promo material-- or not

Of all the things I spend time doing where it comes to the books, the one I like the least, the one that wears me out the fastest, the one I tend to feel I've accomplished nothing at the end of day doing it-- is producing promotional material. It's not hard to see why successful authors pay someone to do it.

When I am writing on a new work, I feel stimulated and excited by how the story is going, what happens next. When I am doing research for a book, I get into what I am learning-- even if I don't end up using it. Even editing has its rewarding side as I find better ways to say something.

But promotional material is like pulling teeth. I do it because I know I should but I do a lot less of it than many writers; and when I read an article by someone who blasted past all the barriers and sold a ton of books, it's generally helped along by how good they were at promoting that work-- or having someone who did.

So this last week I've been editing on my novella as I begin to work up an idea for a second to follow in its wake. Both will be paranormal, fantasies, but based roughly on what I have read from many religions as well as metaphysics (which might also be a religion). That is stimulating, exciting as I think on what I want it to depict. I though have also been trying to put together a site to promote the group anthology which will go out in mid-March. That required figuring out how to create one place that will take someone to all my books at various sites besides Amazon-- because soon we want them also available on other locations.

Usually I enjoy image work but something about this one was getting to me. If I use a western landscape, it doesn't work for my books that are set in the city. Even my contemporaries in downtown Portland do have the spirit of a western, but how to get that across in one image was the problem.

The real goal for that one image had to be the energy of a romance. Water and rock depicted that best. Romances are about two, often very different, people coming together and working past the obstacles to a relationship that can last. The only question left was-- moving or still water. Reflections depict the depth of relationships, but I think I am actually going for moving water as it's the volatility of the romance book.

That had me looking through my photos until I found two I particularly liked. Although both are in Arizona, I didn't see that as a problem as they are both beautiful. But what they also turned out to be difficult to put readable words over the top while not losing the beauty. After half a day I came up with two possible versions which I'll give a day or two to think about before using-- but I think I prefer the running water.

After my back said give this a break, I went outside to take more photos of the new metal deer dancer sculpture. It's going back to Oregon with us, but I thought photos against the vegetation here would be good. It might end up the cover of the second novella-- or not. If it does, I need a more threatening environment than this photo-- maybe a little wind ;).

Update: After thinking about the promotional photo that would be above my links, and Tabor's comment, I gave it another shot by this time darkening the photo to make it more dramatic and giving up on red (even though it is very western feeling) as it's never going to be possible to define it from the rocks and the varying shades of light and dark. I think this be the one whenever we get the links set up. Being in Arizona, with work needed on house/yard, consulting work following hubby, my writing, there has to be some time for fun too...