More Things in Heaven and Earth on the longlist of the 7th edition of Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize

And More Things in Heaven and Earth makes it to the longlist of the 7th edition of Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize. All due credit to the fabulous Mishta Roy of Drawater who created this cover, as she has so many of mine beginning from The Reluctant Detective, to Once Upon a Crush, to The Face at the Window and Missing, Presumed Dead. Also to Amaryllis, for the faith in this book and to my editor Rashmi Menon for pulling out all stops to ensure we got the exact image we needed.

Book covers have always been so very important to me. I’ve had some terrible ones, and they’ve been the ones I have had absolutely no say in. Some lovely ones in which I’ve had no say in too. They’re presented to you, the author, who has put in sweat and blood into the writing of the book, as a fait accompli. A couple of the best books I’ve written have covers that make me cringe every time I look at them.

What I love about working with Rashmi Menon at Amaryllis is that she involves you in the designing of the cover and gives you complete freedom to work with the designer of your choice on the cover, and I think that is so important for an author to be able to collaborate with the designer and have a comfort level with the cover designer to ensure that the book gets the cover it deserves. I hope more publishing houses do the same, allow authors to have some say in their covers.

And all the very best to the others on the list. Delighted to see Jenny Bhatt, Anukrti Upadhyay and Nandini Sen Gupta’s books on the list too.