Yay! Another blue book that I get to search for. Seriously though, it's a lovely cover.

L

from you especially that is high praise. I hope you like the final version as much.

What's wrong with your name being way big, may I ask? :-) You deserve way big and then some! I can't wait for the book to hit the shelves. The cover looks great, and despite being told all my life not to, I always pick my books by their covers! I have to be grabbed at first sight before I'll swipe my visa at the bookstore. Have a wonderful weekend.

I would definitely pick this book up and check it out. Your name could be a little smaller, I guess, but too much smaller and it would look disproportionate.

Is that a trend? Author names more prominent than the book title? Does it speak to some larger interest in "bestselling author" over "bestselling book?" We are a celebrity loving culture here in North America - or is that everywhere - are book covers formatted differently overseas?

Yes, books do have different covers overseas. Somewhere there must be research figures on what attracts Australians to books as opposed to Americans. (I'd love to see it!) Ours are generally quieter, more subdued in colour & slightly more formal, I guess.
My 17 year old son, who is studying graphic design, is appalled by the fact that author's names are bigger than book titles these days.I'll have to pin him down sometime & find out why. I think it probably just reflects the fact that most people buy books by author not title.

By the way -- Down Undah TTTT is coming out under the name Sara Donati. Just fyi.

Can I say that I'm not overly fond of the cover? I'm not sure that it really captivates my attention at all. I don't know that it would really stand out. Maybe TTTT is coming out in Australia under the name Sara Donati because Homestead is not really very well known here? (but the wildeness series books are?) Also, I was looking on Amazon and apparently you can already preorder TTTT!!

Jacqui -- sure, it's okay to say that you're not crazy about it. I'm not sure myself how I feel, but then it's not the final cover.

Sara Donati is a much bigger name in Australia/NZ than it is in the US, and they wanted to build on that reputation, which is why the change.

I know that alot of the time when I walk into a bookshop like Dymocks/Angus & Robertson/Borders (the larger chain bookstores) in Australia, there will most likely be at least one Sara Donati book tucked on a shelf somewhere. Its usually Into the Wilderness or Dawn on a Distant Shore for some reason, which is why I agree that using the name Sara Donati is pretty strategic on behalf of the publishers.