Inspired by Life ... and Fiction

Novelists bound by the pen, sisterhood, & more

A New Cover (and a GIVEAWAY!)

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[This giveaway has ended, and the winner is Emogene N Oliver! Congratulations, Emogene! Watch your email for information on how to get your book. I loved reading all the comments and so appreciate the encouraging words! Have a wonderful day!]

One of the most fun events in the life of a writer is getting to see the cover for a new book! Novelists are usually able to have input on the cover and even if we sometimes get a cover that doesn’t perfectly match our vision for our story, we usually get to see the cover in time that we can make some tweaks. But sometimes, it works best to make tweaks to the story, rather than to the cover. That was the case with my sixth novel, A Scarlet Cord. When the designer at WaterBrook Press sent me this image, it took my breath away. I loved it!

They came over a shallow rise and an old stone church loomed on the horizon, standing sentinel in the middle of the plains. …The prairie grasses had grown up around it, and now bright spatters of autumn’s last wildflowers were daubed among bearded wisps of brome and wheatgrass.

There was only one problem: no old stone church appeared anywhere in my novel! The publisher offered to go back to the drawing board with the cover, but we realized there was a better solution—one that would allow me to keep a cover I loved. I was still working on the manuscript, so I found a scene in my book set in a random parking lot. I was able to move my characters to this church to have that same conversation. Several readers commented on how cool it was that my cover designer captured the scene so perfectly! But the secret was, I was the one who “captured” that cover so perfectly because I was looking at the exact image when I wrote the scene! You can read my description from the book in the caption beneath the cover.

Something similar happened with my October novel, Chasing Dreams, second in the Chandler Sister Novels series. I really liked the cover the publisher’s designer created, but I’m a huge fan of covers that truly illustrate the story inside, so I felt there needed to be an explanation for the rather specific image on the cover. Again, my manuscript wasn’t finished at the time I first saw the cover, so I made up a story to match the image. You can read my description in the caption below this cover:

The sisters crafted a flouncy rag garland from paper hearts and little scraps of linen they’d torn from some old curtains Mom had sewn for the bedroom they shared as little girls. Phee had come up with the idea…after she found the old curtains in a box Dad had brought for them to sort through.

A different sort of cover dilemma presented itself a couple of weeks ago when I first saw the cover of Finding Wings, the third and final Chandler Sisters Novel set to release this September. I really liked the cover my publisher’s designer had created, but it immediately felt too…familiar! And then I realized why. In thumbnail size, especially, the new cover looked very similar to the original cover of my novel, A Nest of Sparrows (which I also loved!) Since I’m one who remembers the books I’ve read by their covers, I was afraid readers might see this and think they’d already read it!

Fortunately, the publisher remembered that they’d had a variation on this cover during the design process. They went back to the drawing board (just a little) and sent me this beautiful final image that I love, and that won’t be confused with past covers.

I’m so pleased with how beautiful the three covers look lined up together:

GIVEAWAY: I’d like to send a copy of Chasing Dreams to one of our wonderful readers of Inspired by Life…and Fiction. (U.S. readers only, please.) To be entered for the drawing, simply comment on this post. I’ll name a winner tomorrow at the top of this post, so be sure to check back and see if your name was drawn!

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Deborah Raney

DEBORAH RANEY's first novel, A Vow to Cherish, inspired the World Wide Pictures film of the same title and launched Deb’s writing career. Forty books later, she's still creating stories that touch hearts and lives. Her novels have won RWA's RITA Award, the ACFW Carol Award, the National Readers Choice Award, and the HOLT Medallion. She is also a three-time Christy Award finalist. Deb is on faculty for several national writers’ conferences and served on the executive board of the 2,500-member American Christian Fiction Writers organization for 18 years before retiring in 2022. She is a recent transplant to Missouri, having moved with her husband, Ken Raney, from their native Kansas to be closer to kids and grandkids. They love road trips, e-biking, Friday garage sale dates, and breakfast on the screened porch overlooking their wooded backyard.
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Comments

  4. I have read the first of the Chandler Sisters and am looking forward to the other two! The covers are beautiful!

    • Ken has done about 20 of my covers! He’s done the new covers for all of my backlist books that we’ve republished through Raney Day Press. And yes, he’s done cover designs for dozens of other authors as well.

