CMYK Books Cover Reveal

I've been saving it for a special occasion, and the perfect occasion came to mind earlier this week: a glorified bribe to gain Twitter followers. Don't judge me. It worked. I made a promise. And here is that promise, kept:

Waterstones wish this was on their shelves.

^ Click it for a closer look!^

Soak it up, ladies and gents. Acts of generosity really don't get much better than that. Nope.

I was lucky enough to commission a world-exclusive, first ever cover from my good friend Lizzie who runs CMYK Book Design - find her at @CMYKbookdesign and www.facebook.com/cmykbookdesign for more info! 

Lizzie was already familiar with both my writing and my sense of humour, so I told her which way round the accents went on the title, then handed her a brief that looked a bit like this: 

Bestseller in its own right.

She advised me on fonts and layouts and all sorts of other technical things, and then at the last minute I suggested we change everything completely with the addition of the cow silhouette split into two - a concept that ties in closely with the plot of the book. (Buy it if you want to know why!) Lizzie hastily redid everything for me, and the finished result was what we went with. Lizzie also reworked the design into a cool social media banner. 

Ultimately Lizzie had this to say about her work: 

"I was... just searching for cow fur but not stock, because I hate stock images, and not too realistic. I wanted it to look like how one would imagine cow fur. [I] inevitably followed a bunch of different tutorials on making tiger fur and lions' manes and amalgamated them to make the background."

And on our collaboration: 

"You were very good and did what I said. Ha ha ha." 

Thanks, bud.

So when can you hand over your hard-earned cash for this beauty? A little birdie tells me September. And I trust that little birdie. Because it's me. I'm the birdie. I decide. The perks of being your own boss, in this endeavour if nothing else. My final draft is temptingly close to completion, so as soon as I figure out how to get this thing on the interwebs, you can guarantee I will. And the glorious efforts of CMYK Book Design will forever herald my tale.

"A Lawnmowers, Inc. Novel?" You mean there'll be a sequel?

Yep. Several. The next one's already two drafts old. Don't worry guys. I got this. 

So what's next? Let's just say, enough followers, and I might leak the first chapter. 
Keep reading, folks.

#dejamoo
@pjbenney