It’s a curious thing when you begin to move towards the end of a book. You’ve worked away quietly for months. In this case, the venture has been shared with Tamsin, and we’ve bounced ideas back and forth. A collaboration. I sent her sound files as words threaded together. She sent me images. Then we handed them over to editors and the designer.

Unbound were very generous in allowing us to help choose a designer. This isn’t normal. Usually in publishing you get who you are given. Both Tamsin and I love the book The Cosmic Dance by Stephen Ellcock, both the book and the design of it. 

Wild Folk will be the same format as this book, and we managed to secure the same designer, Daniel Streat.

It’s still an act of faith, when you’ve not worked with someone, to see how they will take the words, the images, and make them sing.

I wish now we had recorded the first meeting we had, when Dan had begun to work on the book. Better still, I wish I had recorded my reaction to opening the first pdf . . . but maybe best not. There were many expletives. All very positive. So exciting. So beautiful.

Dan not only read the words of the stories, and really looked at the images, but he had watched our film and listened to how the stories linked. He understood the light and the dark, and the presentation he sent us . . . well, I’d never seen anything like it before. 

I don’t want to write more, I'm just too excited and want you to see what he has done!

There were two covers that really stood out. They were too hard to choose between, and greedily we requested that for subscribers, could we please have a dust jacket, unencumbered by our names and titles etc, to wrap around the book’s casing. And Unbound said yes!!!!!!!

So now, for subscribers only we have an exclusive dust jacket, the cloak:

Which will enclose the portal:

With much excitement, 

Jackie and Tamsin