  7. Yes, the covers are beautiful! This post really hits close to home to what is happening in my writing life right now. I’m self-publishing a novel that takes place in the early 1900s and have been trying to figure out what to have as the cover. I found this great picture I had taken of a daisy on an old piece of wood with some of the petals missing and scattered about. I loved the picture, but had nothing about pulling the petals off a daisy in the book. Well I went back and put a couple of passages in the manuscript about my main character doing that. My writing group still didn’t think I should use it for my cover, but I kept the passages in the book, and I think it really added something sweet to the story. I eventually found a new cover that fits more to the script, but still had to make a little tweak to a certain scene for it to fit better. It’s so nice to see that sometimes other authors do the same thing!Congratulations on all of your successful books!And thanks for the post that hit home!

    • Janet, I think it’s so neat that even though you may not use the cover image that inspired the daisy petals scene, you still feel the scene added something special to your story!

      • Thanks Deborah. I think I will save the daisy picture for another story. But, I’m glad I tried it out, or my story wouldn’t have those extra passages that made my story better.

  8. I think it’s pretty awesome that the person who creates the cover and the author who writes the book can work so good together. When we readers pick up a book to read, you’d never know that it was different people who put together the cover and the story. Great work!!

  10. The covers are lovely together and make for a compelling combination. As one who displays particular books on my library shelf to face forward, covers are an important part of storytelling, the precursor to the prologue!

  11. Very interesting post about book covers! If it’s a new authored to me the cover of the book is usually what grabs my attention! Beautifully designed and I love the old stone church in the background!

  14. Your description of cover design for your books was fascinating. How creative to tweak the story rather than the cover when that proves to be the best solution. I’ve read the first two of your Chandler Sisters books and loved them; now I’m looking forward to reading the third in September.

  15. These covers all turned out beautiful! And I love hearing how they came about. Well done!

  16. Oh, wow! I’m glad you caught the similarities between A Nest of Sparrows and Finding Wings! 🙂 Now that I see them side by side, they did look very similar (before the edits were made). I love a good cover, too, especially when it matches so well with the story.

    I enjoyed reading Chasing Dreams and look forward to reading Finding Wings!

  19. Such an interesting description of cover design! I often select a book based on the cover, and all of these are beautiful.

    Would love to win this book!

  21. How interesting to read how the covers are developed for your books! I love all three of them and will be reading them soon. Thanks for the giveaway! God bless you, Deborah!

  23. Thank you for sharing this story! I love writing from a picture & never would have imagined you could write your cover into a book. So creative and fun!

  26. Novice that I am…I love the choice I made for my book cover. Excited to read your book—they are stacking up on my pile!! Love this chance to win one of yours❣️

  27. I love the final cover for Finding Wings. (Better than the one they originally planned.) It is in between the other two novels in the series as far as shades go. Thanks for sharing your stories about adding scenes to make the covers work. I had no idea that type of thing happened.

  28. Love the covers!! I read Reason to Breathe, which I enjoyed immensely. Haven’t had a chance to read Chasing Dreams yet. Thank you for a chance to win.

  29. Beautiful covers. Thank you for sharing stories about them. Thank you for the giveaway. Blessings…

  33. When did book covers become such works of art?! My recent book purchases have all been gorgeous, and it’s so fun to see them on my bedside table. But I still have a few from the early 90s that were not so beautiful! HA HA! Still wonderful stories! I love this newer trend much more.

  34. How great that you could create a scene so perfectly for the cover. I love when the cover matches the story. Sometimes the author even describes the dress the character is wearing. Makes me feel like I’m really there. Congrats on the new book!

