Final Book Cover Design and Title

I'm excited to finally be able to unveil some information: the cover, the title, and the publication date.  Since you're all writers too, I thought you might be interested in the process we went through to reach these decisions -- read on!

I turned in my completed and polished manuscript last October  to the fab team at Quill Driver Books (hereafter referred to as QD). We took the holidays off and then dove into January with some fine-tuning in anticipation of the book listing going out with Quill Driver's fall catalog.  (Yes, it's just now spring, but remember, publishing almost always operates months in advance.)

First, we changed the title from Nervous Breakdowns and Psychopathic Killers: The Writer's Guide to Psychology to The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior.  


Why?  Well, my original goal was to create a title that grabbed the browser -- NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS AND PSYCHOPATHIC KILLERS! -- and made her want to pause long enough to look at the subtitle and then the book.  However, QD made a really good point: many, many people browse books online, and the subtitle often isn't visible.  So we needed a title that made clear the book's purpose.  We banged around some possible titles and subtitles and finally came up with one that not only clearly explained what the book was about, but was interesting, too.

Next came the book cover.  QD had a design firm come up with three different cover options, all of them quite different.  I  asked some of the people I was closest to what they thought; meanwhile, QD discussed the options internally and also asked the book distributor folks for their input.  In the end, we chose a design that best seemed to convey the concept captured by the new title.  Seeing the book cover is kind of like putting on a wedding veil -- you realize in a way you hadn't before that this is really going to happen!

Most recently, I got a publication date: December 1, 2010 -- just in time for holiday shopping!  The book isn't yet available for pre-order, but it should be soon.  I'll be sure to let you know.

More soon!