If you know me (or read my main blog much) you know I love the details. Love a great detail story. It's probably the writer in me...and God is so good to honor that by bringing me sweet details to love throughout my life
One such story is hidden in the cover of my book.
Part of my work in the self-publishing process was to choose the cover for my book. WestBow sent me a link to a site with cover art and I could choose an idea for the design team to work with in the cover art. I had a difficult time with the decision, because I needed something that would encompass the entire book. While it is a book to be read during the Advent season, the lives I studied move past those of the traditional Christmas faces. I wasn't sure how to embody the full scope while still honoring the idea of a Christmas book.
At last, I chose a cover and submitted it with the rest of the book information.
I received an email a short time later saying the particular cover I'd chosen wasn't usable because of some copyright issues with that image. I went back through the site again, searching for a new cover, and I couldn't find anything I liked. I didn't want to hold up the entire process for the sake of the cover, so I tried to figure out what to do.
Last Christmas, I went all around the house and took pictures of my decorations (I'm a little ridiculous about them) for my blog. As I flipped through the pictures, hoping to find inspiration, I found a couple of pictures I'd taken of my grandparents' family Bible and a ceramic holy family:
If you look closely at the Holy Family, you'll notice the Baby Jesus has a broken arm. As in...completely dismembered. I do need to invest in some super glue. But I figured a cover designer and some Photo Shop magic could fix about anything. So...I sent the pictures. I wasn't sure they could use them, because they weren't terribly high quality. (The author photo I sent had to be reformatted by the photographer into a really high quality file.)
They moved forward with the book production, so I assumed what I sent had been usable.
I was thrilled when I saw the cover for the first time. I thought they'd done a beautiful job with it (and many people who have seen the book have commented on the cover, actually). And what I loved even more was that through this disaster-at-first-glance, my grandparents' family Bible is now the cover of my first book. Complete with the little tear in the page.
My grandparents both died before I graduated from high school, but they were both amazing influences and encouragments to my life. I'm so glad they can be honored in this tiny way!
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