Judging a Book By Its Cover


This is the cover for my soon to be published book (all besides the Ph.D. part is finished...we just have to get the letters closer). Not that I really care that much but there are punctilious people out there who will focus on that and tsk...tsk. As if I didn't know better.

The cover is the culmination of three years of writing the book. We wanted the cover to nail the message of college transition and it does. We had to go back to the drawing board or computer a couple of times to get it right but we did. My students at school have given it two resounding thumbs up. They get it. I think a book should be judged to some degree by its cover. And author worth his or her salt should work to express the message of the book visually on the cover. Presentation matters. It is not the only thing but it is important, especially in a visual age.

I want the book to stand or fall on the merit of its ideas in the marketplace. What a radical idea. For people to read it, students going to college particularly, because it is actually good. Not because it toes the line of the sorry rules of the Christian evangelical subculture. So here we are on the edge of the book's release. May it create a desire in this generation to see their collegiate journey as an imaginative adventure...    

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