Epic Fail Frankenstein Book Cover!

First, Happy Friday! Krystal's Enchanting Reads is featuring both Who Is Candid? and Twelve Nights today. Head on over for excerpts and a guest blog I wrote especially for Krystal. Thank you, Sweetie!

Playing Dr. Frankenstein

The Law of Attraction says that when something seems hard, the timing just isn't right. Well, this time I didn't listen. The cover design process of Beauty of the Beast is a perfect example of,

If it's right, it's easy. If it's not easy, it's not right!

First let me introduce Marissa Lepe Preciado, my amazing assistant who is the prime mover in building the book covers for my novels. Marissa is also a medical doctor who is studying to become a veterinarian. Working part-time for me fits her study schedule, and boy, do I win on this one!

Yes, guys, she's single!

We found a photo on Shutterstock weeks ago that looked absolutely perfect for Beauty of the Beast. The girl in the photo is youngish and innocent, maybe a little young but not too far off. She's eye-catching. There's a storybook feel. The clothing could be 1950's, when the novel is set. Her hair is long and reddish and wild. Perfect!

This was the first photo I ever bought from Shutterstock. We were convinced she would be our best cover ever! First hint that all would not go as planned was that it was impossible to use the photo as the full/cover and still fit in the title Beauty of the Beast. Since Twelve Nights and Who Is Candid? have full cover photos, we wanted to keep things consistent, but there was just no way. So Marissa put her in a box.

And then we started really looking at her... She doesn't look exactly happy. A little stunned, which fits the story, but she needed to look thrilled as well as stunned. Also, Mary Jane is quick-witted. We had to do something about the eyes and the mouth. Dr. Frankenstein begins.

Overnight, I picked out half a dozen different eyes and mouths. One mouth that I liked for the smirk. Some people's eyes just look intelligent. Did you know that you can type "intelligent eyes" into Google Images and actually get beautiful, intelligent looking eyes?

So, now Marissa would just put in the new eyes and mouth. I tell you, she's talented!

Okay, this mouth didn't work!

Brighten up her own lips, not so good... But you may notice that the eyes have a different sparkle. Turns out there's an app to sparkle up eyes. Who knew?

Here she is with the best eyes we could find, and her own mouth at an angle. We thought maybe we could fake a smirk that way. Not so much... We did find a font for the title that we liked and ended up using. Marissa also created the Sexy Fun Erotic Romance tag line, which I love!

Let's see. What else did we try? We searched and found the model's name, not easy, and found unretouched photos of her, even harder. Everything was in Russian, which slowed us down a bit. I didn't buy the photos, so I won't post them here, but you can find her on Google Images. Her name is Valeria Bondar, and she really is lovely! We read about the photo itself, which the photographer had deliberately altered to make the model look like a lifeless doll. Unfortunately for us, he succeeded!

Marissa widened her face—the real model had lovely broad cheekbones. She tried two or three more mouths. The one above is a noticeably spectacular fail! And then we gave up.

We went back to Shutterstock, looking for an EASY cover photo! Within five minutes, we found the perfect photo. What I loved first is that she's wearing a towel, which is a signature for Mary Jane in the novel. Then I noticed, she's gorgeous! Okay, the red hair color isn't 1950s, but... she's stunning! Thirty minutes later, the Beauty of the Beast cover was complete. And although a mother isn't supposed to choose among her offspring, I have to say this is my favorite Sexy Fun Erotic Romance cover!

Moral of the story, If it's right, it's easy. If it's not easy, it's not right!

I hope you've gotten a chuckle from our adventures playing Dr. Frankenstein. It occurred to me at one point that with the old photo, my novel might be mistaken for necrophilia! Frustrating as the repeated epic fails were, they did keep Marissa and me laughing.

Have you had a cover adventure you could share? Have you tried and tried at something, and then when you gave up and started over, it came easily? I can't wait to hear your stories!

Check out these related posts:

• New Sexy Fun Erotic Romance Book Covers!
• Confessions About Book Covers

New Sexy Fun Erotic Romance Book Covers!

One of the amazing things about online publishing is that you can keep refining your publicity!

One of the exhausting things about online publishing is that you can keep refining your publicity!

It may have looked for the last few days on the blog as if I've been totally obsessed with the 2013 PATA Manzanillo spay/neuter campaign. That would be true! And now our little rescue puppy Chito needs help with his medical bills. Please check out these posts if you haven't already.

Back in book world, things have been progressing nicely behind the scenes. Today we're ready to reveal a whole new cover look to the Carole Remy Sexy Fun Erotic Romance novels! It all started with an epic cover fail... just a teaser... this Frankenstein's monster fail is so epic it gets its own post—watch for it!

When we got past the epic fail, the movie-poster-quality cover for Beauty of the Beast inspired us to reinvent the other two covers as well. Here's a sneak peak of the Beauty cover, which will get the whole reveal treatment in a few days. I LOVE this cover!!

Once we found the perfect Sexy Fun font, we decided that each cover deserves its own Sexy Fun Erotic Romance tag line. So that's what we did! The changes to the Twelve Nights cover are minor, just the new tag line and a little tweaking. Aren't the girls beautiful!, and intriguing, and a little bit scary...

The cover for Who Is Candid? got more of a makeover. Since Candid aka Lucy is being chased by the paparazzi and the entertainment magazines through most of the book, we thought it would be fun to try a magazine style cover. Finding just the right font to look tabloid-ish and still book-ish was a fun challenge. Then we moved the Sexy Fun Erotic Romance tag line up the page, down the page, into the middle of the page, until finally (like Goldilocks) it felt just right! Peekaboo! Who Is Candid?

