And the winner is...

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted cover design feedback. I appreciate the time and attention that each of you put into sharing anything with us about how the covers are landing with you. I also asked about 20 members of our faculty and advisory, and polled folks on Facebook and LinkedIn. Most everyone had a strong preference, or at least most who responded did (perhaps those who were neutral did not respond). Removing clear issues with our visual design (title across image was hard to read, etc.), the fundamental question seemed to be whether people enjoyed looking at the whole Autonomics wheel, or whether they found it visually interesting or intriguing to just see part of it. One of the patterns of response that was most unexpected: the less people were familiar with our work, and particularly if they knew nothing about it, the more they were interested in seeing the whole circle.

I find this interesting for a number of reasons. One of them is the power of a symbol to evoke something in people that connects to an array of associated meanings and registers in symbolic consciousness. Someone who is the partner of a deep student of our work, with no familiarity with it, basically said, I’m fascinated by that image. I would pick that book up even if it had no title because I’m curious about what I’m looking at.

The wheel is a mandala, so this is tapping I think into some universal element of pattern recognition. And since we are trying in particular to reach people who don’t yet know about our work, this is convincing.

Another thing that surfaced was a need to continue refining the sub-title. This we ended up workshopping yesterday with a dozen people. (Strong preference in the versions shared here was for ‘An ancestral & autonomic approach to wellbeing’.)

I am continuing to think, with many collaborators, about how we name states, and other aspects of this model, with explicit intent to move meanings into the domain of general understanding and reduce the veil of technical language that generally codes autonomic physiology and keeps the study of it divorced from the immediacy of experience.

While I cannot say this is final-final, it is now damn close. We’d love your feedback, particularly, at this point, if you like it. ;)

The book is available now in two hardcover versions. The more deluxe version has a dust jacket with a surprise for you, a gift you’ll discover when it arrives, a useful technical innovation (our first full production book, Restorative Practices of Wellbeing, was the first general audience book we know that used QR codes to tie the manuscript to a software platform, turning the book into an analog app. This is an innovation of similar magnitude). It is hardcover, with a full-color interior with well over a hundred full-color illustrations.

The Deluxe Jacketed Full Color version ships by November 30.

The slightly less costly version has the same innovative dust jacket and hardcover, but a black-and-white interior. Because printing in color is so expensive, this option allows us to present a beautiful hardcover version of the book to you at more affordable price point. The Hardcover Black and White versions will arrive by December 15, in time for the holidays.