Wind of the Spirit Cover at Last!!!!

[Sound of horns blowing vigorously] TAH DAH!!!!!!

I have a new baby! The much-anticipated final version of the Wind of the Spirit cover arrived today!!! Can you tell I’m excited?! It’s a good thing there aren’t any limits on the number of exclamation points you can use in a document, because I’d be locking up the computer. LOL!

You’ve all seen the 2 photos we started out with. And I know several of you mentioned that you prefer covers without any figures on them. But . . . well, I had this vision.

I was not at all sure it was possible to do what I wanted to do. I certainly had no idea how to get it done. But just at that moment, the Lord led Dineen Miller to e-mail me. She asked if I needed another designer, and not knowing much about Dineen, I took a look at her Web site. I was impressed, to say the least. I needed an ad for Sheaf House, so I hired her to do it. And not only did she do a terrific job, but she mentioned she’d love to work on book covers. She hadn’t done any yet, but she was eager to give it a try.

Thinking about Dineen’s portfolio, I threw this project at her. I had 2 images of a stormy sky and some really crazy ideas. A whole long page of them. I was sure she was going to think I was out of my mind, say something polite, and tiptoe quietly out the back door. Instead, to my shock and delight, she responded that she was sure we could do this!

And she delivered. The process took a couple of twists and turns, but . . . take a look. A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?

Needless to say, I’m thrilled! This image doesn’t show the spine, but it’s as cool as the front. Dineen won’t get to the back until after the conference, but it’ll be made up of the 2nd image nicely ghosted to allow the text to show well against it. Maybe a couple of other fancy things, who knows?

All I can say is, WOW!! From a design standpoint, this is one of the best covers I’ve ever seen! It ought to stand out on a book table or shelf in a bookstore, don’t you think?

Schedules and Changes

I apologize for going to long between posts! I’ve been deep into production on both Wind of the Spirit and our other spring release, My Son, John, by multi-published author Kathi Macias. And my good buddy Peg Phifer has been doing a top-down redesign of the Sheaf House Web site. Boy, does it look pretty now!

On top of all that, I’m trying to get ready for the American Christian Fiction Writers annual conference, which takes place in Minneapolis September 18-21. The feature of the conference is a humongous book signing by 127 authors that will take place at the Mall of America in Bloomington on Saturday the 20th from 1 to 3 p.m. There will be lots of giveaways and a number of author panels. I’ll be signing copies of One Holy Night. So there’s lots to plan for.

Two friends and I, who don’t much like to fly, chose the route of adventure and are taking a road trip. Three ladies and all their baggage in a car on a two-day trip to a writers conference and back again just sounds like tooooo much fun! We’re leaving the 17th and planning to make it home the 22nd. If all goes well. And with 3 women driving cross-country in a car, you just never know . . .

With all that on the agenda, I’ve allowed my blogging to lag. To get everyone caught up I have an announcement. I hate to tell my loyal readers this because I know you’ve been looking forward to January when you can finally get your hands on Wind of the Spirit. But . . .

I’ve had to postpone the release until March 1.

I can hear your collective groans, and I apologize profusely! I feel terrible! And no, we’re not having any problems with production. Making the original date isn’t an issue—we’re well on the way to having this puppy ready—but my distributor thinks March is a much better release date, and pushing it back gives the sales reps more time to get it into bookstores. As a publisher I have to set aside my authorly eagerness to get my book out to the public at last and heed their wise counsel.

However, although Wind of the Spirit won’t officially release until March, I promise the books will be in the warehouse and ready to ship in February! Now, if we can just persuade the online sites to get it in stock and ship it early, we’ll be in fine shape. In the meantime, if you haven’t been on my Web site (http://www.jmhochstetler.com/) and read the excerpt posted there, hop on over and get a first look at what’s coming up!

Exciting news: I’ll have the final cover to share with you soon! The preliminary my designer, Dineen Miller, sent me is totally awesome! I’m more than thrilled with it. Everything I wanted in my wildest fantasy is there! Sometimes the stars align just right. Of course, we all know who rules those stars!

