Easy Date

12th July 2013

Here it is!  This week I received my choice of one book cover from the art department of my publisher. My first reaction was, "Here we go, another half-clad girl selling something." But the more I looked, the more I was drawn in. As you can see, a sort of "Wuthering Heights" scene is drawn across the girl's back. It's a generic landscape - I'm not sure if it is Scotland, though the cottage certainly suggests it. But it is meant to evoke a contrast  - it suggests there is more to the young woman, a underlying longing for the real wild and not the kitsch wild portrayed in the rest of the picture.
One choice. They took a gamble, and it paid off. It didn't take me long to come round to this cover. My friend said, "Oh, you're such an easy date!" I guess I am, and I never thought this part of the process would be so easy.  I certainly never thought I would accept a cover with a half-dressed woman on it. I sent it out to all and sundry, and the overwhelming response was that it was both beautiful and intriguing. My editor, Abby, tells me she can't say how many people in her office have stopped by her desk to take a closer look. My agent "really, really," likes it (and he was the one ready to draw swords unless the publisher came up with something spectacular!)
After living with it for a few days, I feel oddly attached to it  and have been savagely defending it against the few who think it is just downright creepy, or a little too salacious. Let it be known that an edition of "Lady Chatterly's Lover," bore a woman in a similar position, so I am in good company!
On another note, the girl in the picture looks so like my daughter, people have been asking if it is her. It isn't, but isn't it neat how the universe works in these kind of circles?
We're still months away from publication, but my editor tells me that I will receive a final copy edit next week, and then in the middle of August I should see some gallies.
By googling "Claire McDougall author," I was transported to the Simon and Schuster author page (I couldn't find myself by actually gong to their site and sorting through their hundreds of authors.) I found out that the actual publication date is March 11th 2014, that there are 416 pages in the edition, and that it will sell for $18.99 a copy (or $13.99 for an e-copy.) There is also an interview on that page, some of the answers of which I wish I could go back and change, but it is probably too late.
A person can find out all sorts of things about themselves on line. Paul Harding found out he had won the Pulitzer Prize there. John Steinbeck found out he had won the Nobel Prize by catching it on the morning news.
Well, this is neither the Pulitzer nor the Nobel prize, but it's a start!