Searching at Jimmy's Cover Reveal!

I recently mentioned how difficult it was to decide on a title for this book. I would say that getting the book cover designed was equally as difficult. Maybe more difficult.When we started working on the cover concept a few months ago, I had one idea that was very specific for how I wanted the cover photo to look. However, we had a hard time finding a setting that would work for what I wanted. We tried multiple times to get a photo that was close to what I was thinking to no avail.One night a few months into the process, I was laying awake in the middle of the night thinking about the cover and realized there was a disconnect between the look I was going for and the new title. (Remember, I went through a few different titles before landing on Searching at Jimmy's.) Since we decided to change the title, the idea I had for the cover didn't necessarily make sense anymore.Naturally, I got out of bed right then and started doing some Google searches to help me get an idea of what the new look should be. When I eventually got back to bed, I had a concept of what I wanted to do, and it seemed like it would be a lot easier to accomplish than the first idea. Unfortunately, I made it worse than it needed to be by trying to take the cover photo myself Despite my amazing, beautiful co-worker, MaKenna, graciously modeling for me, I am not skilled in photography, so the pictures didn't turn out all that great. By this point, months had passed since we first started to work on the cover, and I was feeling pretty discouraged.That's when I reached out to my good friend Cara. Cara and I went to college (and England) together and I was in her wedding a few years ago, and she's pretty much the sweetest person I know. She also happens to be an amazing photographer. So, I called her in a moment of desperation and asked if she could take some photos for the cover of my book. Cara, in all her kindness, said yes and jumped right in. About a week later, she sent me a folder of the prettiest photos and I was so incredibly blown away.From there, it was just a matter of dropping the photo into a cover template and dumping the text onto it.Easy peasy.Well, except for the part where the publishing program was being super finicky and frustrating, and kept requiring us to change minor details. It only took like ten or fifteen "Final Drafts" of the cover design to get it right. I'm just grateful that my best friend Kelley was so kind about constantly having to tweak the design.The process took a lot longer than planned (and a lot longer than it did the first time around), but I love what we ended up with. I hope you guys do too!We're only a few weeks away from the book release, so stay tuned! I will post more information about Searching at Jimmy's next week.