I'm so so excited!! I really, really hope you guys like it!
Before I get down to it, I just wanted to share with you a little story behind the cover, and why it means so much to me.
Basically, back in January this year, I was slogging through my rewrites of Synthetica, still dreaming about getting published one day but not really doing much about it and going through one of the worst bouts of anxiety I've had in a long long time. I couldn't seem to pull myself out of it. Everything just seemed dull and pointless.
But then, one night, the Engineer started asking me questions about my book. The conversation went a little like this:
Engineer (out of the blue): "What kind of mask does your villain wear?"
Me: "Think about the guy from Captain America: The Winter Solider, and you've got your man. Why?"
Engineer (super sly): "No reason..."
Me: "TELL ME!"
Engineer: "No." *clams up and refuses to speak to me about it again*
That conversation hasn't been stylised at all. Well, maybe a little, but still - he did ask me out of the blue about my villain's mask and when I pressed him, he did refuse to tell me.
A week or so later, while he was in China on a business trip, the Engineer sent me an email. Attached was a mock-up of a cover for Synthetica. Without me knowing, he'd got a designer he works with to design a cover for me. I was in shock and so thrilled at the same time - when I asked him why he'd done it, you know what the Engineer said to me? He said he wanted me to have something to look forward to. He did it to pull me out of myself and back into the real world. I still can't believe that I've managed to find someone that selfless, who knew I was going through a rough time and decided to help me out of it by encouraging me to never give up on my dreams. I wouldn't be self-publishing my book today, if it wasn't for him.
If I'm 100% honest, that first cover wasn't what I was imagining when I thought about it in my endless daydreams, but I think that's a good thing. I think that together, me and my designer have come up with an even stronger design than the one I originally envisioned.
It's not pretty like the other YA book covers you tend to see. But y'know what? I don't care. I'm not a frilly, pretty pink person. Neither is my book. Both me and my book are dark and straight to the point. And in this context, I think the cover for Synthetica couldn't have been any better.
It's bold. It's simple. It's striking. It's everything I wanted.
And here it is:
Synthetica...it's coming. 1st April 2015.
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