Reality Check?

I got my final cover art this week and I’m so excited – sort of.

Don’t get me wrong. Ramona Lockwood did a fabulous job, and she put up with a lot of stress and anxiety on my part. I did not expect to become such a basket case over the cover, but I think I’ve finally figured out why.

The first drafts were fabulous. As my female students said, “oooh!” The problem was the model had on the wrong pants. He wore jeans and my leprechaun wears designer slacks. Yes, that’s right – my central male character is a leprechaun. And in talking with my students, I immediately saw I was going to have to explain that he wasn’t short or homicidal. So really, nice pants are an important part of that message.

Debby very graciously told me to stop worrying about the pants, but sent my ideas back anyway. The second round of drafts had seven completely different designs. I was blown away by Ramona’s creativity, except for one cover, which was very telling.  Seems I can read books with bare-chested men, but not write them!

As Debby pointed out, the cover is about sales, so I polled my beta readers, family, friends, and again students. It’s nice having a built-in focus group. But their votes were evenly split between a violin and the model above. I still had to decide! Nobody, by the way, voted for the cover I suggested.

So thinking sales, I picked the one of the two winners that looked best online. I think it’s a good start toward introducing my leprechaun to the world. And therein lies my problem. Fergus has been living in my head for so long, I’m having trouble with his becoming real.

Okay, I realize that I am talking about a leprechaun, so I may not be on the most psychologically healthy ground, but isn’t seeing imaginary people a bad sign? What do ya’ll think? Anybody else have a oh boy moment when you realized your imagination was about to go live?!