The Content Is in Proofreading. And the Cover Has a Direction.
Two things happening at the same time right now with Parenting Unpacked. The content is in proofreading. And separately, completely separately, I just secured a brilliant Brazilian illustrator for the cover — Francine Marcondes.
Both of these things happening in the same week feels like the publishing equivalent of all the traffic lights going green at once. I am walking quickly and trying not to jinx anything.
But I want to tell you about the cover process because it is one of those things I wish someone had told me the first time around. So here is what I learned.
🎨 THE AI MOCKUPS — WHAT I HAD IN MY HEAD
THE AI MOCKUPS.
These are AI-generated. They are not the final cover. They are what I used to show the illustrator the direction — so she knows where the storytelling needs to go before she puts a single line on paper.
Self-publishing lesson number one, learned the harder way the first time: if you cannot show an artist what is in your head, you will spend weeks going back and forth describing something that could have been a two-minute conversation with a reference image. So this time I used AI to generate what I was seeing. Not as the final product. As a visual brief. Here is the feeling. Here is the image. Now you make it real.
It saved both of us an enormous amount of time and meant we could get straight to the conversation that actually matters — not what the cover looks like but what it does.
I wanted the cover to have that "oh no" feeling. The kind you feel under your skin before you have processed what happened. Something tipping. Something already gone. That specific moment where you realise you have lost your grip on something and there is nothing you can do about it now.
🧠 THE THINKING BEHIND EVERY DETAIL
☕ The spilled drink - Spilling your drink is the closest physical sensation I could find to identity migration. That moment of helplessness. You were holding something. You lost it. You cannot get it back. It is already spreading and you are just watching it go.
🏆 The "Best Parent" mug - Because of course it is that mug. The one that says you have it figured out. The one that was a gift, probably. The irony is the whole point.
🖐️ The hand — unpainted, no gender, no colour - This was the most important decision. The hand needed to belong to everyone. The moment this book describes does not belong to one kind of parent or one kind of body or one kind of background. So I left it unpainted. Deliberately. The absence of colour is the point.
💛 The yellow- Bold. Visible. Not soft or muted or careful. This book is not apologising for what it says. Neither is the cover.
The illustrator is Francine Marcondes, a Brazilian illustrator whose work has the precision and warmth this cover needs. She is going to take what I had in my head and make it into something that deserves to be on a book cover. I cannot wait to see it.
The content is in proofreading. The cover has a direction. June 24th is still the date. Everything is moving and I am pretending to be calm about it with varying degrees of success.
Parenting Unpacked: Parenting Through the Loss of Self launches on Amazon on June 24th. Endorsed by Ruth E. Van Reken. Selected for the SiETAR congress resource pack in Valencia. Now with a cover that is going to make you feel something before you even open it.
That is the plan, anyway. Watch this space.
Pretending to be calm. Failing slightly.
Jessica Gabrielzyk
Parenting Unpacked: Parenting Through the Loss of Self by Jessica Gabrielzyk launches on Amazon on June 24th, 2026. Cover illustration by Francine Marcondes. Endorsed by Ruth E. Van Reken, co-author of Third Culture Kids. Selected for the SiETAR congress resource pack in Valencia, Spain. Published by Keep It Simple Publishing.
✦ PARENTING UNPACKED · COVER IN PROGRESS · JUNE 24TH · AMAZON ✦
