Many thanks to all of my Facebook friends who weighed in on the cover for my novel, Dream Wide Awake.  My artist, Amanda Filutze, and manager, Jessie Zahner, and I reviewed every single comment, many of them twice. The conclusion we arrived at was simple: none of the covers seemed to hit the mark.

Lots of you said Mikala Daly (the little girl) looked creepy. And even more said the covers all looked YA (Young Adult). So we tossed them aside and started almost from scratch. So (drumroll) here’s what we decided upon:

We discussed the title of the book at length and decided to put it front and center. So many people have told us the name itself sparks interest, so we wanted the title clear. We also chose green because, well, we tested many pictures but green seemed to stand out the best on bookshelves.

We were tempted to select orange but when we went back to Barnes and Noble, it appeared every other author thought orange was best, too. The shelves were lined with orange covers.

As for for narrowing down the picture to the little girl’s eye? That idea was a combined effort that came from my son-in-law, Jason, my daughter, Jessie, and my niece, Heather Havern.

In the end, it was my talented niece, Amanda Filutze, that redrew it to perfection. I knew as soon as I saw it, I loved it. We hope you do, too!

Many thanks. In case you missed my past posts, I’m saying it again. I have the best friends in the world!!!! Thanks for your help.

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Cyndie Zahner is an author and blogger. Her novel, Dream Wide Awake, will be available for purchase on Amazon, Itunes, Barnes & Noble, and KOBO on or before October 1, 2018. Follow Cyndie @CJzahner on Instagram and @Tweetyz on Twitter.