In Search for Suitable Artwork

When I was preparing Forever Curious for publication, I wondered—and worried—about cover art. Worst case scenario: I’d have to use one of my—admittedly very many—pictures (ever since I’ve had iPhones I started making pictures of the places I’ve been to, and I usuallly travel quite a bit, both for the day job and in private, often chasing total solar eclipses around the world), best case scenario is commissioning cover art from your favourite artist.

Since Forever Curious is my first venture in the world of self publishing—or ‘independent publishing’, to use the euphemism—I eventually settled on something in between. The dilemma being that while I really wish to make the first one count, I also don’t want to spend all my personal capital on it. While Forever Curious will, predominantly, be the proverbial guinea pig and the canary in the coal mine, allowing me to learn from my mistakes (which I will inevitably make), I also wish to give it the best shot within the means I’ve allocated for it. A balancing act, as usual.

In case of finding the right—or most suitable—artwork, I often Google keywords in images. But sometimes I just stumble upon a great piece of art as I read for pleasure. Case in point: the ‘Cauchy Horizon’ artwork for Quanta Magazine’s article “Mathematicians Disprove Conjecture Made to Save Black Holes”. Na-Yeli Maya—the heroine in Forever Curious—eventually enters the Core(1) that contains a naked singularity. I spent considerable research finding out what that might realistically look like, which involves—among quite a few other things—the lifting of the Cauchy Horizon(2), exactly the thing this illustration depicts.

First, to make sure that it worked, I made a mock-up that looks like this:

Mock-up 1

Then I queried the artist, Maciej Rebisz, if a license could be had for usage as cover art.  Unfortunately, Mac (as he calls himself) told me that Quanta Magazine had acquired all the rights (well, I certainly hope they paid you well, was my reply). Then I approached Quanta Magazine via their contact form, but have not received any answer to date.

Back to square one. But—wait a minute—Mac had plenty of other artwork available, and his licensing fees are very reasonable. So I checked his portfolio, and found not one, but two pieces that I could definitely use. Forever Curious is the first part of a duology, and part 2—Forever Thrilled—needed artwork, as well. And if the styles matched, even better.

Again, to make sure it worked, I made another mock-up:

Mock-up 2

Which I was quite happy with, to be frank. So I queried Mac for both pieces, only to be told that the first piece had been acquired—all rights reserved—by a private collector.

Then—as often happens with such projects—I entered the stage of despair. I would never get a suitable piece of artwork, Forever Curious would never be published and I was a mediocra author at best, anyway. When in despair it never rains but it pours.

Which led me to check what was available in the public domain, and basically all Hubble pictures are (see ESA/Hubble Images and Videos “Usage of images, videos and web texts”). So, somewhat despondent, I made another mock-up.

Mock-up 3

Luckily such phases last only a very short while with me, as I come to my senses and throw myself at the problem once more. After all, I hadn’t failed completely, as one of the two pieces I wished to use was available. I just needed a second one that fitted with the first.

So I trawled through all the artwork of Mac I could find until I stumbled upon another piece from him that not only would be a good replacement, but would ‘match’ quite nicely with the second piece, as well. I contacted Mac once more, and this time—three times is a charm—both were available. I acquired the necessary license (by paying his fee, people, as money should flow to the artist), then prepared both covers (so that both art- and design-wise they ‘match’).

So what does the final result look like? Very close to mock-up number 2, I can tell. But I’m saving the big reveal for a date closer to the actual release of Forever Curious, tentatively planned for late April 2021.

Hope you will check it out!

Footnotes:

(1): Capitalisation intentional: it’s what it’s called in the book;

(2): Which releases closed timelike geodesics. But now I’m getting too spoilery…;-)