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.

Uber talented Joely Sue Burkhart posted three free reads for September. Do check them out!

• Take Me Part 1
• Take Me Part 2
• Take Me Part 3

Enjoy!

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.

Hello and thanks for stopping by. This October and November, I'm very excited to share my paranormal romance novella A Happily Ever After of Her Own absolutely free with all of you. The first two chapters are going to be available to everyone on my blog, and the rest of the chapters are going out to newsletter subscribers. Please feel free to let your friends know and mark your calendar for October 5th when the first installment goes live!

Chapter Titles and Schedule:

1. In Which Our Heroine Is Charged (October 5th)
2. In Which Our Heroine Gets an Unwelcome Companion (October 12th)
3. In Which Our Sleep-Deprived Heroine Breaks Into Tudor Land (October 19th)
4. In Which Our Hero and Heroine Face an Executioner (October 26th)
5. In Which Our Hero and Heroine Are Caught Red-Handed (November 2nd)
6. In Which the Evil Witch Issues an Ultimatum (November 9th)
7. In Which Our Hero Makes an Impossible Choice (November 16th)
8. In Which the Beast Is Doubly Cursed (November 23rd)
9. In Which Our Heroine Makes the Ultimate Sacrifice (November 30th)

If you'd like to sign up early for the newsletter, just enter your email address and first name below or click here. Thank you and see you in October!

A Happily Ever After of Her Own

October 5, 2009
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Genre: Paranormal Romance
Length: Novella

Melinda Lightfoot, a preschool teacher with an unusual ability to flit in and out of fairy tales, never thought she would get into trouble…

…until the Fairy Tale Police arrest her while she is in Beauty and the Beast. They offer her a deal: Find Beauty, who left the story when Melinda trespassed into it, or be charged with the ultimate crime — Fairy Tale Killer. If that's not bad enough the Beast tags along in search of his true love, and Melinda starts falling for the fairy tale prince. She must choose between doing the right thing and having her own happily ever after.

Warning: This title contains the following: Fairy Godmother, the Wicked Witch, dysfunctional fairy tale families, ax-wielding executioners and a happily ever after (or two).

I don't usually watch book trailers because most of them are just badly done, but this one for Barbara Sheridan's Falling Through Glass is quite impressive and looks very professional. However, once I learned the story behind the trailer, I was astounded:

1. The book trailer was made by Barbara Sheridan's teenage daughter.
2. The budget for the trailer was $0.00, and therefore, Barbara's daughter was severely limited in what she could use.
3. All the images in the trailers are free stock photos or pictures Barbara's daughter took.

Take a look. It's fantastic. I wonder what Barbara's daughter can do with more contents.

When I first wrote A Happily Ever After of Her Own last summer, I was initially going to sell it to an epublisher. Although the editor liked it, she wanted more stories like it to make a single-author anthology. The problem? I didn't have any other ideas similar to A Happily Ever After of Her Own.

Then this year, I saw that Quartet Press was going to start up, so I decided to send it there…except Quartet Press died without releasing a single title.

Still I wanted to do something with A Happily Ever After of Her Own. I liked the story, and I hated to have it just sit on my hard drive.

Hero Material suggested that I serialize it and give the last seven or so chapters to my newsletter subscribers only. I decided that was a pretty cool idea. I sometimes sign up for newsletters to enter contests, but I really like to get free reads.

So I pinged Agent to get her opinion, and she thought it was a great idea. W00t.

The next step? Making a cover graphic for the story. The problem? I'm a horrible designer.

On Tuesday September 29, I'll talk about how Tara O'Shea and I got together to make the cover for A Happily Ever After of Her Own.

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.