J. Dean is self-publishing a book with Outskirts Press. And he wants your help deciding his book cover.
Book Summary
When writing about fifty years of any human life, one can only be humbled by the period of history through which so many of us survive. Life takes so many turns that the cultural changes, unfelt from day-to-day, feel like seismic shifts when surmised and stockpiled. Any man’s life is one that changes so much every year. You can go from looking in the mirror at someone you wish to grow old when you’re a teenager to wishing you were younger in a heartbeat.
Some of the memories that you’ll read may strike you as unbelievable – they do to me recalling them. But no matter how thrilling, traumatic or incredible the events of my life have been, I have not embellished, exaggerated or elaborated in any of the telling of these events. With my co-writer, I have constructed a faithful to me which stands up to the memory of time elapsed, even if sometimes my life has felt too fantastic to be real. In short, every word of what you’re about to read is the truth, whether I wish it was or not.
About the Author
Abandoned by his father when he was just nine months old, Jeffrey Blalock was placed in an orphanage by the age of three, in the summer of 1965. Abused and imprisoned under the guise/cloak of religious education, young Jeff faced a daily fight for survival against the very people who were supposed to be protecting him.
This is the true story of a boy who was left to fend for himself and conditioned against love, compassion and trust in a place where no-one survived intact. This is the story of a person able to declare against his tormentors, that his will would not wither, his body not broken and his spirit never suffocated – Not Today.
Please take a look at two possible covers below and then vote on the choice you recommend for J. Dean.
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge Cover Option A
Cover A
Cover A
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge Cover Option B
Cover B
I agree with Ed…you need to redo the Book Summary. Suggestion: Read it aloud to hear how it sounds. It should flow. Instead, the reader needs to read and reread to understand what you are communicating.
Jeff, I like the blue because it shows that your endurance paid off and because the picture is not so traumatic as the one on the brown cover. I think you should let the text speak to the trauma. The brown cover is too pleading.
You have errors in your copy. At the top, line 8, the sentence should read “embellished or exaggerated”. The words “elaborated in” should be deleted. On line 9 syntax is garbled after the word “faithful” up to the word “elapsed”. At the bottom, line 2 should read “at the age of three”. Also, syntax is garbled: the sentence should read “that his body would not be broken”. The comma after “tormentors” should be removed. You don’t want those errors on your cover.
From the looks of the poll percentages, the poll isn’t going to be of much help, so far. Personally, I like Cover A. I feel the photo and brown color of the cover reflect the trauma that must be contained within the pages of the book itself. Choice B is too blue, with the blue eminating a more calming effect and therefor less anticipation for story within. Good Luck with your choice and your book.