The creation of the Say Hello book cover

I’m so excited to unveil the cover of Say Hello – my memoir – today! It’s been a long time coming. I’ve just handed in my fourth draft, so this seems like a nice reward. Writing a book is a loooong process. It is one reason I haven’t been able to blog a lot.

The book is a memoir – with anecdotes from my life to date, as well as thoughts and observations on ableism, media representation and beauty privilege. There’s advice to readers with and without ichthyosis, facial difference and disability. The book is called Say Hello because that’s what I want people to do, instead of ignoring me, looking shocked or scared, or making a rude comment about my face.

Ta-dah! Here it is. The cover of Say Hello.

Say Hello will be in stores in late January 2019. I haven’t finished writing it yet! I just submitted the fourth draft – that’s 84,192 words(!), and I’m about to respond to a few small queries from my editor, Nicola. The editing process has been quite something (long, tiring, emotional are a few words that come to mind) but Nicola has been so wonderful.

But you can pre-order it online from today. It will be mailed to you and appear in your e-readers around 21 January.

You can preorder Say Hello from Booktopia (paperback) and Apple Books (ebook). (These are affiliate links – I will receive a small amount from each sale.)

International sales and audiobooks

Many people have asked me about an international release. At this stage, Say Hello just has an Australian and New Zealand release. I will talk with my agent and publisher about an international release – this depends on lots of factors including sales within Australia. But it’s great there is interest already!

International friends can order Say Hello at Dymocks and Boomerang Books, but there are some hefty postage fees. Again, if you pre-order these now, they’ll be posted in January 2019. There are no ebook options for international pre-order yet.

I also plan to record an audio book, though this might be sometime down the track.

I’ll keep you updated on the overseas and audiobook releases. Thanks for your patience.

My Mum, my biggest fan

My Mum was down for the Melbourne Writers Festival and Melbourne Fashion Week in August and September, and I showed her the cover on the phone. Danielle, my wonderful agent, had the idea to capture Mum’s reaction to the cover, and I am so glad she did. Look at her beautiful face! Mum is featured in the book a lot, and my editor has been leaving cute “I love your Mum!” comments in her notes. She thinks Mum will have a big fanclub, come release.

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A big thanks also to Jacinta DiMase and Danielle Binks at Jacinta DiMase Management – the best agents a woman could have. They have been so supportive and full of ideas.

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The cover concept 

The Say Hello cover has been quite collaborative. I know that the author often doesn’t get a stake in how their book cover looks, but I’m pleased to say that I had lots of input into mine.

I wanted my face to be on the cover, because I’m an appearance activist, and I believe that representation matters. I think it would be silly if my face was absent from the cover. And I want others with ichthyosis and facial differences to see me on the cover of a book, to know what’s possible for them, and to hopefully give them confidence to show their face – to a partner, in public and even on a book cover.

I also wanted to be seen as approachable. I wanted to be smiling. I want the cover to invite people to say hello. Of course.

I wanted lots of colour – because I love colour.

The text needed to be fun yet easy to read.

And I wanted to be wearing a fabulous dress. I have a few, so it wasn’t hard!

The idea started with Catherine Milne – my publisher at HarperCollins – finding this photo online. It was taken by Camille, six years ago. I love this photo – this is a fave dress of mine, and I look happy and my legs are great!

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The design studio put this cover together.

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I loved the purple font. It was very me. And Jason helped with the tagline – he suggested ‘fangirl’ instead of ‘hero’. There’s a whole chapter on fangirling – I’m sure it will relaunch Darren Hayes’ career