This month, my award-winning YA urban fantasy novel, I Was, Am, Will Be Alice, is on sale for just $0.99 USD! To celebrate, I’m looking back at how its cover evolved from initial concept to final design.
My Inspiration
Because I planned to market the book to fans of The Time Traveler’s Wife (TTTW) and Alice in Wonderland (AIW), I used their iconic covers as a starting point.
I fell in love with the image’s vintage aesthetic, from the soft focus to the retro clothing and battered. I also loved how the cover zoomed in on a partial image rather than showing the full scene.
Ever since the classic Disney animation, Alice in Wonderland has been defined by her iconic blue dress and white apron. I knew I needed to weave that recognizable colour into my own cover.
Version 1
Version 1 captured the vintage feel of TTTW through the frame, clothing, and worn shoes, while adopting AIW’s classic blue dress. I experimented with different images inside the frame, but ultimately decided to discard the framing concept.
Warped Time
Next, I toyed with the concept of distorted time. This version kept the cropped perspective, focusing solely on the girl’s hands, and introduced a pocket watch. This represented time travel while channelling the White Rabbit from AIW.
In the end, I returned to the blue dresses to tie back into Alice’s blue dress and strengthen the allusions to AIW in the book.
Refining the Dress: Lace and Petticoat
This version featured a blue dress with black lace and a petticoat, paired with shoes, which was a nod to TTTW. It was also the first iteration where I introduced colour banners to make the title text pop.
Refining the Dress: School-Day Style
I liked this dress style sightly more because of it’s white lace, which calls to mind AIW’s iconic white apron. The shoes were also more utilitarian, something a child might wear to school on picture day.
The Final Cover
This is the design I ultimately chose! Like TTTW, it focuses tightly on a single detail, but in this case, it’s the hands instead of the shoes. The girl wears a dress in that signature AIW blue, offset by delicate embroidered flowers that break up the background colour blocks.
I Was, Am, Will Be Alice is available for just $0.99 USD all month long. Head over to my BookFunnel group promo to grab your copy, and be sure to check out the 12+ other incredible fantasy reads featured in the sale!
Elise Abram 