Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover

Unless it's "My Year of Really Bad Dates" by Rachel Lithgow

The saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child. In my experience, that is one of those cliches that holds absolute truth. God knows in my case that has certainly been the case. But as I’ve traversed this zany path, I call life, that whole village thing has through line in many other areas apart from teething and teendom. I could not have accomplished much in the museum world without my colleagues advising, supporting, guiding, and most importantly, helping me retain my sanity. It wasn’t until I started publishing my first book that I realized how important and large a village it takes to make a book happen. Make no mistake, unlike “Fetch,” this book IS happening.

One of the things I never thought about when writing my book, though in retrospect, perhaps I should have, was what the cover would look like. I had about 0.1% understanding of what goes into selling a successful book when I started, and I am currently at 2.6% eight months later. 2.4% of that acquired knowledge is about book covers and how important they are in the attraction and sales process of the bookgeist. Here’s the 411 and the hot goss about book covers: They. Matter. And not just in a you should have a nice cover to be attractive to the buyer kind of way. The millions of dollars in market research on book covers is mind-boggling. Its color, design, font, art, and even the spacing between the letters are relevant and matter when a sales team plans to sell a book.

Now, I might be the least talented visual artist on earth. I can’t draw a stick figure well, and when I was in kindergarten, I could not stay in the lines when coloring. Here’s a true story; my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Fischer, hated me. She disliked most children, but she had a special chamber reserved just for her intense irritation with me in her black heart that I like to call “Rachel’s room.” She called my mother one afternoon to tell her she believed I was “slow”, and that I should have my IQ tested because if I could not hold a crayon properly (I have no idea how a five-year-old is supposed to hold a crayon, also, neither did she) or learn to color within the lines, I was in trouble. Surely, she was right. I mean, every job interview I’ve ever had opened with this biting hardball question. But just because I can’t draw, doesn’t mean I can’t love art and appreciate color, skill, humor, and commentary in work that I’m drawn to (see what I did there?)

So it is with book covers. I spent a lot of time in bookstores perusing shelves, not to mention the bookshelves of everyone I know as well as my books, and surprisingly, I have a lot of opinions about book covers now that I pay attention to them. In fact, without knowing it all these years, I can with 100% certainty now say that I own several books I bought solely for the cover, though I tell myself it’s because I read the jacket and at least five pages before I buy it. Who knew?

I got the design ideas back from my publisher, and I thought it might be interesting to share all of them with you. I have one I like over the others, but they all have value for different reasons. I’d love for you to take a look and let me know your thoughts; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Plus, at some point, I’ll do a great big cover reveal to my tens of Social Media followers, and that will inspire you to:

A) Follow me on SM (@iamrachellithgow) because you “saw them when” and want to be a part of this little journey

B) Roll your eyes at how transparent this is and think to yourself; I already subscribe to this thing, now I have to read that damned book called My Year of Really Bad Dates too?

C) Unsubscribe to this newsletter immediately and scrub me from your minds forever

Whichever you choose, I actually would love a little input! There’s even a chance I could have a different cover on my audiobook depending on who buys it and how it gets produced.

My Year of Really Bad Dates book cover Ideas

I like this, but is it too Sex in the City Devil Wears Prada cliche?

I did this one too. I think the grown-up Mary Jane shoe speaks to me in a lot of ways, and I like the writing around the cover as well as the font.

This cover resonates with the heartache and the need for repair in the book.

There are cat people and there are dog people. I am NOT a cat person. A running gag in the book is that I will die alone with a cat that hates me as much as I hate it. Also, a friend of mine in publishing told me that cats on covers sell books. I swear, this sentence was uttered.

I held my first NYC event in four years on Tuesday. It felt good.