My Book Designer Came Up With an Idea So Good I Thought She Was Flirting With Me.
There is a detail in Parenting Unpacked that I love and cannot take any credit for.
Throughout the book there are marks from a coffee mug on the page. Every single one of them placed deliberately. A visual cue that says: put the coffee down. Take a moment. Sit with this.
That idea came from Raquel Serafim, my book designer.
When she told me about it I had a very strong impulse to make a joke. I stayed professional because I am a serious author and a serious person and I kept it together completely.
But I can’t help myself. 🤣 I am telling you the joke now.
My immediate thought was: is she flirting with me? Because thoughtfulness at that level is my love language. If my husband came to me with an idea that considered, that specific, that perfectly calibrated to what the book is actually about, I would look him in the eye and think: he wants another kid. Or a dog. Possibly both.
If you want to seduce a marketing person by degree and an author by heart, now you know where to start.
Raquel. Thank you for the coffee rings. Thank you for reading the book closely enough to know what it needed. And thank you for being so good at your job that my first instinct was to wonder if you had an ulterior motive.
This idea slays and I said what I said.
Jessica Gabrielzyk
