Between giving honor where honor’s due in the credits of my books and my covers showing up on Damonza’s portfolio and banners, authors ask me often about my experience with the team here. I always say wonderful. Easy. Joyful. Fun. Fruitful. That was the case for Bell Hammers — which Publisher’s Weekly called “a hoot” — as well as Overmorrow and Tap & Die.

I seldom say why it was fun and easy.

It’s possible on the backend that the team here hates working with me, I have no idea, I haven’t asked. (Team: it’s totally okay if any of you hate working with me, I’m completely comfortable liking people who hate me or find me annoying). I have always honestly really enjoyed working with the team here — including even through my mistakes and theirs! They’ve been easy to work with and clear with their boundaries. They’ve also been incredibly responsive.

I have found a handful of things in our collaborations have led to winning covers. (I’ll leave it up to them whether or not they show either the final covers or the alternatives or both).

Here’s where my spirit of play, fun, and collaboration come in handy:

1. I know what I like, but know that I know nothing. Nor think that I know something. What this means for me is I’m not precious about the final idea, nor do I think that I have the best idea, nor do I aspire to arrogantly assert my precious ideas out of ignorance. I have a couple of cover designers I adore generally and certain names I respect for certain projects. However, I’m not married to my ideas, my tastes. This means that, for instance, though I link to Gabrielle Wilson’s covers every time I offer suggestions, I’m by no means married to in-world ephemera. That worked well for the oil can, but not so well for Overmorrow.
   
   
2. I take the team here literally when they give me a long, detailed form asking for more information about the book. I take my time with the survey for each book. I give as many hooks as possible detailing characters, moods, motifs, symbol systems, plots, etc. I’m talking long paragraphs. I show all kinds of cover mockups, I think through a million ways it could go. It’s improv: I “yes, and” the shared reality I’m building with Damonza through the ideation process until I’m absolutely, positively spent. Then — at the end of it all — I always say that the most important thing is that the designer (1) has fun and (2) is proud of what they made. I mean that absolutely sincerely. I hope they enjoy what they made and that they’re more proud of it than any cover they make that year. Why? Because if it becomes a passion project, more than simply one more cover for a lazy or angry customer, we’ll see their best work. Folks who care and have fun work harder than folks who don’t. Consider the three year old toddler who is frigging sweating over the block tower they’re building. Is it work? Is it play? Yes.
   
   
3. I always give a full, detailed idea of one cover. We might not design that one, we might not like it, but if nothing else, it gives us a foil against which to build other covers. It starts a kind of visual debate with the other two. My ideas are most often the worst one! But I think it’s important for me to come to the table with one. I’m not only open to surprise. I want to be surprised. If nothing else, I have a detailed idea so that I have something to throw away once I’m surprised with something far, far superior from the team here. So I’m not precious with my style or my idea.
   
   
4. Once we have covers, I ask as many of my friends as possible to give me objective feedback — based on the blurb and genre — for the best cover. This is often not the one I would pick. It’s often not even one I would have guessed.
   
   
5. I then ask Damonza directly which one they’re proudest of, which one they enjoy the most. I think every time, this agreed with the pseudo crowd sourcing. That too surprised me.
   
   
6. I take all of that together, make a very difficult decision. I don’t know that any of these times did I land on the cover that appealed to me the most. For Bell Hammers, I personally like the inside joke of them peeing in the puddle, but that’s very in-world. For Overmorrow, I really wanted it to look like the Narnia silhouette, but that didn’t evoke the wonder and themes of the book the best. For Tap and Die, I liked the color one better. In retrospect, I think my gut was wrong on all three of them. I think I’ve ended up with the best cover of the set every time. And that spirit of play and joy led to the best: I really want what’s best for the story. So as my mentor said, let the text win. Let your reference texts win, then once you write the best book possible, let the story tell you what it needs. That includes the cover.
   
   
7. Then we riff again on the concept. I don’t assume we have the best cover yet, we’ve chosen a specific ebook cover mockup, but what other ideas can we come up with? I riff and riff and see if there are options. Probably not, but I still want to tease out any possible avenues we may have ignored.
   
   
8. After all of that, I ask for their final decision: which one are they proudest of? I try to choose that one every time.