Book Cover—For the Story of a Difficult, but Beautiful Life

Florida Hospital (http://www.FloridaHospital.com) Healthy 100 (http://www.Healthy100.org)

There are more than 125 million Americans today who suffer from chronic disease…but you’ve never met one quite like Linda Nordyke Hambleton.

If Today Is All I Have recounts the remarkable true story of Linda’s life, love, sickness, blindness, death, resuscitation, heartbreak, faith, hope and ultimate peace. Equal parts medical drama, romance, and inspirational saga, her story could be described as “ER” meets “Touched By An Angel”.

At its heart, Linda’s captivating account chronicles the struggle to reconcile her three dreams of experiencing life as a “normal woman” with the tough realities of her medical condition. Her journey is punctuated with insights that are at times humorous, painful, provocative and live-affirming.

Here’s how Linda describes her life journey:

“I first learned of my disease at age 6. Doctors gave me about 25 years to live. Despite multiple heart attacks, strokes, transplants, three years of blindness and over 60 pills a day—I won’t give up. But medical complications tell only part of my story. Three heart-felt dreams gave me the courage to laugh, love and live. This is my true story.”

The primary target audience for “If Today Is All I Have” are readers who enjoy powerful, true life dramas centered on medical crisis, love stories, surmounting obstacles and overcoming personal feelings of inadequacy. Regardless of race, creed, color, or background everyone is subject to feelings of insufficiency. Linda’s book deals with this psychological/emotional issue head-on as it is the primary inner struggle of the author’s life.

A strong market also exists for readers interested in following the self-discovery and soul-penetrating journey of an extraordinary woman. Linda’s story fully engages readers in the medical drama, spiritual searching and emotional tapestry of her singular life. Encouraging others to seek their dreams and overcome the obstacles in their own lives. Though the book will have a spiritual component due to the author’s journey of faith, it will not be targeted to a specifically “Christian” audience.

Another audience for Linda’s book are true-to-life romance readers who will be caught up in Linda’s love story with its many twists and turns, but with an ultimately satisfying ending. And of course, there are many readers who will appreciate Linda’s heartfelt memoir of one woman’s victory over adversity with insightful lessons on how to make the best out of the worst life brings you.

FEEL: This book needs to have a warm, affirming feeling. It needs to feel like a true-to-life story of overcoming difficulties and finding hope in the midst of tragedy.

KEY WORDS TO CONSIDER WHEN DESIGNING: Life-affirming, Hope-filled, Trading Beauty-for-Ashes

IDEAL: We would love a cover design that creates some sort of iconic design element that can be continued on the interior design. Such as on the title page, new chapter heading pages, etc.

ON COVER:

Title: If Today Is All I Have

Subtitle: Finding the Light of Hope in Dark Places

Author: Linda Nordyke Hambleton with Todd Hillard

Trim size: 6” x 9”, paperback

NOTE: No Author Picture on Cover

ON BACK COVER:

Back Cover Subtitle: Three Heartfelt Dreams Gave Me Courage to Laugh, Love and Live

Body: Please use the text from the “Overview” section above as the copy for the back cover. Please make the book title in italics.

Publisher logo: Use the attached logo with "America's Trusted" under it.

Picture: Please include the headshot picture of Linda. If it works in your design, you can also include her wedding picture (but you don’t have to).

Bar Code: Use attached sample barcode

ON SPINE:

Book title (no subtitle)

Authors name

Publisher logo (use the one without "America's Trusted" under it).

NOTE: For each design, please submit 2 FILES: 1) cover alone; 2) cover, spine & back together