Here’s my cover! Hmm…does anyone want to talk about covers? Good covers? Bad covers? How you can have a cover that all your author friends tell you is really good, and you should be really grateful, but somehow you still whine about it? (Aw, come on, don’t say I’m the only one!) 🙂
Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Signet Regency, 11/05
I know branding is important and yet I struggle with it.
When I first put out my sexy Regency novella, Lady Em’s Indiscretion, as an e-book, I had several choices regarding cover. I could use a similar cover treatment to Lady Dearing’s Masquerade, the only e-book I had out at that time, or do something different. Being naïve, I thought that because the sex scenes in the novella weren’t really any hotter than those in the other book, a similar cover treatment would be fine. The problem is that while Lady Dearing’s Masquerade is a long book with many plot elements besides the sex, Lady Em’s Indiscretion is a short story where sex is the plot. Kind of like dessert without the meal, which is what was intended.
The other thing I didn’t realize is how many readers buy based on author name and a thumbnail. So although I described the story in the blurb, some readers were surprised that what they bought wasn’t like Lady Dearing’s Masquerade or my “Three Disgraces” trilogy. My bad. I need to fix that.
So here’s the range of my covers. I have my split style for most of my books, which are in that medium-sexy range. I intentionally asked for a different style for the reissue of my novella, The Wedding Wager, to indicate that this was a sweeter style book.
Much as I like the current cover for Lady Em’s Indiscretion, I think it needs to change to help it reach readers who enjoy the other end of the sweet/hot spectrum.
I recently read this interesting post at Dear Author about the cover evolution for Midnight Scandals, the new anthology from Courtney Milan, Sherry Thomas and Risky Carolyn Jewel. Now I’m especially aware that the cover needs to look striking (and different from my others) even as a thumbnail.
I’d be interested to know what people think. If I end up changing the cover, look forward to a celebration giveaway.
Also a bit of news. Authors Gail Eastwood and Susanna Fraser have kindly agreed to do some occasional guest posts for me. So you can look forward to a bit of variety on Fridays, while I am looking forward to a little extra writing time to help finish my balloonist story. 🙂
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
www.twitter.com/ElenaGreene7
Thanks to everyone who helped me think through the branding issue for my novella, Lady Em’s Indiscretion.
And here on the left is the new cover! Much as I still love the old cover (right), I hope this will help readers see that this is different from my full-length titles. I hope this story will start reaching readers who appreciate it for what I intended it to be: a quick, sexy read. It’s more like a piece of chocolate rather than a full meal and not for readers who skip the sex scenes.
This week I also updated my author portrait. Just for giggles, here are my author portraits, in order by age.
As you can see, blue has always been my favorite color. At least I have updated my hair from time to time. 🙂
Let me know what you think of my covers and/or my author headshots.
I will give away 5 copies of Lady Em’s Indiscretion on Kindle or Nook to commenters chosen at random. Void where prohibited. You must be over 18. No purchase necessary. Post your comments by midnight EST on Thursday, Oct 4th. Please include your email address and your preference for Nook or Kindle in your comment, or check back for the announcement post on Friday, Oct 5th.
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
www.twitter.com/elenagreene7
How was everyone’s Thanksgiving?? Did you eat wonderful food and spend time with friends and relatives? Did you do any Black Friday shopping? (I did all my weekend shopping online…). Did you read any good books??? I have been writing, reading (The Night Circus, which is terrific), and getting out Christmas decorations. But today I’m taking time out to show you my new covers!! I am so excited about them.
They’re the first two books in my new Laurel McKee series for Grand Central, the Victorian-set “The Scandalous St. Claires,” about a notorious underworld family of gamesters, actors, and rakes, and their centuries-old feud with a ducal family (begun by a romance gone bad, and now ended by new romances):
They will be out in June and December of next year! You can pre-order One Naughty Night here…
More wedding info can be found here
And some Elizabethan wedding customs here…
What historical wedding would you like to attend? What are some wedding customs you especially enjoy (or think we could so without)???