What's behind a self-published book cover

Reveal of the new cover for my latest book

Welcome to Follow Your Gut, a newsletter about the artist life and business from a mother of two. After soon a decade as an independent artist and writer, the question is not only how to do it, but how to continue to follow your gut in a world that tries its best to stuff it with fluff.

85% of new letters are free to read for 3 days, whereafter they go behind a paywall. If this is our first date, I warmly invite you to check out the free archive first. I’m Swedish after all, don’t want to be too pushy (just a loving nudge ❤️).

When you design a book cover there are numerous things to take into consideration, such as (but not limited to):

• Your own artistic vision

• An honest reflection of the content

• A relevant representation for the target reader

In my last letter to you I shared a poll about what cover you spontaneously preferred relative to the different ideas proposed.

Today I’ll reveal the final cover and most importantly why I chose it.

I admit I’m slightly scared of disappointing you. But as with all fears within artistry you just have to do it anyway.

By sharing my reasoning, I’m convinced you’ll understand the decision better and perhaps feel encouraged to reflect further on your own.

But first I’ve got a little announcement to make:

It’s almost here my friends!

The revised version of When will you get a real job? will be published in 3 days (Friday 12th April) at which point (or shortly after) the pre-sale offering will end and price goes up to 7€/month and 50€/year . (Now at 29% off monthly or 50% off yearly).

I’m going to be really honest, as I am in every letter, there will most likely be some small mistakes left in the manuscript.

The book is not a perfectly polished piece of writing, because I am not a perfectly polished piece of writer. Though I quite love it that way.

So for all perfectionists out there, I warmly invite you to not read my book, though you may still enjoy my newsletters.

I’ve reached the point in my artistry where I’ve come to embrace imperfections (this has not always been the case!). Imperfections give me space to breathe and experience the work as a living thing rather than a fixed asset that can never be changed again.

As a result, I invite you to see the book the same way; A piece of writing that may move you and open up new ways of thinking about your own artistic journey and the beauty in its changeability.

I hope the book will invite you to new reflective places, inspire you to challenge your presumptions around the artistic life and encourage you to keep going.

You, along with all other paying members of the Follow Your Gut Community, will be able to download your own kindle copy on Friday (I’ll send out an email with instructions). You’ll also secure unlimited access to all other writing too, which is already quite something.

Now the big reveal - and there are two sides to this reveal so hang in there…

I’m terrified and excited all at once!

Terrified mostly out of fear of disappointing those who didn’t vote for the winner (and in this case that’s actually the majority of you who voted in the poll… oh gosh what did I do?!).

Excited because I think you’ll see my reasons and be thrilled to follow along the process of the second reveal too..

Voilà!

Though this “concentrated artist at work” type of image of me fluctuated between second and third place throughout the past couple of days, I’ve settled on it as the cover for the kindle version of the book. And I’ll tell you more about why.

The answer is dual (as always) and I blame parts on myself for not including the distinction between kindle and hard-copy, which to me makes a big difference…

But first, have you ever thought about how some covers are hard to distinguish when seen in small thumbnail versions on a screen (hypothetically on a phone…)?

I want my cover to be seen from miles away, ideally catch attention and a sense of intrigue to get to know me… or more so, get to know yourself through me.

With a couple picture (though reflective of the fact that I’m sharing the story of my husband and I), I’m afraid it would potentially create the perception that the book is from “the outside in” rather than a view from “the inside out”.

Yes, the book is based on our experience, but it rarely focuses on just chronology and description of events. Instead, it goes behind what first meets the eye.

Teyani Whitman

summed it up perfectly in the comment section under;

From a strictly marketing viewpoint, cover number two (the close up of just you) WILL sell the most.

Many people will fall in love with your work. The truth about why they BUY it is because they can imagine themselves being you. Only cover number two does that in the close up of you. The others are marketing being a couple, or yes, the first looks like a craft book. And you’re not selling how to make crafts.

So… there’s my unasked for two (or 200 cents).

Market the topic of your book. Making a living as artists. Your story will bring in that this is also about him. No worries. And everyone will fall in love with the supportive roles you have in each other’s lives. They can only imagine being one artist at a time.

PS. In case you wonder where my insight comes from, I managed a 4000 square foot original art gallery on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco many years ago. And This is how we sold all the original art. (Average original price between $500-$40,000). We were very successful. I taught my staff to connect the buyer with the artist to the degree that they can imagine being the artist as they consider making the purchase… if they have the $$, they’ll buy it every single time. Everyone wishes they could be an original artist 🤗

The last bit “everyone wishes they could be an original artist”, is invaluable advice and something I’ll carry with me in the back of mind going forward.

It’s fascinating how it’s always about the small things, a shift in perspecive that suddenly lead to new heights. Or as I wrote in one of my most popular essays; All it takes is one thing to turn your life around.

Thank you

Teyani Whitman

I’m sending you a huge hug of gratitude for generously communicating what my gut feeling was telling me.

On to the second bit of the cover reveal…

I couldn’t get you all hyped up and involved in this process without honouring the results (which I’m incredibly excited about by the way form an artistic standpoint!)

Therefore, I’ve already started the embroidered version and will bring you along the process of how to make a unique “thread-sketch” (what I call the technique I intend to use for this piece).

Here I transfer a photocopy of the original sketch over to fabric using a carbon paper. The fabric is a sturdy cotton/linen blend originally used as curtains in my grandmother’s apartment… She didn’t particularly like them (it’s a lovely sand-beige colour) so she gifted them to me for Christmas (haha!) and now we’re here… repurposing at its best! I usually use less textured fabrics for fine-line stitchery, but in case I reuse the work for a future hard-copy cover I want to make sure that the fabric is very textured to really enhance the fiber arts vibe.

The artwork will be a stand-alone representation of the book (and I might make more related art pieces as part of the long term continuous marketing efforts. Marketing through artistic storytelling is very fun and tend to be quite effective too…hint hint)

And if we manage to grow this publication big enough I’d love to have an embroidered cover for a potential hard-copy (imagine the strands being elevated on the cover surface to enhance the textural element of the stitches, wouldn’t that be just stunning?!)

Perhaps, once the follow-up sequel to When will you get a real job? is completed, I’ll make a larger book with the two parts in one as a sort of memoir-non-fiction combo…

Ps. The sequel, which currently has the running title of How to keep your artist job forever will be serialised behind a paywall here on Substack starting in a few weeks.

The first few precious stitches (single stranded back-stitch for anyone wondering). This close-up image reveals more of the highly textured fabric too and how transfers to this type of fabric can be quite tricky (and generally don’t show too much). That’s ok for me as I only need key lines and points for reference whereas I prefer to freehand the rest à la cool (more fun that way). As I’ve been used to filming everything through the past years for our online embroidery Academy I’m now embracing getting back to basics and truly enjoying experimentation without having to film it all. It’s strangely a bit of an inverse learning curve… Maybe I’ll have to write about that too.

Thank you very much for reading and I can’t wait to see you on Friday for the final book release!

Elin, xx

Ps were you surprised by the cover choice?

For further reading you may like these;

• The one thing that keeps artists from selling

• Why bother about creativity?

• Let’s stop overthinking everything so that we can finally get to work