Luckily, I knew of an artist who does good work (he did the cover for a friend's book which will be coming out within the next couple months) and I contacted him. The first step, of course, was to explain to him what I wanted the cover to look like. This was where it started to be tricky. Basically, I wanted the cover of the book to represent the scene where the main character goes a little wacky and begins running across a field lined with wind turbines. It's a very Don Quixote moment, but since my character thinks of himself as a Bollywood superstar as opposed to a knight errant, he is singing and dancing in front of these modern-day windmills. His exasperated best friend Shayla is chasing him across the field.
To come up with a solid cover, in particular the image that was in my head, I needed to give the artist some visual references, which I happily did. The background comes from shots of wind turbines I took while driving across the United States soon after finishing the first draft of the novel (the cover concept was already in my head then.) The characters were a little bit different. One is based on a real person that I know; the other is a mix of five or six photos I found online that were then put together into a brand new "face." The poses for the front cover being a little difficult to explain, I asked a couple of friends to help me simulate, and then we took a ton of photos trying to get it right. In addition to this, I had a specific title logo concept, and specific requests for how the characters would be clothed. Finally, a very generous friend, and a great photographer and visual artist, created a number of mock ups for me so that I could send the artist an image that strongly showed what I wanted. (Forgive me for not mentioning names and giving credit where it is due--at least not yet; all the names will be credited in the book when it comes out in July, so be patient.)
I sent about fifty different reference photos to the cover artist, and within 48 hours, he had sent me this mock up image:
This is only a mock up at this point; the artist will be painting it within the next week or two, and I will share the final product with you then. Before I go that final step and have him start creating the painted cover, I would love to hear your opinions.
What do you think about this cover for Indian Summer? Does it intrigue you? Would you want to pick up the book from just this cover itself? What are your thoughts, people? I can't wait to hear them!
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