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My Debut Novel, a cozy fantasy called A Light Home, comes out February 12th! Follow or subscribe to this newsletter for behind the scenes (like this) every week leading up to the launch day!
Here’s the book announcement and cover reveal!
Hi, I’m Max, I write fantasy, science fiction, and genre stories as well as essays on the craft. Help support my writing by upgrading to a paid subscription, sharing my work, or dropping a tip in my hat over at ko-fi! If you become a paid subscriber here, you get early access to my books, including A Light Home!
Each of my stories is stand-alone. However, many are in a shared universe. If you want to check out a specific world…
You can click here to dive into the fantasy world of Breiar (where A Light Home is set)
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Ever heard of Aphantasia? A Dictionary of Neurological Signs describes the phenomenon as “the inability to voluntarily visualize mental images.” Imagine an apple. See it in your mind – or at least some version of one? Cool. Now imagine A favorite character from a novel or story, whether that be Frodo, Tress, Viv, or even someone real like Shackleton in the pages of Endurance. Keep that in mind….
What do you do after finishing the first draft of a book: Celebrate? Marvel at your accomplishment? Throw it right in the bin? I’ve done all three, but as I sat at the kitchen table of my friends’ house in Phoenix, Arizona during the wee hours of the morning in March of 2023, seeing the cursor blink after the words “The End,” I thought something different than I had with the other three novels I’d completed before. I thought: “This is the one I publish.”
A Light Home is not my first novel. It’s not even my first novel set in the fantasy world of Breiar. But it’s the first novel I’ve been confident in. As I looked at those two magical words completing my first draft, I knew the work was far from over. To quell the overwhelming feeling of: “what’s next?” I put the draft behind, continued my vacation with friends, and wrote a story that is entirely the opposite of the cozy fantasy that A Light Home is – the dark sci-fi jam: A Tale of Two Cocktails.
Once I got home though, the work started. I poured over every self-publishing guide I could find online. Particularly paying attention to Travis Baldree’s writeup here and a ton of the advice on r/selfpublish, and too many others to count.1 The two things I sat down and started right away though, were editing and inspiration. I wrote an old essay on how I edited back in the day, but I’ve grown a ton since then, so keep an eye out next week for a post on how I – with a ton of help – took the first draft of A Light Home (To Light Home back then) and turned it into the manuscript sitting in a “publish” folder now.
The inspiration is the pertinent part here. I scoured the internet, and the world around me for art in the style I wanted the book to have. Looking from book covers, to album art, to paintings and video games. I knew Michael Whelan was out of my price range, but I can guarantee: if there was a book on my shelf, I looked up who did the cover art and who did the cover design. After filling up a bookmarks folder of art and artists I had to do the unthinkable: I had to reach out to someone and ask for their help.
This terrified me. It felt like I was committing to the idea of publishing this book. I was saying to the world, well, to these two artists, that my work is good enough to justify asking them to do some work.
It scared the hell out of me.
So, I kept it simple and started with a single artist… who never replied. I don’t hold anything against them, but it didn’t help my confidence level. So I decided to go for broke and reach out to a long shot. Carson Lowmiller is the amazing artist who completed paintings for Legends and Lattes as well as Bookshops and Bonedust, its sequel.2 It felt a little on the nose following Travis’s write up that closely, but I figured another ghosting wouldn’t do me any harm and I sent my email to Carson.
He turned me down.
He was busy. I got it.
But he also asked me to tell him more about the book.
This was the first time I’d ever had to “sell” A Light Home, and I’m ever grateful for the low stakes scenario I got to test this out. I’d already gotten the “no” from Carson and I respected that. We’re all busy and I now know a bit of how much work goes into a painting like this. I told him about the book. I gave a rougher version of the blurb now sitting on the back of the cover, as well as some other details and a bit about what I was imagining the painting would look like.
“I think I could do this.” Came the reply.
I couldn’t believe it.
A few more emails discussing price and process and I had a cover artist under contract. This was real. This story of mine was on its way to becoming a book.
A note on the timing – I began this process earlier than strictly necessary. I reached out to the first artist in November of 2023 after completing my third-ish draft of the novel, entirely self-edited at this point. Cracking my knuckles and getting serious about publishing the book to kick off 2024, I emailed Carson January 12th a few days after emailing my to-be editor3 inquiring about their services. I didn’t realize how long the rest of the manuscript process was going to take me… but it all worked out.
