The Co-Writing Diaries #6
That time our book cover was stolen? - FREEBIE
Welcome to my blog series chronicling the wild, wonderful journey of co-writing the romantasy series, The Department of Dark Errands—London’s most elite (and most dangerous) magical intelligence agency. From brainstorming the magical underbelly of London and morally gray love interests to navigating the (occasionally stormy) waters of collaboration, I’m unlocking the bedroom door to share the real behind-the-scenes story of crafting a fantasy romance series with .
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Let the adventure begin.
A version of this was previously published on my personal blog, so this post is a FREEBIE.
When I was writing YA, my initial goal was to go the traditional route.
I’d curated a list of agents repping YA and after finishing Book One in a planned YA series, I began submitting. When the rejection letters came in, I wasn’t too broken up about it because, ironically, the feedback had been consistent: action not happening fast enough, reads like an episode of Kim Possible.
I took that as a compliment.
However, after doing the research, I no longer wanted to move forward with the traditional route and had decided indie publishing was the way to go. The main reasons being:
Publish sooner
Wouldn’t have to share my earnings with an agent
Complete control over the process
That last one was a biggie for me. Especially after reading about a book cover debacle between a YA author and their Big 5 publisher.
So, imagine my surprise when I opened my email one day and thought another author had stolen our book cover.
What the fuck?
Was my basically my reaction after seeing the below image in a romance author newsletter.
As a reminder, here’s what ours looks like:
I immediately forwarded the email to Alisa and said, “Um... I think we're going to need a new book cover. See below.”
Alisa’s “Ally McBeal” response: “Calm your tits, woman. Ours is just a draft.” That’s what I imagine she wanted to say to me as she was rolling her eyes and thinking, Newb.
What she really said: “Yeah, Dave will do a real cover for us—like he does all the others. :) This was just temp—as we needed for Simon.”
Because I COMPLETELY forgot that when she’d initially tapped me for this project, she’d sent me an email that said this was our DRAFT COVER.
Oy!
For the record, my ex-husband had created the covers for the two YA books I’d written—both versions, for when I later repubbed them with new covers. And when I was ready to publish, that’s what I submitted to Ingram (I think? It was so long ago). Back then, I knew nothing about draft covers, pre-orders, author websites, email lists, and all that other yadda-yadda-whoopdie-whoo.
Even though Alisa’s publishing company is an indie publisher, she’s got connections. So, in all my naivete, I forgot that things are different when you’re dealing with a well-known distributor.
Right.
Yeah.
OK.
Move along.
Nothing to see here.
#Schooled
Peace, lurve, and wet panties,
You have a pretty damn good temp cover. There are a lot of thieves out there, especially with all the AI-assistance.
Many moons ago, my first screenplay was stolen and became a studio franchise (It wasn't copyrighted).