I have several more endorsementsI want to share, but first, here’s a review written by blogger Christina Gustafson’s 13-year-old daughter Katy after she read Daughter of Liberty and Native Son.

The American Patriot Series intrigued me from the very beginning. I’m a “picky reader” and usually have to give a book two to three chapters before “getting hooked”; however, I only had to read a paragraph and found myself wanting more. Elizabeth Howard’s parents are Tories through-and-through, but Elizabeth doesn’t quite agree with them. So, when Elizabeth meets British General Carleton, things become humorous and exciting. This all leads to a shocking and exciting ending.

Native Son is mainly about General Jonathan Carleton. Carleton is sent into Native American territory to make a peace treaty, while Elizabeth is to stay behind and continue her work [as a spy]. Once again, Mrs. Hochstetler leads us to a wonderfully surprising ending. The American Patriot Series is not only exciting and full of surprises, but it is also inspiring. J. M. Hochstetler writes in her book that no matter what crime we commit, no matter what we’ve done, God is there for us and He loves us unconditionally. He will always forgive us and help us start again.

I must admit I was quite disappointed when I reached the end of Native Son. Not because of the ending, but because I’ll have to wait until 2009 to read the third book in this series. (Be sure to check out the American Patriot Series Blog for more information!) Thank you Mrs. Hochstetler for giving me two of the most enjoyable books that I have read. I will surely read this series again and again.

Not only am I very pleased with the review, but I’m quite impressed with this young woman’s writing ability. I’m always especially delighted to hear from students who have felt this crucial era in our history come to life for them in my books. That’s my goal, and it’s more than wonderful to get feedback that I’ve succeeded in showing students how thrilling, absorbing, and relevant to our lives history really is. You’ll find Christina’s blogs at Mustard Seeds and ...And Everything Else.

Here’s another great endorsement for Wind of the Spirit from our own Edgy Inspirational Author herself, Michelle Sutton, author of It’s Not About Me.

“Wind of the Spirit carries you away—literally—to another time and place. The perfect combination of setting and fabulous wording pulled me into the story, and the emotional scenes kept me turning the pages. This story doesn’t drag but keeps building while educating the reader about history at the same time. In regards to sensuality and tension—move over Deeanne Gist—cause Hochstetler goes places most CBA authors can’t. However, the tension is so well done and is so beautifully written, I wouldn’t change a thing. The author shows love as the holy experience it truly is . . . when it occurs the way God intended. I highly recommend this story. I couldn’t put it down.”

And Robin Lee Hatcher also graciously endorsed this volume:

“Ms. Hochstetler has filled the pages of this book with many details of the period, taking her readers back in time. If you like sweeping historical sagas, Wind of the Spirit deserves to be on your bookshelf.”

If you happen to be in the Minneapolis area on September 20, be sure to stop by at the book signing, and look for me! I'd love to chat with you!

Riding the Wave

I just got another great endorsement in!

“The passion and intrigue of the American Revolution comes to life in J. M. Hochstetler’s wonderfully entertaining read Wind of the Spirit. Beautifully written and completely engaging, Wind of the Spirit will appeal to fans not just of Christian fiction, but of historical fiction as well. Not to be missed!”

—Michelle Moran, national bestselling author of The Heretic Queen

I’m totally flattered that Michelle agreed to take time out of her busy schedule to read and endorse one of my books! I’ll tell you, that feels pretty good, especially at those times when I feel like I have to be the worst writer in the whole world. LOL! From talking to other authors, I know this isn’t unusual, so whenever those dark thoughts weigh me down, I can look at these very kind words and remind myself that I’m not doing so badly after all.

Endorsements

Here are the first two endorsements I’ve received for Wind of the Spirit! I wanted to share these, and there are more on the way.

With rich, vivid descriptions that draw you back in time, characters that become your best friends, eloquent language that will leave you breathless, and a romance that warms you from head to toe, Wind of the Spirit is a stunningly beautiful story about the fight for freedom, survival, and love in a savage land.

