Today, I’m sharing my next book cover from Melange Publishing/ Satin Romance. This is my second book with this publishing house. My previous one was for a competition and the book was Under A Scottish Sky. Now that I’m releasing my gorgeous cover for the next book with this house, here are 7 tips I learned from my latest book cover.
5 TIPS FROM MY LATEST BOOK COVER
Creating a book cover is like baking a cake. You have the ingredients on the table but that doesn’t make the cake. Any baker worth her salt will tell you, that the right ingredients with the right mixing and folding will make an excellent, airy, fluffy cake. So here are my ingredients/tips for a good book cover.
1. Working with your Cover Designer
I’ve realized with every successive book cover, that you need to work with your book designer. Fortunately, for the publishing houses I work with, many invest in a professional book cover designer. This person doesn’t know anything about your book. They haven’t read it and they don’t know your characters. For many houses, often the book cover is ready before or even while the edits are being made.
Right now I’m doing the edits for FIND ME IN THE SNOW. Yet, I gave my book cover designer, Ashley Byland from Redbird Designs, all the information that was necessary to create this cover. So, when she sent me a first draft of this cover, I was in love with it. There were very little changes to make and the result was spectacular.
What do I mean by all the information? Read on.
2. Theme
I knew this was a romantic suspense. Light or dark. I knew this was going to be dark. The story involves murder and secrets. This is not a sweet happy romance like STARTING OVER. So, I wrote down in my cover sheet about the theme.
The other central theme, was SNOW. Snow is not just in the title but snow is essential to the story. Its integral as things unfold. Basically, the snow, in many ways takes on personification as it becomes a character and features from the beginning to the end. Personally, I love how Ashley actually captures the snow and the snowy feel of the book. It nails down that part of the brief perfectly.
Here’s what I wrote on my art sheet: Snowy background, Connecticut town, forest and snow.
3. Images
TIP 3 from my latest book cover. Since FIND ME IN THE SNOW is a romantic suspense, I was sure I didn’t want any couples on the front. Just, my central female protagonist who goes out and saves the guy instead of vice versa. I wanted a single female in the snow.
Here’s what I wrote: I actually wrote this “I’d prefer to focus on having a single female on the cover! Female Characteristics: Winter clothes, Portuguese woman, tanned, long blue black hair, petite. “
4. FONT
A lot of us don’t think about this much as the cover designer picks these and decides what’s best with your book based on comp titles. However, I’d seen my comp titles by Linda Howard and JD Robb aka Nora Roberts. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like.
I thought back to what is the deciding factor for me when I’m at the book store. If I have two books similarly priced at the store, I realized that the font influences my purchase. And I decided my font, the script and way I’d liked to do the font style.
Here’s what I wrote on my art sheet: Snow with the back of a woman, gold loopy script. Idea only below… and I pasted a cover I had done with some free images and the font I liked.
5. Back Matter & Front Matter
The front matter usually includes a tagline and the front matter includes the blurb. You can’t say how its going to look unless its on the cover.
My blurb:
When Althea meets Morgan Hunter at Muldoon’s pub for the first time, she thinks he’s a handsome, ego tripping, prissy-pants executive. She quickly rebuffs him only to find him thundering at her in the operation theater, the very next day. He’s dogged in his censure of her, but not immune to her allure. Through a snowy December Morgan courts Althea and wins her heart but not her trust.
When she travels with him at his request for Christmas to his home in Finesse, a tumble in the snow leads to the discovery of Morgan’s missing ex -girlfriend. Dead. Morgan pushes Althea away and she doesn’t understand his reasons. Althea returns to build the new rural clinic in Finesse. She discovers the truth about Morgan’s heritage, the murdered ex-girlfriend and the secrets about the Hunter clan. Can she save the man she loved from going to prison?
That’s a lot of words!
That’s the before and after version after we just made changes so the back matter wouldn’t appear so packed. It’s a subtle difference, but you can tell with the white space, it’s easier to read. The rest of the cover was just fantastic! Ashley did the revision real quick, because the cover was so perfect to begin with.
It takes thinking
My biggest of the tips from my latest book cover is that you have to start imagining your covers while you write the book. Don’t just rush this and get it ready once the art sheet is sent to you. Themes and images should be part of your vision board even as you write. Carry the same vision for your covers. I know lots of people who have covers that they don’t like even from publishing houses. I know I had those too.
I’ve realized that by virtually handing all the information exactly what you want and how you want it, you can get a very good cover. No cover designer can read your mind. Show them your vision and they will reciprocate.
In the meantime, we’re kicking off a giveaway until launch day. Leave a comment on what makes snow romantic on my Facebook page to enter a raffle draw.
How about you? Have any tips to share for book covers? Let me know.