a new and unfamiliar towel at random, opened it up, and brought it to my face. Suddenly to my surprise, I noticed a dove with a branch in beak embroidered in the towel. Instantly a clear message came to mind. The dove goes on the cover of your book and the book’s colour will match that of the towel.
5)The artist is Joe Donnelly of Joe Donnelly Designs
6)I am happy with the design
7)The best part of the cover for me is that it symbolizes hope.
8)The dove which represents the Holy Spirit encircles the globe in an attempt to heal human kind.
The rainbow coloured ribbons represent the seven chakras which are inherent in everyone and connects us to source.
Did you design the cover? I did the layout of the front and back covers, but I did not create the cover illustration.
Did your publisher design the cover? Technically, I am the publisher!
Did you get to give any input about the cover design? I worked with my wonderful illustrator, Cody Frusher. We tried a couple of options before we settled on this one.
Is there an interesting story behind the cover design? If so, please share the details. At first we tried using normal text for the title, but we quickly realized that since the laces were the highlight of the story, it only made sense to feature them in the title text.
Who is the cover artist? Cody Frusher, the book's illustrator, also did the cover illustration.
Are you happy with the cover? I love the cover!
If not, what would you change and why? Absolutely nothing.
Tell us what you think is the best part of the cover. The book itself has black and white pen illustrations, and the only color is Lucas' laces as they tangle around everything he meets. Not only does the cover hint what the book is about, but by being black and white with simple line illustrations, I think it really stands out on the book shelf.
In part - I provided photos of three different quilts for the publisher's creative design team to choose from. I also selected the lettering.
Did your publisher design the cover?
Yes. They selected the quilt and adapted it to use on the cover.
Did you get to give any input about the cover design?
Yes, in addition to providing the photo, I had final approval.
Is there an interesting story behind the cover design? If so, please share the details.
I designed and choose the colors and fabrics for the quilt on the cover of "Night and Day" for one of the guest rooms at my bed and breakfast, The Blue Belle Inn B&B and Tea House in St. Ansgar, Iowa. Each of my rooms is named after a children's story - this one is called "On the Banks of Plum Creek" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It's a log cabin design, and matches the colors of the room, which are blue and plum.
Who is the cover artist?
Tracy Beltran, Second Wind Publishing
Are you happy with the cover?
I love it!
Tell us what you think is the best part of the cover.
The main character in my book, Jensen Marie Christiansen, is a designer of quilts. Her most prized possession is a quilt made by her Great-grandmother, Maren Jensen. My sentimental hero, Anders Westerlund, still sleeps under a quilt made by his mother when the weather gets chilly. It's their sentimental natures that draw them together on the internet, and keep them apart, since she's in Minnesota and he's in Denmark. I think the warm colors and homespun design of the quilt are eye-catching and perfect for the plot.
Is there anything else about your cover that we need to know? Feel free to share.
My husband took the photo, and is proud of his contribution.
Award winning author, Nikki Leigh, provides Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing services. Nikki brings over 19 years of promotional experience and over 12 years of online promotional experience to each project. She works with her clients to help them establish and/or build their online presence and helps them learn to identify and reach the correct target market for their promotion. Promo 101 Virtual Blog Tours and Promotional Services are always open to finding new ways to help you learn to promote more effectively. In addition to business books and novels, Nikki Leigh is the author of Book Promo 101 and Book Promo 201. For much more information, visit www.nikkileighauthor.com and www.bookpromotionservices.com.