  35. I have really enjoyed this series and look forward to the new one. Love the new cover–it matches the others so well. I like the landscape type covers better than the people versions. Leaves more to the imagination.

  36. I love how the new cover echoes the blue sky from the first book. All are gorgeous covers and make a beautiful set. I really enjoy how you explain the processes behind the parts of publishing. I feel it makes the stories part of us; we have to get “our” stories, from “our” author. Thanx for the giveaway.

  37. I enjoy learning a out how your covers came together along with having to go back and add a bit to the story to make the cover fit. I’m always puzzled by a book that doesn’t “fit” its cover. Your covers are gorgeous!

  38. Oh Deborah, I love your books! And this series looks so wonderful, the covers are beautiful! Did your husband design these?

    Thank you for this opportunity to win.

  39. I enjoyed reading your post today, and I agree.. the three covers work well together! (PS. I’m attending Mount Hermon Writers Conference in a couple of months, and would love to meet you there!)

  43. “A Scarlet Cord” has been in my collection of books for several years. I used it as a learning tool to see how an accomplished writer writes. I love hearing the backstory on the cover.

  48. Love all of these covers and hearing how you tweaked the stories to fit the covers. I find it interesting that the covers don’t always represent something specific to the book. Do they just go by the title when they design the cover?

    • The cover designer usually knows something about the book, and the author and editor have input about what they think would make a good cover. But the designer obviously doesn’t have time to read every book they’re designing a cover for, so they use genre, title, author, readers, story themes, etc. to come up with a cover. Often I will get to choose from 3 or 4 different directions the designer could go. That’s fun!

  49. It is so wonderful that you are willing to adapt the story to a beautiful cover. You are very talented.

  52. The covers are beautiful! It’s fun to learn about the designing of the covers as you are still writing the story. How interesting that they had a cover that didn’t have anything in the story about a church. Thanks for this giveaway opportunity 😊❤️📚

  55. Very interesting about the covers. I really like the cover and looking forward to reading this series.

  57. Enjoyed finding out about the development of the covers. They are gorgeous! I’m a bit favoring to the FINDING WINGS cover because I love living in the country and one of the things we love is photographing birds.
    CHASING DREAMS is on my TBR list and I appreciate the opportunity to win a copy.
    Shared everywhere and hoping to be the fortunate one selected.

  58. I love all of the book covers! I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but I am more likely to pick up a book that has an eye-catching cover.

  59. I sure enjoy reading about the cover process! Would love to win the book! I always share them with my daughters after I read them!!

  60. I loved this post on the cover process. What I really loved was seeing the covers!
    I often try to visualize the setting of the story and your covers are so helpful.

  61. I’m fairly new to your books, but I am HOOKED! Love the covers, covers are SO important I think, even more than the title! Anxious to see who wins!

  62. I love it too when a cover illustrates the story inside. Beautiful covers and thanks for the opportunity to win!

  63. I need to ask myself, Am I chasing dreams? Or, am I seeking the will of God? Sounds like an interesting book!

  65. Your covers are so comforting. I like to think it’s your passion and heart shining through! Excited to read these books!

  66. What a fascinating post. I start writing a setting with research and photos from the place. Must be my imagination needs the boost! Thanks again. I would be tickled to win one of your books, although I have so many of them already! I am a huge fan. It was so lovely meeting you at BRMCWC.
    From an Iowa writer!

  68. I loved reading A Scarlet Cord. So it was quite fascinating to read how you tweaked the story to match the cover.
    And, of course, I can’t resist joining in at the chance of a book giveaway. 😉

  69. I love all your books and am inspired by the beautiful covers. I always recommend your books to friends and make sure we have them in the church library.

  70. How exciting it must be to be a writer and being able to be a part of how each cover looks like!

  71. How interesting to read about the covers and how it influenced your writings! Thank you for sharing!

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