I love talking to authors. Our experiences are so similar, yet so very different, that every one of us has a new story to share. Everyone says that the moment you get your cover it really hits you – you’re an author. The cover is your story – and you – packaged for the world. So the process of the cover reveal can be slightly panic inducing. Does it fit your story? Is it what you hoped? Will it sell? With this in mind I put together the CRAP (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) Interview.

Today’s guest for the CRAP is Sherry Sidoti, author of A Smoke and a Song: A Memoir which releases August 1!

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

I cannot say I had a clear picture of what I wanted my cover to look like, but I knew how I wanted it to feel. I wanted it to feel like how I felt back then, in my youth: humid, sticky, red-hot like a wildfire, windblown, messy. Like a New York City subway—graffitied, noisy, metallic angst-in-motion.

Did you have any input on your cover?

Yes, it was a whole journey that went a little something like this:

August 2022 

Step 1- Fill out a detailed cover concept template complete with chapter summaries, my description of the tone and mood, and covers of other books I liked. Submit it to the in-house design team at She Writes Press.

November 2022: 

Step 2- Choose my favorite of five mock covers that came in my inbox. 

(None of which were love at first sight, by the way.) 

December 2022: 

Step 3- Have multiple conversations with my publisher:

Me: “It’s beautiful. But I am not sure the color is right.”

Her: “It’s evocative. Moody and intriguing.”

Me: “But I’m not sure it feels like me.”
Her: “It’s not you. It’s your book.”

January 2023: 

Step 4- Tweak the layout. Remove. Enlarge. Play with alternative colors. 

(All the while, I doubt. She remains patient, encouraging, yet firm.)

Step 5- Surrender and commit. Tell myself: don’t be stubborn Sherry. Learn from the experts. Trust the process. Practice loving it, meditate on the things that are right.

Twice each morning and once during nights, for days and days and weeks, I squint my eyes and breathe with the image. I zoom in on the cigarette in the ashtray, the white textured layers of swirling smoke rings trailing out towards the melancholy blue background, the jagged-edged boxy letters in solid black ink. The open window, the scaffolding. 

I remember who I was: a red-hot, angsty, New York City girl. And who I am now: a cool moody blue mid-life woman who loves hard and wrote a whole damn book! 

And just like that, I fall in love with my cover. Like an arranged marriage.

How far in advance of the reveal date were you aware of what your cover would look like?

Eight months.

Was it hard to keep it to yourself before the official release?

Yes, and I wasn’t good at it.

What surprised you most about the process?

Releasing control! I gave birth to my book, yes. But as I learned to do as a mother, I had to do as an author — let my book have a life of its own. 

Any advice to other authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

Hire experts and trust them to do what they do. 

Let your cover reveal to you what you may not have been able to see before—about your book, and more importantly, about yourself.

Breathe.

Sherry Sidoti is an author and the founder and lead director of FLY Yoga School, a teacher training program, and FLY Outreach, a not-for-profit that offers yoga and meditation for those in recovery from addiction and trauma on Martha’s Vineyard.