The Cube - Cover Reveal!

​Hey Hey everyone! This is a very exciting day for me. Today is the day that you will all get to see the cover for my novel, The Cube!

I had such a fun time watching the book cover come to life. My amazing friend, Glenn Steward, created the cover with me. From concept to fruition, we collaborated across several versions before we knew we’d hit a home run. 

Without further adieu… here it is!

​Isn’t that gorgeous?! 

Glenn came up with the concept from my descriptions of the book and the game within it. But, the actual Cube wasn’t quite right for awhile. At first the Cube was very dark and grey, almost industrial, so it took me awhile to find an image online that would kind of represent the bold whiteness I was going for. I found the weirdest image possible, but it was enough to give Glenn the inspiration he needed to take it and run with it. When he came back with this white vision of a Cube, I was floored! 

Here’s a selfie he sent me the night we knew we nailed the cover. I love this photo so much I made it the backdrop of my phone. My phone may stay that way forever. :) 

​The cover is the latest piece to fall into place as my whirlwind work to get published continues. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a little more than a month since I signed on with Windy City Publishers (WCP), particularly because of just how much we’ve done.

In terms of the cover, aside from Glenn’s art, we’ve had to come up with what size the book will be (6X9) and pricing (for the barcode on the back). We’ve worked on back cover copy (which is so stressful since I know that’s what EVERYONE reads and will pretty much determine whether people buy my book or not) and they’ve secured things like my ISBN number and my Library of Congress number which are also needed for sale. 

ID numbers were also needed for the copyright page on the interior (thank goodness they literally took care of all of that for me)… and the rest of the interior is really where we’ve been spending so much time. My friend Adam finalized all of the graphics (which also look amazing… thank you Adam!) so I’ve been working with my counterpart/manager at WCP to make sure they are the right size on the page, that the typesetting looks okay, that fonts are consistent, that placement of the words on the page looks the way I want it to… no detail has been too small. 

WCP is so organized, so I always know what I need to do, even if we have multiple threads on multiple topics going on simultaneously. Moreover, they are incredibly timely and thoughtful in their responses. They’ve helped me understand the best way to view the drafts so I can make the most informed decisions and have been patient as I change and tweak things.

Let me say, it has been SO COOL to watch my initial word doc be transformed into its current form. It looks like a book! I can’t wait for you to see it (and to actually hold a copy in my hand!) Even submitting my acknowledgements page and my author bio for the back all made it seem much more real. 

My favorite parts have been when we’ve tried things I hadn’t even thought of… for example there are quite a few times where the characters send each other text messages and I just love the way Dawn (that’s the person I’ve been working most with at WCP), I love the way Dawn placed the texts. It’s a format I would have never thought of and it looks really cool. The texts are another example of her thoughtfulness. At one point several people text the main character at once, so she wanted to make sure the texts were aligned on the page the way they’d look on a phone, not the way they’d look as a back and forth dialogue. Love that she had an eye on that. And that’s just one tiny part. 

Overall, it’s been a great experience. Right now, we have finalized the exterior and interior proof so that we can move onto the final proofread. The proofread will be done by a professional. I debated whether it was worth the money, but ultimately decided it absolutely was. Even if s/he catches a few typos it will be worth it, but I imagine after all this time and tweaking the proofreader will catch more than that. 

I’m kind of glad we are headed towards the proofreading stage because that will take 3-4 weeks which I hope will give me a little bit of of time to catch my breath. I realize this is ultimately self-paced, but I am excited and engaged and it’s fun to see it coming together, so I’m doing my best to keep things moving. (How I’m “managing” that on top of a full-time job and life in general is a topic for another day.)

The time for proofreading will also give me some time to start to really think about marketing. I’ve been kind of obsessing about this because, let’s face it, I know very little about marketing a book. It was hard enough to figure out how to write and publish a book! But, I have a lot of ideas and friends that are helping me… I just need some time to figure out what’s feasible… and to phase it out. Not everything needs to happen day one. 

When is day one? When will you be able to buy The Cube? I’m not quite sure yet, but if we keep up with the pace we’re on, I’m guessing it will be sometime in April. That’s right, April! That’s soon. This spring! Eek!. 

So stay tuned for future updates. I’ll do my best to keep everyone posted. And because I love it so much, here’s my cover one more time. I hope you guys are excited as I am!  2018… the year that it happens!

#TheCubeNovel