To Recover or Not To Recover by Paty Jager

I have two series I'm trying to decide if I need to put new covers on. As a reader, how much do covers help you make a decision? Do you get upset if an author changes a cover and you realize after you purchased the book that you already have it?

Authors, why do you change covers on books? To get new eyes on them, try new marketing? Because the covers are outdated with what is on the books in that genre now?

I'm on the fence. When I said something about changing the covers on my Isabella Mumphrey Adventure series, a marketing person said my covers were perfect for the Adventure/Romantic Suspense that I didn't need to change them. Yet they are my slowest selling series. But one of my favorites. One that if the sales picked up I would write more books in that series.

The other is my first historical western romance series- The Halsey Brothers.  The first four books have had two different covers already, book one has had four different covers. The three books and a novella in the Halsey Homecoming series that follows the Halsey Brothers could be made to look more like the fist five books if I recovered. But since sales of Historical western romance is so slow, I'm finding it hard to pay for the covers and do all the changes at all the ebook vendors and the print books.

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My time is better served writing the books that are selling. But would it bump my income to do this?

This is me talking it out as I write. Something I find helpful. But if any authors or readers want to chime in with your thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 43 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

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WHAT I'M READING--HOW ABOUT YOU?

As I mentioned last month, covers are an important tool in attracting readers, especially if they’ve never read anything by that author before. I admit to choosing books from a cover then I read the blurb. Then I look at the price. 

Yep, I have a threshold over which I won’t pay. I believe my limit is generous, but some books are more than that. If the e-book is as much as the paperback, I buy the paperback.

For that reason, I just purchased the paperback of HEART OF THE WEST by Penelope Williamson. This purchase is due to Anna Jeffrey’s recommendation. Anna is a friend and a great writer so I respect her opinion.This is not a new book, but apparently a much-loved one by Ms Williamson's fans.

First I have to read (also in paperback) LITTLE BEACH STREET BAKERY by Jenny Colgan for my book club meeting on the 8th. According to the cover, it's an international bestseller. This is a new author for me but I chose the book because of my daughter’s recommendation. She read it for her book club.

Currently I’m reading WILD HORSE SPRINGS by Jodi Thomas to review. How great is it that her publisher sends me her books to review? I know! She is one of my favorite authors. I feel tremendously lucky to be on the reviewer list. You can read my review on the 10th at http://sweetheartsofthewest.blogspot.com.

In the meantime, what are you reading? Would you recommend the book to others?

Do you read books by the great authors who are members of this blog? I hope so! Let me know your favorites. 

I’ll give a prize to someone who comments.

JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER

Perhaps I should explain why I have been posting for Mary Adair recently. Her internet is so unreliable that I always post her blogs for her. Now, however, Mary is in treatment for the Big C. She’s taken what we hope is a brief hiatus from posting while she goes through another phase of her treatment. She is incredibly exhausted at present.

Several years ago, Mary and her husband moved to a remote area of Eastern Oklahoma on a large, lovely wooded acreage. Unfortunately, that means they are many miles from superior health care. In addition to being an excellent writer, Mary is one of the nicest people I've ever known. We met in a writing class many, many years ago and became friends. When Mary is your friend, you can count on her forever. Please send healing thoughts and prayers her way. 

As for me, I have been replacing old covers that look amateurish because, well, they were done by my husband and me and we ARE amateurs at cover design. Here are the before and after of THE MOST UNSUITABLE WIFE. You can see how very much more appealing the professional effort is than the one my husband and I did. We were pinching pennies and going for free photos. Ah, well… everything has a learning curve. I have to thank my husband, though, because he was willing to devote time to designing numerous covers.  The one on the left is the one we designed and the one on the right was designed by Kim Killion of Hot Damn Designs.

Now I’m slowly making my way through some of the older covers, intent on perking up books with professionally designed covers by Skhye Moncrief. I just need to choose the cover models. Easy, right? No! Searching photo stock to find the right image to represent the main character/characters is amazingly time consuming and frustrating.

I have searched several sites until my eyes are about crossed. Not that I mind searching through photos of handsome guys, but I need a photo showing a handsome Caucasian man with dark hair who is clean-shaven and is wearing his shirt. That’s not as easy a task as it sounds.

There are gazillions of photos of men without shirts or with shirts unbuttoned. The image I need now is for a mystery, not a romance, and is for a widower with a young son. There is only a hint of a romance to come and no reason for the cover model to be without his shirt.

When I was traditionally published by one of the Big 5 NY houses, I had had several bad covers. I believe the amateurish products my husband and I produced were better than those, but still not good enough. In between the big New York house and my self-publishing, I was with Wild Rose Press, and they have gorgeous covers and helpful staff.

But, friends and I decided to self-publish and see how we fared. We love being in control of all the aspects of publishing. No one can tell us that a certain subgenre is not selling and we should write something else. We write what we want when we want. No waiting six months to a year before the book is published either.    

If only we could control sales! Sigh. Big, Big Sigh. I digress.

Here are some questions for you:

Do you care if a book is published by a big NY publisher, small house, or by the author?

Do you like bright colors or subtle tones on a cover?

How much influence do you give the cover?    

MORE ON COVERS AND A CONTEST

By Caroline Clemmons

As Suzanne Rossi’s post shared yesterday, book covers have changed dramatically through the decades. She started with a 1914 cover and moved forward. The difference was startling.

