Okay this is not as such a cover reveal, because that something you do when you have a new book in the offing. This isn’t a new book, indeed it was the fist full novel I wrote way back in the mists of time, which of all this is more or less a contemporary romance. Well an un-contemporary romance, with much to say about self-harm, abuse, falling off the edge of society, dealing with emotional issues, tragedy, pain, loss, grief, love, depression and the importance of tin openers…
Its very un-conventional in most regards as I did not write it to a genre or with any real market in mind (yes, there is one trend in everything I write). I wrote it because I wrote it, and once it was written I suddenly realised I had something to publishing. It was at this point I started to make a lot of mistakes…
As a novel, Cider Lane stands alone in more than one way. It is utterly unique even as something written by me. It is, so I have been told by readers, heart-rending, beautiful, emotionally challenging, richly evoking, deceptively complex, utterly believable, steeped in existential questions, compelling, absorbing and melancholy…. Which is all very nice, as this is what they (the readers) took from it. But to me it is just a book that I needed to write at the time.
I suspect I will never write another Cider lane, though anything is possible. I am proud of that little book all the same. Which is why I thought it deserved a new cover, not least because the old one was… Well lets just say the old one was made at a time when what I knew about publishing was limited and the tools I had at my disposal were limited as well. But judge for yourself, left to right they are the original unpublished cover experiment, the first actual cover and the cover that has been used for the last few years. Or Twilight Apple ripoff, Apples (with the book award badge) and girl…
The girl cover was built with Createspaces on line tools back when I was first publishing Passing Place in its original cover. There were reasons it worked, and there are many reasons it doesn’t. I have written about them before several times but mainly in my guide to self publishing under the heading ‘Covers‘. Which is an illuminating read I am told :). So not to repeat myself while I have always liked that cover it doesn’t do the book justice in many ways. It needed me to design a better cover, and so I decided it was high time I did that. Not least because will it may be the odd first child of my writing career the one with which I made all my mistakes… It also remains a book I am very proud of. Also, without it Hannibal , the passing place , maybe and everything else just would not exist.
So there you go, that is the reason this is a somewhat belated cover reveal… I think the old girl now has the cover she deserves… But then I always think that so who knows it may change again some day…
The Passing Place 