Book Launch Par-tay!

Katie Davis, author of The Curse of Addy McMahon, is hosting a book launch party tomorrow night! Get all of the hot party details here!

I thought my little contribution to the party could be a memory-lane scrapbook, like the slideshows set to Billy Joel for the senior prom. But THIS scrapbook won't contain embarrassing photos from the French Club or the Math Team (yes, I was a member of both)- but is rather a photographic journey of how this book jacket came to be.



The first jacket! It was decided that more colors were needed, a little more levity.



So, I added the firebolt-weilding fairies (from an interior illustration), and some colorful comic book-y panels, since Addy keeps a graphic novel-esque journal. Great! Everyone loves it! I breathe a great sigh of relief and move on to the next project. My work here is done.

... OR SO I THOUGHT! Months later, I get the message that every designer dreads. "_________ doesn't like the jacket. We need something new." I don't actually remember at this point who objected to the jacket... Sales? B & N? Doesn't matter, someone came to the conclusion that "comic book-looking novels don't sell" (take note, Marvel, DC). So back to square one, this time with the added bonus of a ticking clock!


Kept the fairies & the cloud, lost the panels..


Lost the fairies, added photographic girl.



86 photograph, sub cartoon girl! Much discussion as to whether 3 clouds were better than one.



In the end, we went with the single cloud, and as a final step, decided that Addy was not the kind of girl to have appliques on her jeans (this was an attempt to "girlify" the figure).

And that's all she wrote! Now the jacket is immortalized on any number of accessories (available as door prizes at the party!)


BTW, Katie Davis is not the first ad-savvy author to promote her book via clothing. Jody Feldman dropped by the offices the other week & handed out these sweet tees:


Or, if this were a teen, not middle grade novel, it might look like this:



(And, of course, the tees would be spaghetti-strapped and midriff-baring. FYI, future product, Jody!)