I am really excited to announce that the front cover image of How To Be A Perfect Farm Wife got a gold star in the October eBook Cover Awards. Many book covers are submitted each month and some get some feedback from Joel. This month 111 fiction covers and 19 non-fiction covers were submitted. There’s a winner in each category and a couple of gold stars in each too.
My brief to Joanne was to situate the ‘farm wife’ in the kitchen. The farmer (same guy from the cover of Would You Marry A Farmer?) was to be looking in the kitchen window with the dog peeping in too. In the book I refer to the farmer knocking on the window with a request to help for five minutes which, of course, turns into a couple of hours. Living in the countryside means living in a goldfish bowl with neighbours and in-laws in close proximity and this was emphasised by the mother-in-law also peering in. And yes, it’s deliberate that she doesn’t look the friendliest MIL in the world.
It’s just as well most women are good at multi-tasking as farm wives have to do plenty of it. The multi-spouted teapot emphasises her tea-making and baking abilities. As well as looking after children, probably bringing in an income, baking signature dishes and keeping paperwork up to date, she will have to help out on the farm – all to the high standards expected by her MIL. Naturally enough, the farmer’s pride of joy, his Massey Ferguson tractor is in the background too (you can also read huge bank loan into that one). Her neat appearance symbolises that she is expected to look good in wellies as well as heels.
Very few changes had to be made to the first draft of the image, Joanne cracked it almost immediately and very few tweaks were needed. Alan McDonnell of A2D Design then did the finishing touches with the font for the title and my name.
I’m particularly delighted as I was determined to make this book as close as possible to the standard of traditionally published books as I possibly could and indeed, was delighted to be asked who published it by Sean O’Rourke as he presumed it was an Irish publisher. I’m over the moon to see it was described as “Delightful. An instant classic”.
