As I get toward the end of each book, I start thinking about what I want the book’s look to be. The layout, font, intro/outro, and the cover. The cover is clearly the most important element, but all of them are part of what makes the book what it is. I have been doing my own covers since the beginning, with only three exceptions, though one of those was still based on my photograph.
I find great joy in creating my covers, and as I have turned toward photography and away from illustration, I feel I can better control the outcome. I am not sure if my covers help or hurt the books, but they are an extension of their art, and of the world I am creating. I once rejected a proposed cover because it presented a book I hadn’t written. Covers are incredibly important, but they also need to represent the book itself, or it’s a lie.
With this cover, I had an initial idea that I quickly discarded as something else captured my interest. I loved the idea of this being a box full of things someone found, hinting at a horrible secret about to be uncovered. That is essentially the heart of the book, all of these people discovering things they immediately regret, as they look too long and too deeply into the darkness.
“Things We Found” is available now on Amazon.
These are some of the covers I went through before the final result emerged. It gives a fun look at my process and mindset as I dialed things in.
