But the cover…
I decided that the best way to keep expectations in check (as well as the best way to embarrass myself) would be to show off exactly how bad the cover could have been. Since I never delete anything I was able to go trolling through the digital wasteland of covers past to pull out some examples of covers that did not make the cut. These are the rejects, the covers that I created on the way to… something else.
The first thing I did was find the very first cover I ever made. Here it is.

I found more bad examples for the next few books but let’s skip ahead a bit. I don’t have an amusingly bad cover for The 4th Floor Lounge to show off but I did find something in that book’s folder that made me laugh. I use this brilliant naming convention where each concept along the way is saved as cover1, cover2 and so on. Usually the file I upload with a book ends up being something around cover8 or cover9. While I didn’t have nearly that many tries, the final cover for The 4th Floor Lounge was saved as cover240. I’m thinking I was pretty frustrated at that point.
And last we have this almost cover for Collecting Zebras.
I don’t think we can say that each of my book covers is necessarily better than the last one but I think we can see improvement from beginning to end. And probably some improvement within the pages as well. I hope people I know and people who read my books will continue to tell me what they like and don’t like. I’m always open to feedback. I’m stubborn but still willing to learn.
Thanks for coming with me on this trip down What Was I Thinking Lane. I’m going to hide now while you all stop laughing.