I thought it might be interesting to readers to see how a book...

In June 2012, Thomas & Mercer sent two initial cover designs for my thoughts. This is one of them. It looked like a lot of thriller covers, and I wanted something different.


I really liked the look of this cover--it had a more literary feel. But the depicted scene doesn't really match up with anything in the book, so I said no.


The publisher cam back with four more cover ideas. This one is attention-grabbing, but doesn't fit the feel of the book. A girl's hands are bound in my book, but not in a sensual way.


Sometimes a book cover can look too real. This one does. Plus, when you give a character a face on the book, it colors the reader's imagination of the story.


This portrays a torture that just doesn't fit the book.


This is pretty close, right? I liked it from the start, even though I had never imagined anything like this for the cover. So we took this one and played with it.


They added the red lines, changed the font, and put "A Novel" at the bottom. I asked them to try a few additional, minor adjustments.


I had an idea that maybe it would look good if the hands were inverted, but it didn't.


This is kinda cool, but the comic-book effect went against the notion of making it clear this wasn't a kids book.


Some people felt that having the hands in color seemed too real, so we went B&W. I liked it. After this one, we changed the font, swapped in "A Dagny Gray Thriller" at the bottom, and it was done.

I thought it might be interesting to readers to see how a book cover is designed.  Here is the evolution of the cover of The Bubble Gum Thief.  The title of the book sounds like a kids story, so the cover had to make it clear that it was not.  

My publisher, Thomas & Mercer, is fantastic about seeking input from their authors, taking suggestions and changes, and making sure the author is pleased with the result.  You can click on the images to get my thoughts about each design.