As you may know, I’ve had the idea for Over Raging Tides for a long time.

So much time, in fact, that I’ve had plenty of time to think over what I wanted out of developing a cover for it. I knew that I wanted both a ship and a feminine representation. The book was, after all about female pirates.

Developing a cover on my own

I tried developing a cover myself in my free time years and years ago by buying a couple of stock photos and tinkering in Photoshop.

This is what I came up with when left to my own devices:

And… you know, I actually liked it! The concept anyway.

But I quickly realized that developing a cover for Over Raging Tides was outside of my skill set. Especially as I decided I was leaning towards developing a cover in a more illustrative style. If photo manipulation was beyond the pale for me, illustrating a cover definitely was!

I’d had my eye on Jenny of Seedlings Design Studio for a long while and loved her covers, especially her YA illustrated ones. I reached out to her to see if she’d be interested in developing a cover for Over Raging Tides and working with me.

Happily, she agreed to be my cover artist!

Developing a cover with a cover artist

After signing a contract and paying a deposit, I secured my spot in her schedule. And when the time came, Jenny asked what I was thinking! I gave her a vague idea of the cover concept and we discussed an illustrative design and colors. Then, I attached the above mock-up and my Pinterest mood board for the series. After that, I left her to ~percolate.

Jenny e-mailed me later with one of the of the coolest tools I’ve ever seen while developing a cover with an artist: Image boards.

This is just one example of the image boards Jenny sent me while developing a cover for Over Raging Tides. She also included pages in the pdf she sent me with font possibilities and other covers that we could create similar concepts to.

I gave her my feedback on all of the concepts, told her my favorites, and let her take the wheel!

What she returned was beyond my wildest dreams:

Do you have any questions about developing a cover or working with a cover artist? I can try to answer them!