I Couldn’t Pick Just One—So I’m Showing You All of Them

Ink & Ambition's cover took a few rounds of edits!

Hello, beautiful people!

Publishing a book is insane work, especially for an indie author. Not only do you need to write the book, you need to edit it (a thousand times). You need to proofread it and have beta readers give you feedback. You need to find a cover artist and format the inside, among a million other things. It’s grueling, it’s painful, it’s exhilarating.

For Ink & Ambition especially, this journey was exhausting. While I can’t take you on the entire expedition with me, I can share the amazing steps of my cover artist. Before she gave me the beautiful cover I have today, we went through a few rounds of edits to make sure it was exactly what I wanted.

One thing you should know about me, I’m very eager and not very patient. Two qualities that aren’t great in tandem. I love these characters so much and I was so excited to see them come to life, that I was ready to just say yes to anything! But my artist was so meticulous and detailed that she wanted my opinion for every step so I wasn’t really able to just say yes perfect yes! to her designs, which I really appreciated.

Let’s start the at the beginning: The Concept

They’re shaking hands, clearly making a deal. Love that. What I didn’t love was that they were shaking with their left hand. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Also, I didn’t love that Alex was holding a jacket (as silly as that might sound). I couldn’t picture what kind of jacket it would be. A letterman jacket? But he doesn’t play an organized sport. A leather jacket? Not really his style. A jean jacket? Pass. So, we nixed the jacket and switched their handshake.

Coming up next: The Design

Love the outfit change on Margot. Love the handshake switch. Love that she’s holding a newspaper and has a pen behind her ear. But I wanted more from Alex. A smile, some muscle tone, messier hair. I couldn’t picture her falling in love with him just yet. So, we added more.

And then came: The Details

My babies have come to life! And I love them so much!! Her shoes, his hair, his dimples! The little blush on both their cheeks. They’re adorable! But what about the background? Much of the book takes place in a podcast recording studio. But did that come across with this background or is it too distracting? Too in-your-face? We’re soo close now!

Finally: The Final Product

And there we are. My beauty. My grace. My sunshine and frat boy. We went through a lot of get here but I’m so glad we did because there is no way it ever could’ve been better than this.

I can’t wait to share this cover and book with you guys!! Just 40 more days!

Thanks, loves! Same time, next week? 😘