As we got the contract sorted out, Carson asked me for a few sketches of possible covers. Now, prepare your eyes for the art that I’m able to produce on my own (I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually need to hire an artist, they’re so good):
Then I got the question I didn’t realize I was going to change my writing:
“Please send physical descriptions of the characters! I need hair color, skin tone, articles of clothing, and age. Any physical features to Owyn? What is his nose/eye/head shape, etc.”
Remember Aphantasia?
I’ve got a very spatial based mind. I remember where things are in physical space quite well, and its come in handy in my profession as a Civil Engineer. It comes up a bit as I read and write. I see the spaces and the actions perfectly in my mind. The Aphantasia Wikipedia article has a wonderful picture illustrating the concept:
I can see scenes and actions somewhere around a 1.5 on that scale. Not quite photographic, but pretty darn close. Characters though….. those sit around a 4. When Frodo wakes in the barrow downs to find the hobbits asleep and in danger, I see the setting. I see the swords and the wisps and I feel the danger closing in, but I don’t really see Frodo. I see figures asleep on the ground as the hobbits are, but they have no faces. I feel the worry in Frodo’s heart, but I don’t see it on the character in my mind.
Owyn didn’t really have physical descriptions in the first three drafts of A Light Home. Tulbër, the giant on the cover, did. He was easier, it’s a whole new type of people I invented within my world. I know what they look like more or less. Owyn though… I felt his emotions and I saw his actions as I wrote, but I didn’t see him.
In the meantime, Carson sent me the first batch of sketches:
Wow.
These were real art with my setting and world and characters starting to show up. I can’t state enough how cool this process was to live through. You can see how rough Owyn was though. I hadn’t quite gotten that part figured out yet. Here’s where friends, editors, and artists all come together to make a book better. It took more work than I thought it ever would to get to a place where I could describe Owyn, and honestly, I don’t know if I could just off the cuff without thinking about it now. Thanks, brain. Questions to friends who’d looked at early drafts and a good amount of thought got me to the point where I could describe Owyn’s build and clothing.
While I was working on these, Carson worked on the sketches:
And after some thought and a vote between friends comparing what the back of the book should look like, we got the very refined sketch:
Looking a little familiar, eh?
A day, and some details discussed, later, I got color options:
I held another vote between friends, but in my heart I knew that option C was the choice. I love the colors of A, but they fit more of a northeast USA, Dredge or The Lighthouse type setting to me. A part of me still wishes that was the vibe of A Light Home only so I could see what a full cover under the colorway in option A looks like.
You might notice Owyn’s face is still missing.
We found a solution though. Carson and I talked about what would help him best as my vague descriptions were not working in the slightest. It was the easiest solution in the world and I find it so funny I could not think of it on my own. I thought about it far too much, and I’m pretty sure co-workers found me scrolling through large image searches of celebrity faces and that’s ok.
I found some faces I liked, and sent them on over and received this beauty:
It was really coming together. I could not hide the grin on my face at this point as I walked around the office. Every one of my friends got the daily updates and I answered every question Carson had as soon as possible as he homed in on the details and final points before rendering.
Finally, I received the final piece. Here it is again:
I love it so much.
From my first email on January 12th, I received the final painting in a few file formats for my cover designer to use on February 12th. I’m still astounded by how much work Carson got done in such a short time. From my idea without a face, to the painting above in a month. Insane. I was overwhelmed when I first received the painting, and I still am. And I hope it helps bring some readers on in to check out the Story that inspired the painting.
A Light Home comes out February 12th this year! Two years since I received the painting from Carson, but the cover was not done with just the painting in hand. There was more work to come.
If you’re interested in me discussing my work with Ryley Wiering, the cover designer, let me know! I debated adding a bit about it – its admittedly a far less thrilling tale – as a short essay behind a paywall after this post for paid subscribers, but if there’s a few comments interested, I’ll revise my schedule and make sure that story is posted for free for everyone!
I try to put as little behind a paywall as possible, and will always do so, but as a reminder: Paid subscribers get EARLY ACCESS to the novel – and all my future novels! I’ll also make sure they find out the celebrities we settled on for Owyn’s face! Maybe those with a different brain make-up than I will see who it is as they read the tale.
Tune in next week for my revised take on the editing process and all the work that turns a draft into a manuscript!
Tell your friends about A Light Home and mark your calendars. It comes out so soon and I cannot wait to share it with you!
Love ya!
Max
Thanks for giving that a read! Check out a fantasy story of mine here!
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There were a few other sources which are now broken links unfortunately, so I cannot share them. Though the information I remember from them was super helpful. Particularly an old write up from Ryan Cahill.
See his portfolio and Bluesky here: https://www.artstation.com/carsonlowmiller https://bsky.app/profile/emberwickart.bsky.social