Creating covers by committee

According to an old proverb, too many cooks spoil the broth. While that may be true with some things, I have not found it to be true when arriving at book covers. As one who is as artistic as a dog with a paintbrush, I depend on the insights of others when developing the right wrapper for a particular novel. This month, I did so again with The Fair, my latest work.

Thanks to my committee of advisors, a select group of friends and relatives, I settled on a cover that I believe is appealing and strikes a balance between the book's competing themes. Set mostly in Chicago during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, The Fair is a mix of time travel, history, romance, humor, and adventure, with grandeur as a backdrop.

For this cover, Laura Wright LaRoche, my longtime illustrator, enhanced an original photo of the fair's Administration Building and Grand Basin. Others helped me choose the style and color of the title font, a font that reflects the serious and whimsical themes of the fair, which introduced the world to the Ferris Wheel, Cracker Jack, and the wonders of electricity. I was, and remain, grateful for their help.

Though the book itself is still a work in progress, it is one that is getting much closer to publication. I expect to publish The Fair, the second novel in the Time Box series, sometime in early July.