Cover reveal: Return to Desiree Bay

Soon I’ll have something to show for the years I rattled on about writing a novel, and the years that followed the completion of the first draft where I went on and on about, one day, becoming a published author.

It was a distant horizon, and it still feels that way today, less than a month from publication. I can’t believe my first novel Return to Desiree Bay will be out there in the e-reader and paperback universe* in late January, 2022. There’s some fine tuning of dates to be done but I think people will be able to pre-order from Amazon, Apple Books, etc from January 15 (I’ll get back to you on that).

The novel is not perfect by any means. It’s a fun ‘beach read’ that, unfortunately, contains a few mistakes that I intend to fix down the track. In the meantime, I will have to cop criticism from readers** for errors that could have been fixed if I hadn’t been in such a rush, and had given the book to a dedicated beta reader before the final typeset approval.

But more about my mistakes in a future post! Today, it’s all about the cover.

I don’t know about you, but I believe a cover makes a huge impression on a potential reader and influences her (his/their) decision to buy the book or move on to the next shiny thing. Of course, publishers have known this forever which is why so much time, effort and money go into a cover’s creation.

A modest fee of $450 was set aside for the Return to Desiree Bay cover design as part of the course Self Publish Your Book I completed through Writing NSW in 2021.

Initially, I submitted a cover brief to the designer which included images of covers of published novels that appealed to me and aligned with the novel’s theme. I also sent off some of my own photos of coastal settings (I snapped the one above at Lennox Head on the north coast of NSW) along with the novel’s back cover blurb.

Some weeks later, a draft cover arrived. I sent it to my friend Lisa, a talented graphic designer, and she worked with the cover designer to ‘tweak’ a couple of things such as the font (colour and style), the position of the title and author’s name, and the colour tones on the image.

I’m pleased with the result. It was Lisa’s idea to add flourishes of Australian flora that frame the image and underline the title. There’s just the right amount of embellishment to draw the eye to the woman on the beach and the headland that peters out to that elusive distant horizon.

*Return to Desiree Bay will be available from major e-book readers such as Amazon, Apple Books, Kindle and more. The novel will also be available in print on demand (POD).

**My mother and partner won’t get past the dedication so that leaves a few relos, friends and randoms who stumble upon it!