There's this section in Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic (amazing book, btw.) that talks about the muse alighting on your shoulder and whispering ideas to you, and that if you don't grab the idea and run with it, the muse will fly away and land on someone else's shoulder to give it to them. Well, y'all, I think the muse has been sleeping around.
No, not that Muse. So first...
Synchronicity.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines synchronicity as this:
"the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality"
Synchronicity is like when two people working in two different places who've never shared work end up inventing or discovering the same thing around the same time. Or you're singing a song and it comes on the radio right after. There are small instances and big ones.
Sometimes it happens in the publishing world, too. Like at the same time, two authors who have never talked to each other put out a book about the same topic or with characters who have the same name. Or the same title. Or the same kind of cover.
Well, I've had my first freaky ass occurrence of synchronicity this week, and I wanted to share it because a) it's crazy pants weird and b) I don't want anyone being confused.
So on January 2nd, the first book in my new series, The Ones Who Got Away releases. I am over the moon excited about this book and this series because I've been waiting for almost 2 years to share it with you guys. However, this week it was brought to my attention that there is another book out there called The One That Got Away by Magan Vernon. There are actually many books called that. (Book titles aren't copyright protected. That's why you see duplicates all the time.) I researched my title in early 2016 when I was about to pitch the series to publishers, which is why I chose "who" and "the ones" because it was different and because it fit my story better. So that's not a huge deal.
However, the crazy thing about this occurrence is that Magan's book also uses a photo from the same stock cover shoot that mine does. It's not the same photo, but it's the same couple in a different pose. Yeah. Like I said, crazy pants and hard to believe. Cue this:
So, believe me, no one wants cover confusion. Publishers and authors go through a lot of trouble to make sure covers are unique because we all have access to buy the same photos and duplicates can happen. My publisher, Sourcebooks, went through all the steps involved in that, and we went through multiple cover designs early this year. When Magan's book came out in April, my cover was already set. But neither of us knew the other existed. And we didn't know until this week. There's nothing to be done at this point. My cover can't be changed. Books are printed and are on the way to your nearest Barnes and Noble, Walmart, or bookstore of your choice to hopefully get into your hot little hands! But I wanted to do this post because I hate gossip and drama. HATE. I am a no drama llama.
So I don't want anyone thinking something nefarious was happening on either side. I've talked to Magan, who was lovely, and my publisher, who researched all the timelines. We were literally both developing these things at the same time. It's nuts.
But good news is, our stories are completely different. Mine is about survivors of a school shooting coming back together 12 years later. Magan's is a small-town romance about a couple who dated in high school reuniting. So you can read two very different stories with very pretty covers! Yay, more books!
And, if you want to get started now, I'm giving away an early copy of The Ones Who Got Away (print) and an ebook copy of Magan's book to one lucky winner (I'll gift the ebook to you through Amazon or B&N). Just enter below.
Now I'm off to give that muse a talking to about flitting around and spreading his same inspiration to more than one person... ;)
Have a great weekend!