—MaryLu Tyndall, author of The Falcon and the Sparrow

A captivating tale of love and courage skillfully woven into the Revolutionary War, revealing all the human passions and valor that made America great.

—Louise M. Gouge, author of Then Came Hope

Wow—that’s pretty encouraging! I really appreciate their kind words, and I hope the rest of my endorsers are as enthusiastic! LOL!

Of course, there’s still lots of work to do before WOTS is ready for the printer. I’m waiting for my editor to return the manuscript with her corrections. At that point, I’ll enter the edits in the file and make sure nothing was missed. I’m also going to have my daughters proofread it. They’re very detail oriented, and if there’s anything wrong, they’ll spot it. I want to have the text as near perfect as we can get.

I also need to have the maps made so readers can follow the action. Since I don’t know anyone who does this kind of thing, I’m going to try a query on elance.com and see if I come up with anybody. It’s kind of scary to do that, but I ended up with a terrific designer to do Alice Arenz’s cover for The Case of the Bouncing Grandma, so my fingers are crossed that lightning strikes twice!

Designing the Wind of the Spirit Cover

Cross posted on Publishing Dream.

We all know that creating a striking cover is one of the most effective tools for marketing a book. When I worked at Abingdon Press, getting approval for a book cover was one of the most important and stressful hurdles we faced. So when I began thinking about the cover for my own next project, Wind of the Spirit, I ran right into a question that stymied me for a while.

How do you illustrate a title like Wind of the Spirit?

Well, obviously the cover has to give an impression of what the book’s all about. It has to basically encapsulate the story’s theme and focus. How to do that with this particular book was the issue.

One thing I’ve heard from a number of readers and authors is that they prefer book covers that don’t include people. Trying to capture the characters in the book is iffy because everybody is going to have a different take on them. Especially the author, as I discovered while wrestling with Zondervan over the covers of my first two books. So I do agree it’s more effective to engage readers in the story by allowing them to visualize, and thus identify more closely with, the people they find on the pages of your book. It makes reading more interactive, and that draws the reader into the story.

The cover designs of my first 2 books in this series were essentially out of my control. Zondervan gave me some input, but at the end of the day, it was their marketing department that had the final say. Now, as a publisher I know marketing considerations are very important in the design of a cover. But big publishers put out a whole lot of books, and too often it’s the same old same old, the easy, hopefully safe bet, the publisher ends up going with. In my case, I was never happy with the covers on Daughter of Liberty and Native Son though admittedly some of my friends developed a passionate relationship with the model on Native Son. Okay, I’m teasing, but they did like him. A lot.

Now, however, I face making the right decisions myself since I’m the publisher. And that’s even more stressful than being stuck with a cover you don’t care for. What cover would have the best odds of selling this book?

Well . . . I came up with this crazy idea . . . Yeah, right. So what else is new? LOL! You knew that was coming.

I’m not going into all the details of what we’re planning at this point—once we have a final cover, I’ll post it, of course. But in doing extensive searches on istockphoto, I came up with these 2 images of the same scene in portrait and landscape orientation. They’re perfect for the front and back of a book cover. The first one even has black bars across the top and bottom where the title and author name can go. And the one in landscape orientation gives us enough of the scene to wrap around the spine and back cover. Of course, we’ll have to ghost that portion—put a screen on it—so we can run text legibly across it, and it will be just visible in the background.

The crazy tree that sticks up is going to be eliminated. And there will be a figure and some other detailing in the scene itself, but it will all be subtle and full of motion. Dineen Miller is working on the overall design, and she enlisted Frank Wu, who is doing the magic with the images. They think they can achieve the look I want, and I am totally excited at how this is developing!

Isn’t this scene amazing! Strangely enough, these photos were taken in Kenya, but I was so captivated by the powerful image of a gathering storm that I knew this scene gave just the right feel of foreboding and movement that I was looking for.

So what do you think? Will this make a fabulous cover or not?