Along came reading criticisms of using too many images of Jimmy Thomas-- who puts out a lot of the images that are on indie romance covers (two of mine and more would be on the historicals). He is on them because he looks like the heroes and he provides reasonably priced, creative images with emotional impact and artistically framed. Why is it that bad to see him on so many covers? Was it okay for Clark Gable to play more than one hero? Ryan Gosling? on the other hand-- is it bad to see him on all of them? Well was it okay to see Clark Gable play a lot of heroes which he wasn't? It's called-- use your imagination.
Anyway I wrestled with the subject of covers in the middle of the other night, and it dawned on me that for about six months, one of my books, Second Chance, had been without a person on the cover, had been a little artier, AND hadn't sold a single book during that time. Was the problem that the cover moved away from the romance genre? I got lots of compliments on it... except compliments don't sell books.
Now an owl on the cover was very apropos for what the book is about. Second Chance takes two characters from an earlier book, Moon Dust, and brings them together in a romance set eight years later. The hero runs a wildlife rehabilitation center. So an owl on the cover is a winner, right?
Wrong apparently. It didn't tell enough of what the book was about. If you write sci-fi, your cover has to depict it. I wasn't writing a non-fiction book about wildlife rehab centers even though I did have some of my own experiences with them in the book. It was a romance. It was about a young man who had done all he could to rehabilitate himself from early mistakes. It was about a woman who was dealing with a broken marriage and raising a daughter with an ex husband at odds over how to do that. Second chances all around.
So I went back to its original cover. Basically it's more true to the story probably as this is a guy, 28, who works as a short haul truck drive to support his real love-- the rehab center as it gets its feet under it. He is a hunk. Will the cover stay this way? Maybe and maybe not. It is one plus with writing ePublished books. It's up to me.
The middle of the night when I told Farm Boss what I was thinking, after we both had awakened at the wrong time, he said, you really are a disturbed woman to have something like this fretting you in the middle of the night. I said, no, I was a lucky woman that I have something that excites and interests me this much at my age-- and that I can do something about.
More coming up on covers-- and this time about the book that really has never sold much. The following video is for Second Chance.