So, what do you think? My personal challenge was to get past looking at the covers as art, and to start thinking of them as cereal boxes. Yup, cereal boxes! The breakfast browser in the supermarket aisle wants to know if they're getting corn flakes or granola, and the same goes for the novel browser on Amazon.

So now you know—if you like independent women and masterful men, and you think laughing is erotic, these Sexy Fun Erotic Romances are for you!

What do you think? Have you had a book cover adventure of your own? Do these covers start to create a brand identity (like Kellogg's cereal!)? I'm looking forward to our conversation!



Check out these related posts:

• Confessions About Book Covers 
• Disecting the New Cover Design for Twelve Nights!

Disecting the New Cover Design for Twelve Nights!

Woohoo! Here's the new cover for Twelve Nights!

Following up on the previous post about cover design, here are our thoughts as we came up with this cover.

Photograph

In Twelve Nights, the main female characters are twins. In the novel, they don't dress like this, and they're not lesbians, and they're not dominatrices... But they do turn out to be a bit devious. We chose this picture primarily because these women are gorgeous! Then we noticed the blouse ruffle and the neck roses, which are a little Elizabethan. Twelve Nights is loosely based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. And one is wearing white - in the novel there's the good twin librarian Aggie - and one is wearing black, the novel's bad twin call girl Angela.

The Title Font

The designer had bought the curlicue font on a whim years ago, and now it is perfect for this book! Hopefully the swirliness is reminiscent of Elizabethan times, and might spark a curiosity about the title Twelve Nights for Shakespeare-loving readers. The name font for Carole Remy was chosen to echo the curves of the title, but subdued to the point that you barely notice them. The gray color, rather than black, was chosen to blend the name a little better with the model's scrumptious skin!

The Overall Look

I wrote yesterday about the importance of finding an overall look for your covers. Today, we went through the photos we have for the six covers. Five work fine as full cover photos, no border. The sixth doesn't fit at all, so we're looking for another image for that book. Hopefully, as the books come out, you'll see a cohesive, recognizable design structure. Fingers crossed!

So, please let me know what you think of the cover! As I said yesterday, the point of the cover is to get you to pick up the book. Have we succeeded? Once you're inside, I hope the characters, the story, the humor, and the burn-your-fingers hot sex will keep you reading. But first you have to pick up the book!

Thanks as always for joining me here on the blog! I look forward to conversing with you in the comments.

Confessions About Book Covers

True confession time: When I got the approval copy of the cover for Beauty of the Beast from the publisher, my initial reaction wasn't pretty. The cover photo had nothing to do with the book. The woman on the cover is clearly a 'beast,' and in the book, the beast is the man! She has weird 80's hair, and the book is set in 1950. She looks clinically insane, and in the book she's a respected journalist.

Beauty of the Beast page on Amazon

After about 30 seconds of outrage, my brain clicked. Way to go, publisher! This cover will SELL BOOKS. And it did. The paperback sold out in six months, twice as fast as anticipated. At one point, copies of the $6 paperback sold used on Amazon for over $120. Fantasy Impromptu, my second novel, is on sale today for $136.88! Woohoo! I like to think the books sell because they're fun and well-written, but the covers clearly helped get them into readers' hands.

The huge lesson I learned back then is that the cover is only there to get the reader to pick up the book, whether in person in the bookstore or digitally on the Internet. From there on out, it's the author's responsibility to capture the reader with the actual words on the page.

The Cover for Twelve Nights

I forgot that essential lesson over time. I have the rights back from the publishers for my five previously published novels (getting your rights back is a post in itself!), but the covers belong to the publishers. Can't use them! When I started to prepare the first novel for digital re-release, the cover the designer and I created for Twelve Nights was exactly what I wanted and reflected the book perfectly. Trouble is, as Cassandra pointed out in a comment on the previous post, it won't sell. Ooops! Thank you a million times, Cassandra!

The big reveal on the new cover for Twelve Nights is tomorrow. I promise to post it as soon as it's ready, and you can all weigh in on its market potential.

Create a Brand Identity

If you plan to release more than one book, think in advance about the overall look of your first cover. You want to create a brand identity, so that hopefully when your faithful reader sees your next cover, they immediately recognize it as yours.

Using the Beauty cover as an example, you might want to replicate the border, though not necessarily in the same color. You might go with a centered photo, with the title and author name below. You could still use a different title font for each book.

For the new releases, I've decided to go with one main photo on each cover. They're each a little suggestive, but not over the top sexy with abs and boobs. The position of the book title varies to suit the photo, but my name is always at the bottom of the cover. The words Sexy Fun Erotic Romance tie the titles together and serve as a brand identity. At least, that's the plan!

Two Cover Designers

Here are two book cover designers who've befriended me through Twitter. I've checked out their pages, and the covers they design are beautiful and, more importantly, effective.

DLC Designs

Melchelle Designs

Generally you can get premade or custom made covers. They cost less than you might think - premade from about $45. If you're not sure about designing your own cover, or don't want to invest in the imaging software, look at the work of several designers and choose someone you are comfortable working with.

So, bottom line. The cover gets the reader to pick up the book. It's marketing, only marketing, and nothing but marketing! Write your incredible, beautiful, beyond words awesome novel, and then put a cover on it that will SELL!

Thanks for joining me here on the blog. I look forward to your comments.