My Mother-In-Law Misadventures

I owe everyone an update on my adventures in getting this book finished.  In the last post I mentioned that a cover is a hard thing to put together, and it is. However, a cover is vital to the success of the book. It is, along with the title, the first thing the prospective buyer sees. In some cases, it is all they look at. What you want is for the person browsing the book section to be intrigued by the title, hooked by the cover and reeled in by the description.

I couldn't do a cover for the new book myself. The one I managed to put together by myself was a nice cover if I actually wrote a biography of Darling's mother, but my book is a collection of (mostly) funny stories about her mother living with us for ten years. The last chapter deals a bit with Frau's life as a young woman, with pictures of documents from WWII that she kept in a lock box in her closet for fifty years. (Just to be clear, not all the documents are included - there were a lot of them.)

Not being happy with the title I did some research on people who do book covers and chose Tatiana, who was very patient with me. We went through a few iterations and now have a cover that is pretty nice.

I also changed the book title. My working title has always been The Frau Chronicles. That has meaning to me but wouldn't have meaning for the reader unless they read the reason I called Darling's mother Frau. Not a very good way to entice someone to read my book. However, My Mother-in-Law Misadventures describes most of the book pretty well. It doesn't say anything about the last chapter, but I can't think how to put that in there, even as a subtitle.

I did add something to the cover that I didn't have before. I don't know if it will work, but it gives the potential reader a bit more information. There's only one thing to do when your Mother-in-law comes and lives with you…YOU WRITE A BOOK.

Darling is not entirely happy with the cover. She would have preferred the one with her Mother's pretty picture. That picture is in the book, I might add. I understand; it is her mother and the cartoon figure doesn't look anything like Frau. (Someone at work and someone on Facebook said it looked like Paula Deen, but I don't know who that is.)

So a new title, a new cover and the following description:

What happens when your Mother-in-Law moves in for a few months and stays for a decade? You write a book about your adventures dealing with a WWII survivor under your roof.
In this funny and witty chronicle, Vince tells some of the outstanding stories of living with an old woman who was short in stature but large in life.
From microwaves to garage sales join in the tales of pinching pennies, battling bankers, and losing kittens. Laugh at the Perfect Present and weep with the Weeping Willow. Finally, follow the heroic voyage as a young family flees WWII and emigrates to the USA.
If you have a mother-in-law, you should read this book. If she is coming to live with you ... well, you're on your own.

Smashwords requires a short description also, so I'll need to come up with something for that.

Now all that's left is buying the ISBN and double-checking the format of the book. I'll let you know when it's available!

If you have any comments, now's the time!