In honor of Read-A-Romance Month and Romance Awareness Month, this August we’ll once again be sharing some new, focused insights of indie romance authors who have been navigating the world of the genre and writing all about love in their latest novels. To read this year’s article, click here! Here, you can read the full follow-up interview with Maggie Rawdon. For her website and social media, see below!
How do you curate a cohesive aesthetic and visuals for your stories and series? What about the creation of merchandise that pairs with your stories? What sorts of artists and creatives do you normally consult for your vision to be realized?
I do a lot of my own design work, so it makes it a little easier to keep it cohesive. I’ll have a vision for what I want a series to look like and as the stories start coming to me, I also start collecting things like fonts and elements that fit that vision in my head. Then I usually reach out to one of the artists I work with and give them a design brief for custom elements I want to include in the cover design, or something that would complement the aesthetic of the series like stickers or commissioned artwork. I seek out artists whose aesthetic is a good match my own for those projects so that the overall “feeling” is still the same. I also was able to work with a brand designer earlier this year and they helped me create a cohesive look for my brand that brought all the various bits of my brand and stories together in a way that made sense and matches my aesthetic. It’s been really helpful to have that branding guide to pull from when I’m feeling like I don’t know what to post on social media or when I need a logo for something!
Going off of this, explain the process of seeking out and attaining cover photos/art for your books. What is it like to choose designs and/or models that best fit your story? If you use real people on your covers, is it difficult to find models that align with the characters in your mind? Do you pick the model(s) before or after writing the character or couple?
It can definitely be difficult to find models that align with the characters I have in mind. When they look a specific way in my head, it’s rare that it’s possible to find an exact match—although it’s happened a few times where they’ve been quite close! I don’t have a specific time in the process when I pick the model for the book. Sometimes it’s well in advance because I know they look like my character, and sometimes it’s at the absolute last minute because I haven’t had luck but then the right one pops up. It’s a chaotic process but so much fun when it all comes together and readers love the covers.
To what extent has the cover design process changed/evolved over time based on trends and the cover styles and design choices that are deemed most popular at the moment? What is your overall perception of the fluctuating nature of book aesthetics? How have these been impacted by both reader preferences and social media discourse?
I design the covers I love and think fit the series, and just hope that other people love them too. Most cover trends are genre-based, and as someone who writes books that rarely fit neatly into one genre or another, it’s too difficult to chase trends. I’ve found my readers’ preferences are split pretty evenly down the middle between model covers and discreet. I like both as well, so I usually do both for every book and let people have their choice. I’ve found that no matter which kind of cover you pick—model, illustrated, or discreet—someone will hate it and let you know about it, so in a world where there is no pleasing everyone, do the thing that makes your creative heart happy!
To learn more, please visit Maggie’s website, maggierawdon.com. Here, you’ll also be able to find her socials!