Invite, Pivot, Scheme, and Invite again
How to reveal a book cover in post-pandemic times
Travis Williams and Anna Pederson collaborated to design a knockout book cover for Leoshine, Princess Oracle, Book One of the Leoshine series. They’ve done it again for book two, Leoshine, Princess Quarry!
Achievements like this need to be celebrated! I wanted to make a big splash to show off the beauty of this cover.
I wanted to have an in person event as well as an online event. Leoshine has fans all around the world. We’ve done many video parties throughout the pandemic. We look at this as one benefit we could never have imagined. We also want to visit Leoshine’s fans up close and personal!
With pandemic restrictions easing, we can get together for food and fun to reveal the cover. I am of a cautious mind so I preferred to gather in outdoor groups. I thought of all the food safety regulations I had learned and put them into practice.
I started thinking about this in the summer. But every date I set had ten reasons why it wasn’t going to work.
I finally set up for a driveway party in late September. I gathered up a feast, I sent out invitations, and I swept the driveway.
And Covid invaded my house.
It is still happening. Plans are still being upset, redirected, pivoted. How flexible we are determines how well we will succeed from now on. Hasn’t it always been this way? Why do we think we are special, that we are the only ones who have ever had to do this?
After the disappointment and the infection wore off, I started to plan again. I had a talk already booked at the library for the middle of October. The staff there were delighted to host my book cover reveal party at the same time. I planned a video party for the same weekend and sent invitations in all directions.
Why I like an online video party:
- No travel. From the safety, comfort, and personally expressive space of your own home you can enjoy the company, experience, and information exchange of a wide community. When I play games with a community like this, people can use things they find in their homes to win. This makes them feel valued. They see their importance to the community.
- Wider audience. I love the international flavour of video parties. We typically have people from Africa, Europe, South America, and North America joining us. There is no other way to get all those geographic regions in the same “room.” Ideas are exchanged, experiences shared that bind us all closer together. The world shrinks and we build compassion and curiosity for each other.
- Cameras off. The introverts among us can participate from our own supportive environment with less emotional energy spent “fitting in.” With the camera off, we can hear and see others while keeping the distance we need to feel strong. When we speak, the whole “room” stills to listen because we have more presence than in a physical room full of little groups of people that are hard to break into.
- Saving the environment. I can share my screen with the “room” and save paper I would have used to display whatever I’m presenting. All that fuel that would be burned traveling is saved and the emissions kept out of the atmosphere. Waste from paper cups, plates, food packaging is eliminated.
How did it go?
The library presentation was a success. Engagement from the audience was the highlight. Everyone wanted to speak about how the cover of Leoshine, Princess Quarry leaps off the page and invites the reader to an adventure.
The video party was delightful and intimate, but not what I was hoping for. We talked about book covers and discovered that readers have no idea what it takes to design one, but they sure have their favourites.
I have to conclude that for the moment I am alone in drawing this benefit out of the pandemic.
People have moved on. After all that time not getting together, they will choose an in person gathering over a video gathering. There are many, many in person gatherings these days.
People associate the video party with the lockdown sensation. That was all we could do and it was wonderful to be able to do it, but it carries that association, almost a claustrophobia that will be hard to shake. Sociologists are just getting started analysing what happened in human communities during the world wide shutdown of all social interaction.
I know we can heal. I know the world will not return to the way it was in January 2020 and there are many reasons I am glad of that. Video parties are one of the benefits I will continue to promote alongside in person gatherings, flexibility in plans, pivoting, and compassion for those who are ill.
We can learn from forced change. We can take the good out of the bad and move forward as better people. This is the theme of the Leoshine series and I hope you see it in the cover.
Sign up @ https://tassanara.com/subscribe/ to make sure you get an invitation to the next Leoshine Video party! Also to follow the Leoshine series from Princess Oracle, through Princess Quarry and beyond!
Cultures clash and mercy triumphs at the end of time and space.
