P.J. Murphy's Writer Site

About two hours after publishing my previous post, I received the first iteration of the cover design for Troubleshot. Well, technically, it had gone through several stages before that, as I developed a concept and wrote – and refined – a brief.

It was important to get the cover right, as the saying’s not wrong: it really is one of the key determinants of a book’s success. Through it, potential readers identify the book’s genre and whether it’s worth investing the time to look at the back cover or book description. And that’s where it got tricky for me, as a lot of humour books have, frankly, awful-looking cover art. How could I create a cover that identified the book as humorous whilst avoiding creating something you would cross the street to avoid if you saw it in a bookshop window?

The key, I concluded, after a bit or research, was bold colours. I used the Fiverr website to identify freelancers that had designed covers in a similar style. After scaring off one with my long list of what I didn’t want the cover to look like, I came across Vika, who asked some probing questions, trying to work out what it was I did want. This led me to think again and refine my brief.

So here’s the result: black, white and a bit of green, with various items that will make you say “What the hell is going on? I had better read this book to find out!”. We have here the community hotspot, which forms a central location for much of the book; a weird guy in a suit and tie; and someone parachuting in (this is actually the same person in the book but I can get away with it because this is art).

Apart from a few annoying administrative details, that was pretty much the final piece before I could publish the book. That’s why you can now ***pre-order on Amazon here*** (it’s also available on other Amazon sites, if you’re not lucky enough to live in broken Britain).

“PRE-ORDER?!” I hear you squeal in excitement. I guess I should have led with that. Well, it turned out that once you reach a certain point, pressing that publish button is remarkably easy. So, it’s good to go. The main reason I went for pre-order, rather than publishing right away, is that I want to release the paperback at the same time as the Kindle edition, and I’m waiting for a proof copy to check it all prints out okay. So, if you’re interested in paperback, hold off a few days and it can be yours!!! (You can also buy both, I certainly won’t hold that against you).

Next time, I’ll talk a bit about the back cover blurb and, of course, about my unprecedented success in the preorder market.