xmlns:og='http://ogp.me/ns#' Kryssie Fortune: What was I thinking? #bookcover #learningcurve #romance #books

Thursday 12 July 2018

What was I thinking? #bookcover #learningcurve #romance #books




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.
Then there was my disaster.

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.

1 comment:

  1. 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.

    ReplyDelete