Covers That Didn’t Make The Cut

As a special treat for my launch day blog readers, I thought I’d post some truly entertaining content — the failed cover designs for “The Unlikely Disciple.”

Here’s the story behind these images: A year ago, when Grand Central (my publisher) was designing the book cover, they asked me to come down to New York City for a photo shoot in a SoHo studio.  The cover, they said, would have a classroom theme, and they’d be shooting me in a variety of settings designed to highlight the academic aspects of my Liberty semester.  I arrived at the studio in early afternoon – wearing brand-new clothes I’d bought just for the day – and introduced myself to the photographer, his assistant, the stylist who’d be doing my hair and makeup, and Grand Central’s art director, who’d be overseeing the shoot.  Then, I saw three good-looking college kids – two girls and a guy – trying on clothes in front of the studio mirror.  Assuming they were there for an unrelated shoot, I introduced myself to the guy – a tall blond who looked like Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell.

“Hi, I’m Kevin.”

“Oh hey, I’m Ken.  What agency are you with?”

“Agency?”

Then it hit me: Grand Central had hired models to pose as my Liberty classmates. My editor had mentioned this as a possibility in an e-mail I’d probably barely looked at, but I was caught completely by surprise.  Sure enough, as I talked to the three of them, it came out that they had been brought in to represent the “Christian college” look, which – judging from the outfits they had on – meant “preppy chic.”  They hadn’t, however, been told what the assignment was, or that the book in question had been written by a college student, so they assumed I was one of them, and that the real author would show up later.  Flattering news, I suppose, but also extremely odd.

So my faux-Christian-classmates and I posed for a little more than three hours, while the photographer yelled at his assistants and ordered us into various contortions and poses.  The shoot was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life, and the cover designs that resulted, while definitely inferior to the one we chose in the end (which was, oddly enough, actually taken in an earlier shoot), are funny to look at in retrospect.  I present them here for your viewing pleasure/my total embarrassment.

(Note: When this was taken, the working subtitle for the book was “My Semester With Jesus.”  I think you’ll agree that what we changed it to, “A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University,” is much better on all fronts.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 12:17 pm .