I've been wanting to update the Carnal Secrets cover to make it edgier and sexier for a while, but just never gotten around to it after The Boy was born. Finally I got some time to focus on the matter, and Jaycee from Sweet ‘n Spicy Designs did a great job. :)

Note: It's probably going to take about a day or so before all the major retailers update the cover (Sony, Diesel and Apple may take longer).

Squeee!!!!! Robin Ludwig did an incredible job.

A long time ago, an evil witch cast a spell on the beautiful Ashwyn, creating a Shroud that made her not only virtually invisible but utterly forgettable as well. She needs a champion to break this curse. But it isn't easy to find a man who is strong enough to both give her carnal pleasure and see through the Shroud to remember their time together the morning after.

She's almost given up hope until the prince of the Realm shows up at her keep. Not only does his mere presence make her skin tingle, but he doesn't seem to want to leave.

Can he be the one she's been waiting for?

Length: Novella

Release Date: August 1, 2012

Isn't this lovely?

The Last Slayer

Ashera del Cid is a talented demon hunter, but when she kills a demigod's pet dragon, the hunter becomes the hunted. Her only potential ally is Ramiel, a sexy-as-hell demon. Now the two must work together to battle dragons and demigods…and the chemistry crackling between them.

Ramiel has his own reasons for offering Ashera his protection. He knows her true identity and the real reason the demigods want her dead. What he can't predict is how she'll react when she discovers he knew who she was all along…

Ashera is shocked to discover that she is the only daughter of the last slayer. To claim her destiny, she and Ramiel must join forces to face down danger and outwit their enemies. Only then will she be able to truly accept her legacy…

Available on December 26, 2011 from Carina Press! :)

So…after giving Tara O'Shea what I wanted, I waited one week before she sent me three mock-ups. She didn't get a chance to read the entire novella, but scanned it to get the heroine coloring, etc. right. :) So here are the initial mock-ups.

I liked the overall design. It was as though Tara read my mind and knew exactly what I wanted even though I didn't articulate my ideas very well to her. (The mark of a good artist.) However, I thought the title font should be changed since I have to reduce the cover graphic to 133×200 pixels for my blog sidebar. When the cover's that small, you can't see “A Happily Ever After” very well. And we needed to put my name on the cover too. :)

I asked several people what they thought, and at the end, I decided to go with the third picture. I sent an email with the things I wanted changed, and Tara sent me another version. Very close, but I wanted my name to be bolded and slightly bigger because it looked like a long brown smudge when I make the cover picture very small to put on the blog sidebar.

“No problem,” she said. It was done in less than half an hour. (Remember we were doing everything via email.) Being an uber-satisfied customer, I asked her to send me the invoice and all the relevant files. I checked to make sure I got everything and sent Tara her payment.

Though she didn't have to, Tara sent me four different versions of cover jpg file: one large, one medium, one thumbnail and one without any lettering on it (just the picture). Then she sent me the Photoshop file and all the stock photos.

(I've uploaded watermarked pictures to prevent piracy. She didn't send me watermarked files.)

Isn't it amazing what she came up with those pictures? I'm still astounded because she took my initial vague concept to the gorgeous cover.

Feel free to leave me questions and/or comments. I'll answer them here or if they require a long answer, I'll turn it into a post. :)

Don't forget, the serial starts on Monday October 5. :)

PSA: The first two chapters are free, but the rest are available to newsletter subscribers only. Sign up now.

When I decided to offer A Happily Ever After of Her Own as a free serial, I wanted to make a cute little cover graphic for my website. The only problem? I'm not the best designer in the world. So it had to be outsourced.

I'd gone through the book cover process once with an epublisher. The publisher asked me to fill out a fairly detailed cover art sheet and hired a cover artist. A few weeks later, I got several mock-ups, and I returned them all with feedback. My editor and I went back and forth on the cover mock-ups several times — I think we spent about a week doing this — and I forgot all about it until May told me she had seen my cover on the publisher's website. That surprised me; I hadn't gotten any cover jpg files from the publisher to use on my alter ego Angelle Trieste‘s site to promote the book.

But that wasn't the only surprise. The final cover on the publisher's website looked very different from the mock-ups. The final version featured a new model and his hair color was wrong. (The hair color, etc. on the mock-ups were all correct.) The publisher fixed the color when I told them. The only explanation I got as to why the final was altered without any notification to me or my editor was that the publisher had the last say on the cover. (And since I never got the cover jpg from anyone there, I just took it from the publisher's website to use.)

So now you see how the cover process works at an epublisher. Authors can offer input, but ultimately it's up to the publishers to make the final decision.

For an individual author hiring a cover artist directly, it's a little bit different. First of all, I had to decide who to hire. I had a budget I didn't want to exceed, but at the same time I didn't want a crappy cover either. I put some feelers out there at places like Romance Divas, etc. Several people gave me advice and referred me to a bunch of sites with cover portfolios.

Initially, I was going to ask Frauke from CrocoDesigns (FYI — she designed my website, and I knew she'd do a good job), but she was too busy. So I asked other cover artists for quotes and contacted Agent to see if she could refer me to a designer. She called Tara O'Shea and told her what I needed, and Tara emailed me with a quote and turn-around time.

One week. W00t!

Besides, I've seen Tara's portfolio, and I thought she was best suited for what I needed. So I asked her for three items before hiring her:

• an invoice at the end of the project (for tax reasons)
• the cover graphics in jpg & Photoshop format
• all stock photos used for the cover

I also made sure it was a work-for-hire and that I could use the the final product freely. This is especially important for legal reasons; I don't want to have to ask for permission every time I want to do something with the cover.

Tara's response was exactly what I was hoping for, so I asked her to go ahead. That meant it was her turn to shoot me questions. She asked me what I wanted. I gave her a link to a stock photo site and said, “This is kinda similar to what I have in mind.” (The picture on the right is the one I sent Tara.) I also emailed her the story blurb and entire manuscript in .doc format. I was pretty vague about what I wanted though. The following summarizes my wish list:

• It's a paranormal romance novella and fairly light in tone.
• It should look romantic but no clinch since it's PG.
• I'd love to see your ideas / vision.

Then I waited one week.

On Thursday October 1, I'll talk about the cover mock-ups and the final decision process. :)

Feel free to leave me questions and/or comments. I'll answer them here or if they require a long answer, I'll turn it into a post. :)

PSA: The first two chapters are free, but the rest are available to newsletter subscribers only. Sign up now.