If you’re not brain-deep in publishing on a regular basis, you might not know just how little input an author has on the cover of her or his book. If you’re lucky, you get to see cover sketches. Perhaps you even get a chance to weigh in on various cover designs. For me, this was not one of those covers.

The cover for Silenced at the Book Show went through several iterations before the editor got to a cover she wanted to send to me for approval. Apparently there was an outdoor seaside cover that looked like the town in which the book is set and a cover featuring a convention center, as the book’s action takes place around a booksellers’ convention. Neither of those, she decided, was cozy enough to attract cozy mystery readers.

Not only did the cover go through several iterations, the title did as well. My original title was Silenced in Seaside. The book takes place in an actual Oregon coastal town called Seaside. The story is filled with references to silencing, of authors, of women, of competitors, of those who might reveal deep dark secrets from the past. To me, the title was perfect. To my editor who lives and works in the UK (not the US like me) the title looked like it should say Silenced at the Seaside. Why? Because people who don’t live in Oregon might not know that Seaside, Oregon, is the name of a town. They would look at the cover and think that it made no sense.

Sigh…

When editors are sure of something that relates in any way to readers deciding to buy and read a book, I listen. “Try to come up with a new title with the word ‘book’ in it,” she suggested.

So, I brainstormed.

• A Killer BookCon
• Booked to Kill
• Death at the BookCon
• Murder at Midnight
• Murder Most Bookish
• The Deadliest BookCon
• Books Can be Murder
• Secrets by the Sea
• Murder at the Mermaid’s Purse
• Books, Bridges, and Bodies
• A Body on the Bridge, and
• Silenced at the Book Show

By now you know which title came out on top of my editor’s list (Thank you, Kate!). Which would you have chosen? I’d love to know!

In the meantime, enjoy these scenes from Seaside, Oregon! Me on the beach, the coffee shop Saffi visits repeatedly in the new book, the bookstore that hosts an evening get-together for book show-goers, a glimpse of the turnaround and promenade in Seaside, Oregon, and the brilliant cover for my latest cozy mystery (Thank you, Dawn Adams!) You can even pre-order the book as part of your holiday gift-giving. https://geni.us/1097-al-aut-am

And many thanks to Storm Publishing for such a wonderful editorial team and for the chance to get my cozies into the hands of readers. Merry to all!