In the years I’ve been published, covers have also changed. Consider, for instance, the cover of my first published book, BE MY GUEST, by Kensington below on the left. I hated this cover! For one thing, the hero is described in the book as having dark hair. For another, the heroine is described as having auburn hair, not orange. I don’t know what the blouse bulging between buttons represents, but I thought the image awful. But, this sale made me a published author, and I loved that.

So, when I regained the rights to my book, I republished—adding in all the suspense that had been cut to fit the line’s requirements. I used a Jimmy Thomas stock photo against a spring photo I’d taken (photo above in middle). I was never happy with that cover. Recently, Skhye Moncrief updated that cover for me with a couple who fit the characters’ descriptions in the book.

When doing a series, it’s important that the covers coordinate. I have to redo several of my series covers, but Skhye Moncrief matched the covers for my Bride Brigade series. I’m completing RACHEL now. There will be two more after her book, LORRAINE and PRUDENCE, but the covers are finished and waiting.

Authors vie for your attention. We want our book’s cover to grab your interest enough that you read the description. Not only do we want you to buy the book, we want you to read and enjoy our work. (Of course, then we want you to review the book on Goodreads and wherever you purchased the work.)

By the way, we at Smart Girls Read Romance are having a contest to acquire new followers. Our members include NYTimes and bestselling and award-winning authors. The aim of our contest to get more blog followers. Win a Kindle Fire and fifteen e-books to load onto the new reader. All you have to do to enter is go to the blog’s sidebar and follow us. Simple, right? Those already following are automatically entered in the contest. If you already have a Kindle Fire, keep in mind that a major gift-giving season is rushing our way. Ho, ho, ho.

The contest is open until midnight September 6. The winner will be announced on this blog on September 8. We’d also appreciate more comments. Just sayin’…. 

Give Me a Different Font and a Partial Face on My Cover by Vonnie Davis

I'm continuing the discussion Brenda started on book covers. Do they make or break sales? Do we expect the cover to closely match what's inside? I do. I don't want a blonde woman on the cover and a redheaded heroine within the story. It strikes me odd to see spring flowers on the cover and have the story take place in the fall.

I write eBooks and read books only on my Kindle. Some people enjoy the feel and smell of a paper book. I like the lightweight convenience of having over eight-hundred books on my eReader, including my own paltry fourteen stories.

Authors do care about their covers. We have a vision of how we want our story or characters portrayed. Do we always get what we want? No. Heaven's no! But we can politely suggest once the team for our books sends three or four prototypes for our covers what suggestions we'd like and why. I write for Penguin Random House's romance eBook line--Loveswept.

Let's talk about my Highlander's Beloved series. Book one was A Highlander's Obsession and book two, A Highlander's Passion. I wrote book three as A Highlander's Heart, but the team wanted something leaning more toward the paranormal side of the series, so they changed my title to Bearing It All. These were romances about bear-shifters. The team thought a change of title would improve my sales.

They emailed me 3 cover concepts. The one I liked had a font I thought was hard to read. I asked for the same font used in books one and two. I also wanted the bear larger than they had him since he played a larger roll in the book. He was quite the lovable bear, impetuous, and a nervous eater--and not prone to obey the shifting rules. Here's what they gave me...

 

 

 

 

I'm writing a series now about wounded warriors, former SEALs, who form a covert ops team stationed in the hill country of Texas on Eagle Ridge Ranch. The team--editor, editor-in-chief, online marketing, advertising, graphic artists--chose all three of the books' titles for me.  My hero has an amputee below his one knee and deals with PTSD. He had short dark hair and a square chin.

 

The first concepts they sent me ranged from a man in military-style clothes and a plaid ball cap--plaid, I tell you!--to a skinny armed guy to a young kid. My hero had been in the SEALs for ten years so the kid shot was out. A person with a leg amputee would exercise his upper body to build up muscles to overcome the change to his lower mobility. With that thought in mind, the skinny armed man was out. That left the plaid hat man. I asked to have his hat removed, showing only his chin. The font they used was grey. I wanted colors that popped out. I asked for a few changes and this is what I got.

 

 

 

 

I'm not shy about stating what I want. I give them example pictures and links to covers I like AND dislike. I'm polite, but insistent. Do I always win. No, but we usually come to a happy compromise and that's all I ask.

 

Visit me on my Amazon page http://www.amazon.com/Vonnie-Davis/e/B0059HUKMC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1456371206&sr=1-2-ent

UNDERCOVER MYSTERIES

Have you ever bought a book because of the cover?  Have you ever rejected a book because of the cover? Deciding on the perfect cover for your book can make or break your sales. I know traditionally published authors rarely get to choose their covers and I've seen some strange choices.

One of my favorite authors had a few titles reissued. It was a medieval historical romance set in Scotland. So why were Texas bluebonnets gracing the cover? If I hadn't already been familiar with the book, I would have thought it was a western.

Another well known author did have a contemporary western set on a ranch outside Houston. Some editor, probably in New York, designed a cover of a cowboy riding his horse down a dirt road along side a ranch house with beautiful mountains in the distance. Huh?  The nearest mountains are over six hundred miles west in Big Bend. These were obviously somewhere in Colorado.

I have to admit, I've put down a book because of cover models who look like teenagers. Who wants a hero who looks like he's fifteen? Even the guy who is prettier than the female model turns me off. Yeah, I know, everyone has their preference.

The sad thing, is, these authors had little or no say in these disastrous covers. I hope it didn't affect their sales, but prolific readers know what's right and what isn't.

With e-publishing, you at least have a little control.  Of course, a professional cover can cost quite a bit. Is it worth it? Readers are quirky. Many do judge a book by its cover.

Choose wisely, ask friends and critique partners, the hope for the best.