How A Book Cover Comes To Life

For Pidgy's Surprise, all we had was one copy of the original book. Fortunately, this copy still had the dust jacket. Only the dust jacket had the cover artwork, the cover of the actual book was a simple, non-illustrated, solid cover. Here's a scan of the last remaining dust jacket that we know of:

Next, the publisher and artist discuss how they each would like to update the cover. After much discussion, it is decided that the cover should be brightly colored, with a mischievous pony playing with a butterfly. A few weeks later, the artist sends along her finished painting. (Note that Jeanne Mellin, the artist/author who wrote Pidgy's Surprise so many years ago, is working closely with Willow Bend Publishing to see that her beloved Pidgy gets back into the hands of young readers.)

Now the graphics designer steps in and works up the text to fit, and enhance, the cover. First, we need a cover for the "Galleys" - the pre-publication version of the book that is sent out to reviewers. It's a little different from the final version. Can you spot the difference?

Once the galleys have been sent out, the graphics designer gets to work on the final copy of the book.

Here's the cover with the Advance Reading Copy - Not for Resale and the black box that surrounded it removed. It's almost done.

And here's the final image that we used on the book.