My publisher asked for some guidance on the cover like what elements did I think were important. The book's title is Sleeping with the Lights On. I named a lamp, a black cowboy hat and a spilled bottle of wine. When I got the cover, I nearly cried. It wasn't the exciting cover I pictured and suddenly the cover was important to me.
I've vended at numerous book events over the years, and I can see the importance of a cover. That cover isn't awful, but it certainly does not attract the attention that some of my other covers do. After my experience last weekend, I asked my publisher if I could have a new cover. Here's why:
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| New cover and new title |
That convinced me!
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| Old cover waiting for an update |
Sleeping With the Lights On
After two failed marriages and countless relationships, Sandra Holiday thinks she’s met the man to end her years of less than perfect choices; choices that not only derailed her travel-related career plans but also left her single and broke.
Carson Holiday, a Las Vegas country crooner with
swoon-inducing good looks, spent his adult life pursuing a recording contract
and love, never holding on to either. After eighteen years, he drops back into
Sandra’s life, reigniting an attraction he can’t deny.
When Carson reappears, Sandra must choose again. Only this time, nothing’s as it seems. A secret admirer, a redheaded stalker, and an
eccentric millionaire throw her on a dangerous path, with Carson her only
truth.
As life confronts her with
yet another turning point, will her decisions find her eternally sleeping with
the lights on – or will she finally discover a way to turn them off?
12 comments:
I was against having naked male chests on my book covers. I wanted flowers or unique looking houses or something eye-catching. Those were they types of covers that drew my attention. Few sales. What do I have now on all my books? Naked male chests. Reviewers often mention them first thing in a review, where I'd never think to do so. We spend forever on a book, or so it seems. I laid awake last night worrying about the last scene I'd written. Was it powerful enough. And what will potential readers notice first? The tanned, toned, ripped, tattooed body of some dude. Covers are more important than we think.
Oh so true, Vonnie. I just didn't want to get caught up in the sexy cover thing, but I was a novice. I guess we have to go with it so they'll open the cover and discover how entertaining our writing is!!
I feel your pain. I took the rights back to my first book, did a little editing to spruce it up, gave it a new title to make it the first book in a series, and a new cover with a hot guy (no naked chest since my writing isn't going to live up to that--heat-wise) to replace the old, dark one of a tiny canoe on a lake. Sales are unbelievably better. Those covers do matter!
Good for you, Jannine. There is that fine line to make sure the cover doesn't over promise.
You won't get any argument from me - you know how I love covers! I adored my first cover, but the next two left me flat. One of the main appeals of self-publishing was that I'd never have a cover I didn't like again. Comments I've received on my last two books have reinforced my beliefs in the importance of a great cover. I hope your new cover for Sleeping with the Lights On knocks your (and your readers') socks off!
Bare male chests notwithstanding, people on the covers seem more popular than objects. I've had a couple of bad covers, objects instead of people on both of them. Not that a cover can necessarily make or break a book, but it does make a difference.
Thanks, Alison. Margo, I think people help those of us in romance who are not famous. Once you have a big enough following, maybe it just doesn't matter. I could care less what Gabaldon's covers look like.
The jury's out on this one for me, especially since I'm not a graphic artist...and probably can't afford the cover artist who would read my book, consider the audience, etc., etc., and try lots of covers out on my audience, testing for the 'right' vibe. I have control over the story, so I'll angst over that and hope the covers aren't a detriment. Like Alison said, I do enjoy self-pubbing and having some control over the covers.
I don't self pub so I'm at the publisher's mercy. But I have an artist that I work with and she is great. Rae Monet is awesome to work with.
For my first cover, like Vonnie I said "No bare-chested me, especially with hair prettier than mine!). I got a gorgeous woman's fishnet-stockinged leg on a bench at a boardwalk, and I loved it. Still do. The funny thing is, it draws men like flies at a book sale but not so much women.:-) They (the men) always asked if it's my leg and I would say, "Of course...thirty years ago." :-)
Hope you like your re-do much better, Brenda!
Sorry, that's no bare-chested "men." Yikes! :D
I wouldn't want a bare chested me either! LOL
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