Grand Slams: The cover design story of the soon to be released novel

B) I'd like to order a blurb....

Let's start with the back because that's where much of the story takes place, the back area of Grand Slams restaurant. Christopher Reilley, Big Table Publications cover designer, and I came up with the back cover design to look like a menu. The prices do not reflect the authors--but the new items appear at the top ( Todays Grand Slam Appetizers).  The new items are blurbs by Nadine Darling, Jessica Keener and Daniel Nester. 

Favorites and Wordy Meals are just that. These are my favorite blurbs from the past or just the wordy meals about my writing from some of my most favorite authors, writers and poets. To see the photo in it's larger form, just click on it.

Hope you're ready to place your order.

A) The front cover is an actual table shot of a Grand Slams Breakfast, oops I mean, The Double Home Run Breakfast served at Grand Slams. The font used is the actual font that Denny's uses and the border strips of color reflect the 1980's, the time period the novel takes place. So open the pages for a story with good eats--open anytime, 24 Hours.

And then there's the spine. I don't have anything to say about the spine

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Of course there are always some mock-ups or ideas that run through my head. Here's the parade (in order of last to first which I sent designer Christopher Reilley. I just love process, don't you?

1) Less definition but close to the end
2) Script font before using the font closest to based-on restaurant's. 

3) Totally different but definitely based on "today's covers"

4

4) My original thought. Going for the basic, memorably imagery.

Another early and fabulous Grand Slam blurb (from Daniel Nester)

Albany's Metroland featured Daniel's book, How to Be Inappropriate

This week I had some great early blurbs from Nadine Darling and Jessica Keener

Today another generous endorsement by Daniel Nester

Daniel Nester:

"In The Grand Slam, Timothy Gager shares the touching stories of characters who so often set are aside as window dressing in other novels. Here, Gager gives them the full spotlight: waitress, line order cook, knockaround guy, each patron comes alive as fully rounded, damaged, loving people. Like Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Gager's book offers us both myth and realism, hand in hand."

Check out the link to his entertaining website.
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Daniel Nester is the author most recently of Shader: 99 Notes on Car Washes, Making Out in Church, Grief, and Other Unlearnable Subjects (99: The Press 2015). Previous books include How to Be Inappropriate (Soft Skull, 2010), God Save My Queen I and II (Soft Skull, 2003 and 2004), and The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody, 2014), which he edited. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Morning News, and The Daily Beast, and anthologized in The Best American Poetry, The Best Creative Nonfiction, Third Rail: The Poetry of Rock and Roll, and Now Write! Nonfiction. He is an associate professor of English at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY, and lives in Upstate New York with his wife and their two daughters. Find more at danielnester.com.