This year the
rights to 12 of my books reverted to me. They were fully edited and ready to
republish. I only had one problem. They all needed covers. No problem, I
thought. I’ll just design them.
Oh dear.
I learned a new
respect for cover artists. I dropped lucky with my Heroes of Westhorpe Ridge
series. Sherry Soule of Swoonworthy Book Covers
designed me these. She even customized them for me.
My two standalones
were hard. I never loved the original cover for my book, Giving it up for the
Gods. Doing my own would be easy, right?
Wrong.
It took me four
weeks and a lot “could do better”
from my friend Sandy Ebdel of Personal Touch Editing. I bought an image from
Period Images, and here’s what I came up with. This one still makes me smile.
I had no idea what
to do with the cover of One Knight Stand. I wanted the book to scream
contemporary romance with a hero born in the time of the crusades. Again, my knight
came from the reasonably priced Period Images. I bought a cover that I loved,
and even had the designer write A Contemporary
Romance on it. Loving it wasn’t enough. Finally, I put a call on Facebook,
asking people what image sums up the current day. Most said a mobile phone or a
tablet. I stepped in, but I’m no designer. One good friend has already told me
she preferred the original.
That brought me to
my Scattered Siblings. I bought my two favorite covers from Loose id before
they closed their doors.
That left me
needing three. I went back to Swoonworthy book covers for two of them.
What was I
thinking
Couldn’t have got To Break a Warrior King’s
Curse’s more wrong if I tried.
I started with Mr
Orange, but it was so bad, a complete stranger designed the second one for me. It
was close to what I needed, but not quite right. I had a think and started with
a picture of Whitby Abby – as seen in the final picture. Again I bought an
image from period images.
This has been a
steep learning curve and I have a new respect for cover designers.
Cover design is definitely an art. I enjoyed your perspective and learning lessons. You're braver than I to go with self-publishing. Here's wishing you lots of success.
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