First editions and early book cover designs - The Secondhand Bookworm - A SERIES OF NOVELS

THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM

First Editions and Early Book Cover Designs
TEN YEARS LATER

I love the idea that I have rare, first edition copies of my first two bookworm novels!

When I first began my series of bookshop novels in 2008, I wrote 'The Secondhand Bookworm' and 'Nora and the Secondhand Bookworm' and had them privately printed simply for my work colleagues. I had been working in and helping to run three bookshops since 2003 and the owner had suggested I write about my experiences because we would have a good giggle (or moan) about our observances of the daily adventures in book selling!

Since I was only intending to give them to my work colleagues, family and friends, I used clip art from Microsoft Word to design my covers. Here are the early covers of my first two novels:

Front cover
First Edition - first printing of 'The Secondhand Bookworm'
© 2008 Emily Jane Bevans

Back cover
First edition - first printing of 'The Secondhand Bookworm'
© 2008 Emily Jane Bevans

Each novel covers a week in 'The Secondhand Bookworm', a fictional bookshop inspired by my place of work. I had a print run of 'The Secondhand Bookworm' of about fifty delivered to me and gave them away to my work colleagues at our Christmas staff meal at Pizza Express in Arundel (opposite the bookshop where I worked). I also gave copies to family members.

My sister and I had just set up our Catholic film production company in 2007 and when we put on a Christmas Fayre in 2010 to promote our films to our parish I had the remaining copies for sale on a table. This is me in a film costume with a copy of my book (I sold several).

I also sold a handful online through our online shop at Mary's Dowry Productions.

I kept scribbling away at my second novel, intending to write a whole series, but my film apostolate took over my entire life! I was penning scripts, researching, filming, editing, promoting and even acting in numerous films to share the lives of the Saints and English Martyrs through film, so my novel writing took a backseat and I only managed to finish book two in 2011. I had it published in 2012 and sent out copies to my work colleagues for Christmas, having left the bookshop that summer.

Here are images of the first edition, first print runs of Nora and the Secondhand Bookworm:

Front cover
First edition - first printing of 'Nora and the Secondhand Bookworm'
© 2012 Emily Jane Bevans

Back Cover
First Edition - first printing of 'Nora and the Secondhand Bookworm'
©2012 Emily Jane Bevans

During my early phase of writing I loved the designs and created numerous other covers as I planned out my whole series. I also had my own personal website too - here are some screenshots of it (it no longer exists):

Old website about my series of novels
© 2009 Emily Jane Bevans

Old website about my series of novels
©2009 Emily Jane Bevans

I am always plotting, planning and designing and so I enjoyed working on this series in the beginning. I came up with lots of designs, mostly for my own amusement, which I thought about writing. I am ridiculously ambitious but imagined having this whole series of stories all set in 'The Secondhand Bookshop' with my old and new characters. Here are some of the book ideas and covers I designed in 2008:

CARNIVAL WEEK AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM

Early cover design for one of my novels
© 2008 Emily Jane Bevans

'Carnival Week at The Secondhand Bookworm' was going to be based on summer events each year in the towns where I worked. I had made many notes of situations, customers, book buying and festivities centered around a particular week. I loved the cover and still have the plots for the novel which I will rework and perhaps write one day in my newly presented series.

BOOK SIGNING AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM

Book Signing at the Secondhand Bookworm
© 2008 Emily Jane Bevans

We only ever had a couple of small local authors do some book signing in our bookshops and these were amusing events. When I worked in our Worthing branch I would often go along to 'Methvens' whenever they had authors signing and I remember going along for a Terry Pratchett signing. I thought I would still include this novel in my newly revamped series.

I always have each novel go through one week in the bookshop. I like the familiar pattern and lots of interesting things happened in one week! It would be fun to have a week of book signing events.

CATHOLICS AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM

I actually made this cover for my cousin when he started working with me at the bookshop in Arundel. He also works on our Catholic films and enjoyed the fact that Arundel draws a fair amount of Catholics to the town, with the Cathedral and Corpus Christi events to name a few. Who knows, perhaps I will actually write this as part of the series in the future!

GHOSTS AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM

This is a terrible cover but a topic I shall probably cover in a future revamped bookworm novel. We often had a lot of occult libraries arrive at the bookshop for sale. Although the owner was not always keen to stock them she did buy in some spooky titles. Sometimes we thought the bookshops were haunted too and with a lot of history in some of the old, rambling buildings that our bookshops were housed in there are some great stories. I am working on 'Halloween at the Secondhand Bookworm' so I shall probably incorporate these themes a little into it. But 'Ghosts at The Secondhand Bookworm' one day might be amusing.

I have several other covers from ten years ago and stacks of notes and ideas which I will blog about in the future. Meanwhile, the first two novels in my series were revisited and republished in 2017 with a new look and additional amendments.

I shall share these covers in my next post.

My first to novels in the 'Bookworm' series are available to read on Amazon Kindle now here:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON USA

AMAZON AUSTRALIA

You can 'look inside' and download samples to your kindle.

Or snap them up in lovely new paperback.