When I released Daughter of the Flood last year, I commissioned a set of covers that I love absolutely and profoundly. They’re based on the art of Saul Bass, who did the art of Otto Preminger’s “Man with the Golden Arm” & “Anatomy of a Murder.”, shown below. I loved the movies, and the posters lit my heart ablaze during a time where I was studying art to escape the maddeningly sheltered world I was trapped in.
The Courser’s covers were my writing life made whole. I had finally created the books – my books – the way I had imagined them. I fought through fear, introversion, and just being shy and created this… the thing that was mine.
This was my freshman year of writing – my first taste of freedom marked with a series of wonderful and poor writing life decisions in turn. I made new friends, had new experiences and never failed to sell books every month.
And of all the things I have done, of all the covers I was proud of, the Coursers were the best.
When I showed them to my friend Michael Anderle, he straight out said that they wouldn’t sell. It didn’t tell the reader what to expect or what it was about, and while is was great art, it was not a good cover.
His analysis wasn’t some troll mansplaining the concept to me. This was a friend who did everything short of pressing the publish button to encourage me to build a profitable writing business. He wanted me to succeed, make money and enjoy the process.
He was telling the truth, but that was not the point… at the time.
It was my freshman year, and I spent the year blowing my time and freedom. I took the summer off, looked at my grades and decided that I was going to be more serious about my studies.
I was told once that taking your studies to the level above wasn’t about learning new things, but giving names to the things that you already knew. And through my studying and workshopping, I realized that I knew more than I gave myself credit for.
And that I was ready to take my writing life – and the future it will bring – seriously.
Starting with the covers:
My beloved freshman cover of Daughter of the Flood:
Here is the new cover. The content will be upgraded as well and is called Errand Girl of the Dead:
Things are getting exciting! Talk to you soon.
ckh